We are thinking about doing a desert island discs to be posted on a sunday on RST ( rostoskys serious thread) for any piano world member that is interested in taking part.

If you are unfamiliar with Desert island discs, let me explain.

It is a long running bbc radio program, and here is the premise:

You are castaway on a desert island, you are allowed to take Eight pieces of music, your all time top eight.

You are allowed to take a book ,this can be anything even a collection like the encyclopedia brittanica.

You are allowed one "luxery" item, but nothing to help you escape.
You are given the complete works of shakespeare and a bible or other book specific to your faith should you wish it.

You will also have to decide, should the unthinkable happen and you can only save one piece of music which one it will be.

In between your selections of music, you will be asked about your life, what these pieces of music mean to you, and general questions to inform folk more about yourself.

How this will work?

Well, by pm in advance, your choices of music, and questions, this way if there are any questions you dont want to answer, they can be changed to ones you are completely comfortable with.

Then your music and questions and replies can be posted up on a sunday...

Its not easy picking just eight, and even harder picking just "the one" you would save in an emergency.

If anyone is interested in being an interviewee, please put your name down here and I will contact you by PM.

This could be fun, and we could get to know each other a lot more.
Any additional ideas to the provisional plan are welcome.

If you want to familiarise yourself more with how the bbc prgramme works here is Roger waters from Pink floyd doing his desert island discs.

Reality TV?

Not quite Joe, that would requre cameras in your home.
This is just an idea for folk to share and appreciate each others choices.
I have the best intentions of community spirit, but it is only an idea.

Count me in Rossy! I'll wait to get your PM.

Hey, Thanks for this Rostosky, I never saw it before. In my selection of music, you can bet at least half the songs I would take with me would come from the Pink Floyd / Gilmour repertoire

John

Magic Griffin, your in! John, is that a yes then? can we count you in?
(Also John, if you check youtube there is a desert island discs done for dave gilmour.)

Sure, I'm in. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing.

Oh goody, Rossy, thanks, I'll give it a listen later on.

As for being in, hum... I gotta think about that one but I'm leaning toward the "yes" side at the moment

John

Well, I will participate. But only on the following conditions:

1) The Island is just a small barren rock (i.e. there is no chance of obtaining food or water).

2) There is no possibility of escape or rescue (e.g. you are presumed dead among the wreckage of the downed plane that was lost at some unknown point in its trip across the Atlantic ocean).

3) There is some way to actually listen to the music you bring (e.g. your iPod contains just enough battery life to get you through the music you select).

It is only when placed in such a situation that I would know which music and what item to bring; any other scenario makes the question too difficult.

yes in desert island discs there is no chance of escape or rescue.
It is just assumed there is something to play the records/discs on.

Okay PPP I will put your name on the list and will contact you soon via PM.

I think Griffin will start us off not this sunday but next, I will be pMing him to put it together, so his desert island discs can be put up the following sunday, we have a week to prepare.

try and have a think about this in the meantime: should the unthinkable happen and you can only save one record out of the eight, you have to name that.
Also a Book of choice, and your Luxery item. ( nothing to help escape is allowed)

you have a couple of weeks to think your choices. It is a tough one, but interesting.

this sounds really cool. I think the hardest part for me is that my "favorites" vary. So what is my favorite one day might not be the next. But then may be my favorite again another day.

Question: can the cd's include compilations that you made?

A book could be tough because I'm not a big reader and again depends on my mood at the time.

but I think it would be really interesting to have to decide this. I always say, in regards to "stuff", I could probably live without most of it except for my music and piano.

Kymber, it is difficult indeed, and believe me it will be for anyone trying to pick their own favourite top eight tracks...

You do not get eight cds!!!! You get eight pieces of music.
You also have to imagine the nightmare scenario where a catastrophy occurs and you can only save one!!!

Which one? AARRRggh !! lol.

You will be asked what the pieces mean to you, maybe they are pieces you accumalated some at college, maybe a favourite partner love song thats allways stuck with you etc.


I also am not the greatest of readers, Mrs R is incredibly well read, I get bored quickly!!

I will contact everyone that is in well in advance to
compile their choices then Interview them by PM, then send them the finished interview so they can see if its correct and to make sure they are happy and are comfortable with it then each person will get their "spot" , one each sunday!!
I should not be giving anything away, but my choice of book may be by RAy mears say, a survival handbook!!

