Мундог: Американдық композитор және музыкант өмірі

American composer, performer, and instrument maker (1916–1999)
the American born composer

Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), known professionally as Moondog, was an American composer, musician, performer, music theoretician, poet and inventor of musical instruments. Largely self taught as a composer, his prolific work widely drew inspiration from jazz, classical, Native American music which he had become familiar with as a child, and Latin American music. His strongly rhythmic, contrapuntal pieces and arrangements later influenced composers of minimal music, in particular American composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Due to an accident, Moondog was blind from the age of 16. He lived in New York City from the late 1940s until 1972, during which time he was often found on Sixth Avenue, between 52nd and 55th Streets, selling records, composing, and performing poetry. He briefly appeared in a cloak and horned helmet during the 1960s and was hence recognized as "the Viking of Sixth Avenue" by passersby and residents who were not aware of his musical career.

Hardin was born in Marysville, Kansas, to Louis Thomas Hardin, an Episcopalian minister, and Norma Alves. Hardin started playing a set of drums that he made from a cardboard box at the age of five. His family relocated to Wyoming, where his father opened a trading post at Fort Bridger. At one point, his father took him to an Arapaho Sun Dance where he sat on the lap of Chief Yellow Calf and played a tom tom made from buffalo skin. He also played drums for the high school band in Hurley, Missouri. On July 4, 1932, the 16 year old Hardin found an object in a field which he did not realise was a dynamite cap. While he was handling it, the explosive detonated in his face and permanently blinded him. His older sister, Ruth, would read to him daily after the accident for many years. Here he had his first encounters with philosophy, science and myth that formed his character. One book in particular, The First Violin by Jessie Fothergill, inspired him to pursue music. Up to that point he had been interested mainly in percussion instruments, but from then on, he became obsessed with the desire to become a composer. He partially supported himself by selling copies of his poetry, sheet music, records, and his musical philosophy. In addition to his music and poetry, he was also known for a distinctive "Viking" garb that he briefly wore during the 1960s. Already bearded and long haired, he added a Viking style horned helmet to avoid the occasional comparisons of his appearance with that of Christ or a monk, as he had rejected Christianity in his late teens. He developed a lifelong interest in Nordic mythology, and maintained an altar to Thor in his country home in Candor. named Ilona Goebel (later known as Ilona Sommer) helped Moondog set up the primary holding company for his artistic endeavors and hosted him, first in Oer Erkenschwick, and later on in Münster in Westphalia. Moondog lived with Sommer's family and they spent time together in Münster. During that period, Moondog created hundreds of compositions which were transferred from Braille to sheet music by Sommer. Moondog spent the remainder of his life in Germany. On 8 September 1999, he died in Münster from heart failure. He is buried at the Central Cemetery Münster. His tomb was designed by the artist Ernst Fuchs after the death mask. He recorded many albums and toured both in the U. S. and in Europe—France, Germany and Sweden.

In the process of establishing himself as a composer, Moondog drew inspiration from a wide variety of styles of music. His first works were immediately inspired by the music of pow wow gatherings that he had attended as a child; as his career progressed, his music encompassed influences from bebop, swing, rumba, modernism and Renaissance music. It was characterized by what he called "snaketime" and described as "a slithery rhythm, in times that are not ordinary [ ] I'm not gonna die in 4/4 time". During the 1950s, he began to incorporate city sounds such as cars, subway trains, human speech, and foghorns into his work.

Moondog invented several musical instruments, some of which were played on studio albums or in live performances by him and his subsequent ensembles. They include the "oo", a small triangular shaped harp, a larger harp which he named the "ooo ya tsu", a triangular stringed instrument played with a bow that he called the "hüs" (after the Norwegian hus, meaning ), the "dragon's teeth", the "tuji, the "uni", the "utsu", the "hexagonal drums", and the "troubador harp". His best known instrument is the trimba, a triangular percussion instrument that the composer invented in the late 1940s. The original trimba was played by Moondog's friend and only student Stefan Lakatos, a Swedish percussionist, to whom Moondog also explained the methods for building such an instrument. he shared his teachings from Moondog with American composer Julian Calv.

Moondog's music from the 1940s and '50s has been cited by American composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich as a major influence on their styles, saying they took Moondog's work "very seriously and understood and appreciated it much more than what we were exposed to at Juilliard". Moondog was also admired by Charlie Parker, whom he mutually admired and paid tribute to with the piece "Bird's Lament", Frank Zappa and Igor Stravinsky, and met on several occasions with Lenny Bruce, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. was featured on the sampler double album Fill Your Head with Rock (CBS, 1970). Canadian composer and producer Daniel Lanois included a track called "Moondog" on his album/video documentary Here Is What Is. Between 1970 and 1980, a blind bearded mystic called "Moondog" appeared as the title character in a four issue series of Underground comix written and illustrated by George Metzger. Since the early 1970s, a number of professional wrestlers have been named The Moondogs, taking inspiration from the artist.