Charades of Deep Purple: Child in Time

The Deep Purple song “Child in Time” has evolved over the years from its beginning as an It’s a Beautiful Day’s instrumental “Bombay Calling” to our current “Charades of Deep Purple” rendition by Stary Olsa. Hailing from Belarus, Stary Olsa (who are named for a Belarusian stream) typically play medieval music from the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania – a rather large territory that included parts of a number current Eastern European countries.

When not doing songs from antiquity, Stary Olsa also tries their hands at a number of rock songs from a variety of genres. One of those is Deep Purple’s “Child in Time,” which originally appeared on their LP “In Rock.” What I find interesting is the instrumentation. “Child in Time” features the following members of the band and their respective instruments:

• Alieś Čumakoŭ on vocals and gusli (an Eastern European zither).
• Maryja Šaryj on fipple flute and shawm.
• Illia Kublicki on lute and cittern.
• Zmicier Sasnoŭski on Belarusian bagpipes.
• Siarhiej Tapčeŭski on bass drum.
• Aliaksiej Vojciech on dumbek.

What I am particularly amazed by is the clarity of the gusli. It is basically a scaled down zither which uses the fingers and thumb of the left hand to dampen strings to play certain chords much like the chord buttons on an autoharp. This is truly an ancestor of the modern autoharp.

I hope you like this unusual arrangement of this classic Deep Purple tune.