Curiosly enough, Bear grylis chose "Robinson crusoe" as his book.!!

It will be different for everybody concerned and everyone will agonise over their choices I guess.

Hopefully We will kick off a week this sunday with griffins desert island discs, He will be the first "castaway"

Let me know if you want to, anytime will do, love to hear your choices.

w-w-whaaaaaat!!!??? Oh boy that's tough. But count me in. I think it will be a very interesting challenge. I already know of one for sure and have a couple others in mind.

Hmmm I wonder if there's a book called "how to craft anything from coconuts and palm leaves".

w-w-whaaaaaat!!!??? Oh boy that's tough. But count me in. I think it will be a very interesting challenge. I already know of one for sure and have a couple others in mind.

Hmmm I wonder if there's a book called "how to craft anything from coconuts and palm leaves".

Can my book be a Kindle? And does the island have WiFi?

Oooh this sounds fun! Me too, Me too!!!!

I would never, ever kiss Bear Gryllis (sp?). I've seen what strange things he's put in his mouth- gross!

Okay Folks, Griffin will be the first castaway on RST next sunday ( a week tommorrow) so you will be able to enjoy his selections of music and see his reasons for picking them.

AS a little aside, Bear grylis often takes silly risks that could leave him injured in exactly the sort of enviroment that you need to avoid injury in. He has been known to kill an animal and then be unable to eat it, and generally he is a poor subsistute for Ray mears.

Ray on the other hand, will allways make excellent food, keep a good fire going and have shelter, and be a million smiles per hour, and have time left over to carve you a spoon.

Anyways, next sunday will be Griffins Desert island discs, and knowing Griffins diverse love of music, promises to be a most excellent read and listen.

I shall do my best not to disappoint! I'm looking forward to it.

I think I misunderstood. Does the luxury item have to be a book? I thought it could be anything, as long as it does not allow you to escape or be rescued off the island.

PPP for some reason you get given the complete works of shakespeare, and a bible or other religeous book that suits your faith.

You get to choose one book of your own, AND a luxery item.. in the past some folks have chosen a piano and then asked the presenter if they can have sheet music to go with it, the answer has been yes.

The luxery item can not be one that lets you escape, so no yachts, life rafts or dinghys!!! or private jets etc.

Ahhh, I see. Though I can't imagine what anyone would do with a Bible. Use it for kindling I suppose. Or maybe just read it for a good laugh before you pass out and die of dehydration.

PPP, its just the rules that the BBC made up! there is nothing at all that says the desert island wouldnt have fresh water on it or food that you could forage or hunt!
Its presumed you could survive indefinately. ( well only untill your numbers up anyway that is) lol.

That is why I included those conditions in my first post. Any other scenario (such as being able to forage for food and find fresh water) makes the choice of which 8 pieces of music to select simply a mute one for me. I thought initially that it would make the choice too difficult, but now that I think about it more I realize that it would actually make my choice mute. So tell you what Rossy, if you want, you can in your questioning present me with both scenarios (i.e. my "imminent death" scenario and the BBC's "living on a island until the end of my days" scenario) and I will answer them both.

OK, I feel confident that I can tailor my questions to suit.
I will go the extra mile, but also will impose a condition.
My condition is I never ever, ever, not even once, want to hear that "Hungarian rock" played on what amounts to a "Blackpool ballroom wurlitzter organ" ever again.

It made my ears bleed, it made Mrs R deny me matrimonial pleasures, and my dog had spontaneous ruptured heamerrhoids, and that was all with the volume on only 23 percent.

It was the singular most horrid noise that has ever eminated from my almost new laptop, and has voided the garauntee.

Interesting, but I don't understand the limits. What does an "all time top eight" reveal other than a favorites list? In real life the best loved aren't necessarily the most useful or desired under adverse circumstances.

You are presuming adverse conditions.
To some folk the City is an adverse condition.
To others a desert island would be paradise.
This is all part of finding out about the castaway.

The choice of eight pieces of music therfore would be dependant on the individuals realisation that there is no chance of rescue, and their own particular feelings about being on a desert island.

If you are not familiar with the BBC4 long running program, you could do a quick search on youtube for "desert island discs"

There are quite a few folk featured to choose from..

Then there is a choice of book, and a choice of luxery item, again this illuminates a little of the character of the person concerned.

Then the hard part, "the one" In a catastrophic emergency, which leaves you only able to save one piece of music out of the eight, which will you save?

