PERCUSSION DISCUSSION

We've just got hold of a pile of old magazines from 1976, called Crescendo International - magazines for musicians. Fascinating stuff.

Having reviewed the gig at the Keswick Museum recently, (See here) where the musical stones were played, I thought it might be interesting to copy part of one of the articles from this magazine, in which the stones get a mention. This is from the August 1976 issue. (It cost 55p and on the front cover there's a photo of Mel Tormé singing and playing the piano.)

It's a discussion between two people I hadn't heard of - James Blades (photo left) (1901 - 1999) and Emil Richards (photo right) (1932- ). James Blades, despite being one of the most celebrated percussionists of his time, was best known for striking the gong at the start of Rank Organization films. Emil Richards specialises in playing percussion on movie soundtracks, but has also played with people such as Frank Sinatra, the Doors and George Harrison.

I come in at a point where they're discussing ancient and ethnic percussion instruments, including things like the cymbals from the Old Testament that Praised The Lord...

ER:...In Santa Barbara, California, there's a museum that has a set of stone chimes from Peru; I'm dying to hear them, but they won't let you play them.

JB: It's a pity you haven't the time to go up to the North of England, to Keswick, in the Lake District, where they have a tremendous five-octave marimba made of rocks from the famous mountain called Skiddaw; it's on the edge of Scotland and England, and they used to light a fire on it as a warning that the Scots were invading. This family of stonemasons found huge rocks that rang; they spent thirty-seven years, and they built this lithophone - it would be wrong to call it a xylophone, because xylo means wood.

This instrument is in Keswick Museum, and they gave me the privilege of recording it. I put it on my LP, and I played Fossils from The Carnival of the Animals, following it up by saying that had Saint-Saens had this instrument available, he probably would have used it in the place of the xylophone.

The interesting thing about this is that I got friendly with a geologist who's spend his life studying the mountains of England and Scotland. And he found that this stone was from a volcanic eruption that had happened many, many thousands of yaers ago; the molten lava came out of the top of the mountain, and at the position where it cooled, the stones rang. On no other part of the mountain, higher up or lower down, did the stones ring. There are only five places in the world where these ringing stones can be found.

The next time you come to Britain, if you have the time to spare, I will take you to Keswick; you can play the stone instrument, and you can make a recording of it.

ER: I wonder if there would be any extra bars, that we could take home with us?

JB: Ah! The only extra bars, I'm afraid, have actually gone, because the man in charge, who I made friends with, gave me a piece of stone from it. He claimed that this could be into billions of years old; as the years go on, the stone becomes more compressed, and gets harder.
. . . .
Now, when I went to this Keswick Museum .... the man in charge said, "We have much material downstairs that might interest you." And he found a bass drum that was tightened with one key, and the rope pulled all the keys, made in 1837; also a bass drum pedal, that you pressed the pedal foot, it operated on a rope, and it pulled the beater on the drum. Then he showed me - which I tried to get, but I couldn't - two pairs of fork-shaped beaters, with which these brothers Richardson had played this stone instrument.

In about 1850, they took the stone instrument to Buckingham Palace and they played it to Queen Victoria. She liked it, and she sent for them to play it again; they used to play overtures, waltzes and other period pieces. In the meantime, they had gone further with it; they'd put this bass drum with it, with the pedal, and over the top of the stone bars they had arranged little bells. But after they'd played one piece, the Queen told them to take all the other things away, and only play on the stones - becaue that, to her, was the music. Isn't it amazing? That was in 1850. They toured the world, including America, with this instrument.

And - if you go up to Keswick with me - there was another, that this geologist made from the only rocks that were left, that he collected. He had a big photograph shop, and he kept it there. He sold the shop, and it is now a shop that sells what I call junk - all these things that the boys and girls buy: souvenirs, queer sorts of dresses and all the rest of it. I went into the shop, and I said to the man: "Where is the big instrument, with the stone bars?" "Oh, I've got no time for that," he said, "it's in the cellar." I tried to buy it from him, but he was too busy selling souvenirs; he didn't want to have any bother with me - he was polite, mark you. But if those stones aer in that shop, you could still get 'em - in that cellar. And I could take you to the shop.

ER: We'll get 'em. We're gonna get those, for sure!

Steve, who spent much of his youth in Keswick in the 70s, thinks the 'big photograph shop' may have been the place that is now Maysons, down on Lake Road. At the time he knew it, it was no longer a photographer's, but hadn't yet become Maysons. Which set of musical stones was in their basement we're not sure, but the only other set he knows of is in the hands of a local family who were friends of his family's. And there are, of course, two sets in the museum, so it's possible the second set there is the one that languished in the shop basement for many years.