Saturday 25 August 2007

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 o
f 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 whe
re 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.

Saturday 11 August 2007

CYCLING THE BACK ROADS

There are roads you never use in a car. They don't go anywhere. . . well, they don't go anywhere you'd normally want to go. People live down those roads, in farms, or isolated cottages, of course. Farmers use these lanes to take their tractors from field to field, to drive sheep from pasture to pasture or cattle from grass to milking parlour. They are good places to walk your dog or go for a jog. And they're havens for small animals - red squirrels, feral cats, pheasants, rabbits, barn owls are all common sights, and if you look closely enough there are the little scuttling shrews and mice as well as small hedge birds like dunnocks and wrens.

Cycling quietly along you even notice a black beetle scuttling out of your way, or a huge shiny slug, stretched across your path, laying down its sluggy life in the cause of greater slugdom.

It's nice getting off the main road on your bike. The wild flowers that line the hedgerows smell sweeter - ah, meadowsweet! - and the diesel fumes are far away. Too quiet for me, though, so I start composing a song as I go, singing at the top of my voice and trying to memorize the lyrics to scribble them all down when I get home.

I stop to look over a little hump backed bridge that crosses the River Ellen - my River Ellen, that flows quite near our village, through a field where we often take the dogs. It's narrower here. Just a gentle, inconsequential little river of little interest to anyone who doesn't live near its banks. I like it, though. I notice that Aspatria Angling Club wouldn't allow me to fish here. I guess that means it's a good place to find fish. Just as well I prefer to leave them in the river.

There are some long-disused lime kilns somewhere near Wardhall Guards, a strangely named spot on the OS map and near where I'm cycling. Russell Barnes, who knows about these things, has a couple of photos of them on Flickr but I can't find them. Maybe next time. I do find some huge piles of white stuff in a field - could be lime? Not sure what it looks like, but I do know there's masses of limestone in this area.

Sore leg muscles the next day.11 miles may not seem far to those who cycle a lot, but for me it's a lot. Next time, though, it'll be further!

Addendum April 15th 2008
Apparently I misunderstood the Aspatria Angling Club sign. Never having been an angler, I wasn't aware that for only £20 you can buy a season ticket to fish away in these waters to your heart's content. Gosh! A bargain, and if you're good at it it's probably a lot cheaper than going to the local wet fish shop. My apologies to AM Rankin, and here's a link to their website so that potential fisherpeople can find out exactly what's in store for them: Aspatria Angling Club website

Saturday 4 August 2007

Maryport Blues Festival 2007

Everyone wants to hear about Gary Moore... well, what can you say? He was great, of course. Brilliant performance. Here's a photo:

He doesn't half milk some of those songs, though. You think he's coming to the end, and then he's off again, with long long notes and howling bluesy passages, and then surely it's going to finish this time - those sound like final chords - but no - off he goes again, dragging it out, piling on the agony. If he wasn't such a bloody good guitar player I'd have been off browsing the music stalls by that time, but when someone plays like that, well, you've just got to forgive him.

It's handy being small. People actually push you to the front. All the medium-sized guys get stuck at the back, trying to take photos over people's heads, while wee folk like me can push their way through and end up getting an exceptional view.

I was about 3 rows from the front when Gary Moore was playing, but when Eric Bibb was on, I got right to the front. Did I hear you ask who Eric Bibb is? Fabulous acoustic blues guitarist, with a unique singing voice. Son of Leon Bibb, who was a very well-known American folksinger back in the 60s. Eric grew up in a house in Greenwich Village where people like Bob Dylan or Woodie Guthrie would pop in from time to time. He was surrounded by fine music, so it's not surprising he grew up to be a fine musician.
Eric Bibb & Danny Thompson at the Maryport Blues Festival 2007 (5)
I was thrilled, though, to find he was being backed by two of the finest musicians money could buy - Danny Thompson on bass and Larry Crockett on drums.

Danny Thompson has played with everybody - well, everybody that matters, anyway. Let's see - to name but a few from his extensive back catalogue which goes back to 1964 - Alexis Korner, the Incredible String Band, Davey Graham, Marianne Faithful, Julie Felix, Pentangle, Cliff Richard, Donovan, Nick Drake, John Martyn, John Renbourn, Rod Stewart, John Williams, Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell, Sandy Denny, Lynsey de Paul, Tom Paxton, T Rex, Kate Bush, Loudon Wainwright III, Billy Bragg, Sam Brown, Richard Thompson, June Tabor, Kathryn Tickell, Tim Buckley, Alison Moyet, Ali Bain, Nigel Kennedy, Savourna Stevenson, Norma Waterson, Kate Rusby, Peter Gabriel, Paul Weller, and many others. Is there any other musician you can name who's performed with such an assortment of stars from many branches of music?

As for Larry Crockett - well, what an exceptional drummer. I hadn't come across him before, but I was well impressed. Read about him here - www.lcrockett.com . He, too, has played with a huge variety of big names over the years, and once you see him play, you understand why he's in such demand. This guy uses a really minimal drum kit in ways I've never seen drums used before. He's never still. He turns his sticks over, and uses both ends, he tickles the cymbals and brushes and touches his instruments creating gentle sounds that are as far removed from the output of a 'normal' drummer as you could get. Never once did I see him just sitting there, as drummers usually do, bashing away rhythmically with a spaced-out look on the face. No, Larry was aware of every note Eric was playing, and enhancing each note by what he did on his drums. I was amazed. Oh, and he's quite beautiful too!

Exploring the Bowness marshes


Solway Railway embankment 2

Solway Railway embankment 2
Originally uploaded by allybeag
Long ago, a railway bridge used to span the Solway Firth from Bowness to Annan. It's long gone, but the evidence remains. On www.local.live.com you can trace the route of the defunct railway all the way from Aspatria to the Solway coast, and then again on the Scottish side from Annan northwards.

It's very strange, marshy ground by the water's edge here, near Bowness. The dogs leapt gracefully from lump of grass to lump of grass, but for 2-legged humans it was much harder going. I hoped to get up on to the embankment from the side, but the tide was in, and it's surrounded by almost impassible marsh so I had to give in for today. I'll be back another day though!