Its for fun and entertainment, and Griffin has agreed to go first , not tommorrow, but next sunday.

Griffin, has a large, diverse and multi-cultured love of music in general,It spans a multitude of genres, I know he will agonise over his choices, and it will be very interesting choices he makes to be sure.

Well, I don't think being limited to eight pieces of music would ever be a considered a paradise to anyone here. If any do find it so, why not imagine them a complete heaven by eliminating all music?

I'm just saying that "which eight would you take" would probably uncover more interesting tidbits about the castaway than "your top eight" might. I know my lists for answering these two questions would be completely different from one another. Heck, now that I think about it my "only one" wouldn't even be on the original list of eight, so I'd be left picking one at random during the final emergency.

But if these are the parameters of the show then I guess you're stuck.

ARRgh! Lol It is the "which eight would you take" !! for most folk this will probably be their top eight.. but thats semantics. But i may be proved wrong, someone may pick their worst eight.( ?)


I didnt invent the show or the premise, It has been running without a break since 1942 on BBC radio4.

It is considered a privalage in the UK for anyone to be invited on to be the weeks castaway, the "castaways" do not start quibbling over the format!

One interesting factoid, if you want to check with wiki, is that the most chosen "luxery" has allways been a PIANO, you are allowed sheet music as part of this choice of luxery.

Please if you have any more issues with the "rules", may i respectfully ask you to aquire a Ouija board and contact Roy Plomley ,the shows original devisor.

He currently resides "on the other side of the veil"

Lovely. A piano, sheet music, but no TUNER? Hah! Talk about h311 on earth!

If that is really an issue, then may be your book would be "teach yourself tuning" OR "the encyclopedia of tuning stringed instruments of the percussive variety made simple and explained in excessive detail"



Or "learning to live with discordance"

Its for fun dude.

It has just been on the news here in the UK that desert island discs has now been running for 70yrs, this year is the anniversery.

Today SIr David Attenborough is on.

The show is podcast for those with ,...pods I suppose.

Rossy, how "well in advance" will you contact us?
Even thinking about this makes me never want to go on a plane across an ocean again! Or a boat...
I rather enjoying living in my house- it's such a convenient place to keep all my THINGS.

About a week or two Piano joy, depending on how busy I am with other things. But enough time so there is no panic!!

Hey Rossy - Really nice idea, but I'm a little confused - the word disc is in the title of the thread (and in the title of the old NPR program) and you later state that it is assumed that there is something to play the aforementioned records/discs on, but then you say that you don't get any CDs - I was under the impression that CDs were, in fact, discs (and I guess one could say that old fashioned records are discs of a sort too) - can you elaborate on or differentiate or explain this in a tad more detail? And exactly what do you mean by "pieces of music"? Sheet music?

I used to listen to this program years ago and if I remember correctly the guests always talked about their favorite records and/or CDs - but that was quite a while back and memories of these details dim with time...




According to some authorities there are no known works of the actor known as William Shakespeare - he was virtually illiterate - the claim is that the works historically attributed to him were actually written by a contemporary of his, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford - if true, then the Works of Shakespeare would be an empty volume and of absolutely no use on a desert island (unless one wished to use it as a diary... )

Trap

I am going to take a stab at explaining this inconsistency.

"Disc," refers to the old-timy use of vinyl records.
Back in the old days of radio "singles" (i.e. a small vinyl record with one song on each side) would be given to radio stations.
Each side of a "single" contained a 'single' which the band or solo artist wanted to release to the radio stations (often payola was involved - and still is to this day) to entice people to buy either the full record or perhaps just the single.

Okay, now here is where I make a few assumptions:

Perhaps way back when the program started, it was just implicitly understood that a "piece of music" referred to the band or artist's 'single.'
Now if you consider the fact that these "singles" where on a vinyl disc, then title "desert island disc" makes perfect sense. (Your welcome BBC)

As for the sheet music thing, I have no idea. The BBC clearly did not think this thing through.

I think we're getting all caught up in semantics...

Rossy explained earlier, (copy and paste):

try and have a think about this in the meantime: should the unthinkable happen and you can only save one record out of the eight, you have to name that.


Sheet music/song/piece, I think the INTENT is if you had time to choose ONE song, which would it be? I don't think he meant piano sheet music literally...

LOL deserted island? I think your priorities would be waaaay different then thinking about luxury items like music, shakespeare and the bible. Well maybe the latter to make a fire to heat yourself but I think these should be MUCH higher on the list: knife, waterproof matches, water tank and purification tablets, mosquito net?

What about the B-sides ? That makes 16 tracks. I don't think Roy Plomley thought this thing through.

Anyway, I prefer 'Private Passions' over on Radio 3. You don't get all these politicians pretending to like the ghastly trendy music the spin doctors picked out for them, and that they were briefed on in the back of the Jag on the way to Broadcasting House.

No, those items are addressed on the "Camping World" website.
This is piano world...where music comes before food and water. But not chocolate.

Hollywood films unfortunately are not historical facts, no matter how much money they spend on them, you need to distinguish between this fantasy and the reality.

There are allways crackpot theories, and the film "annonymous" is certainly no exception.

If you watch the film "Titanic" you will see Captain Smith shout "hard to starboard" But in the film the Titanic goes hard to port, leaving the gash down her starboard side...
You also see the folk that do get off, getting off her starboard side. This is because it is make believe.

In the film annonymous, not only does the earl write the plays, but queen Elizabeth The 1st is apparently his mother, and then she has an incestrous relationship with him.

Unsubstantiated, unlikely, and pure hollywood.

I saw the movie "Annonymous" and it was very well done (in spite of that unfortunate part about the incest) - but the case against Shakespeare was superbly and perhaps devastatingly made in this excellent book, which goes to great length and details in great depth all the reasons why Shakespeare was not "Shakespeare" and why De Vere was...

Shakespeare By Another Name

I recommend it heartily - a fascinating read!

Trap

P.S. but first you need to straighten out the conflict about whether or not discs are discs...

well I had to fix your link Trap, ( you have http// twice in it , thats why it doesnt work!)

DID I NEED to look? No, I allready guessed, before I looked, this is written by an American lol..
Another American trying to re-teach us Our history, probably because the USA have no history when compared to ours which goes back further than Stonehenge itself!

Do you actually know how sick the british Academia are of this behaviourial trait?

History by proxy!

This is not a new theory, it has been bandied about for at least a hundred years in many guises,, and has been discredited every time it surfaces.

Allong with the propostrous notion that the americans captured an enigma machine and broke the enigma code during WW11.

That would be the Bletchly park in new york and the alan turin from hollywood then.

I like to be silly too sometimes, but keep it real?

Which is exactly why we USA'icans love to rewrite British history. That and ease of pilferage considering your language sounds so very like our own.

Brass tacks: with only four worthwhile centuries available our own stories become awfully repetitive. Hollywood and other imagination-deficient hacks have subjected American history to so many convolutions at some point we were likely into pre-production of "George Washington vs. Space Alien Commie Vampires". I, for one, am thankful someone noticed those millenia of English history just lying about not busy working or doing anything important.

We'll give them back when we're through.

(But we're not taking responsibility for the years of rehab that will be necessary after.)

Once again, I have had to ask professer Steven hawking to speak directly to you to explain the rules of desert island discs.

I cannot keep asking him, this is twice now, and he is busy, my favours are getting used up....

Hey Rossy - I really didn't want to offend anyone, but to merely draw attention to the ongoing controversy concerning The Bard...

However, I guess that since I've now touched the very sensitive British nerve concerning the authenticity of Shakespeare's authorship of the Complete Works of Shakespeare I'm assuming that I have thereby removed myself from consideration for inclusion in the upcoming and very promising DID thread (which, in spite of your apparent testiness towards American historians, is a really good idea!).

Trap

Trap, of course you are invited, it would be a pleasure and also very interesting to hear your choices and reasons for them.
Mrs R is an Archeologist and deeply serious about history, she has a profound interest in Egyptology and has studied many historical areas to the Nth degree.

There is no "controversy" over shakespeare, merely crackpot theories, that have resurfaced for at least a hundred years, and have always been discredited.

Somebody has even written a book ( and made money from it) suggesting that Lewis carroll was Jack the ripper, And that if you mess around with carrolls books, and make anagrams out of the words ( p*** poor anagrams at that) you will see that lewis carroll mentioned his crimes in his books!

Which can, obviously, be done with any book by any Author.

I might be prone to siliness sometimes, but there are some real crackpots influencing folk out there.

Talking of which, have you heard about the "Targeted individuals?"

Here is a link, but if you search the phrase you will see there are many websites/pages.

http://in2worlds.net/gangstalking-and-targeted-individuals