Our next workshop will be “Making Whistling Bottles” on February 9, 2013; this workshop will be for more experienced ceramicists. Please check back for details, email me to be added to my mailing list at soundswork@gmail.com, or add your email address to our Reply comments below.
Category Archives: SoundsWork Flutes
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Pre-Hispanic Flutes, SoundsWork Flutes, Workshops
Adje & I worked every night during our research week until about 11pm before stopping to eat at the Royal Tandori, the only restaurant still open. On Monday, April 25, he returned to Germany. I’m finally finished labeling the hundreds of pictures and sound files; yet to do is tweaking the photos, entering the measurements into their table, and a rough edit of the sound files. Eventually we will combine all our images and sound files.
Now I’m happily more rested and going back & forth to fondle my favorite pipes. Yet again, these flutes are my teachers. Each has an extraordinary feature. One has several ripples of clay built up around the aperture, causing an amazing vibrato/rough tone that can be varied with air pressure. Another has a breathy tone with an undertow of subtle little tones that can again be accented with variations in breath pressure. What fun to play! Most of these pipes have been broken and reconstructed; while the timbre remains, whatever tunings that were present have been lost.
This small single pipe has a small nick in the upper edge of the air duct that may promote the second partial in play.
Another remarkable double pipe has been broken and repaired but not reconstructed. It has enough unisons, wonderful intervals, and combination tones that its tuning cannot be just by chance.
Yesterday, in Bangor, I recorded a few more single pipes; two more to go. I love their sounds: their odd alterations to the mouthpiece seem to create the ability to really use the ‘wolf’ tones, to create beats, to burble & to howl. Some of these alterations are clearly intentional; others cannot be so definitely stated.
Tiny rolls of clay have been added around the apertures of the mouthpiece in this double pipe. It’s visible on the right pipe but less so on the left; that pipe has an additional roll of clay over part of the aperture. Unfortunately, this double pipe does not play, probably because there are glued cracks in the tubes that leak.
In Cemaes Bay, I am now working in the clay studio of Fiona Brown; she makes a lovely production line of small glazed horses, sheep, pigs and more, all reflecting careful observation. Check it out on the North Wales Potters web page.
I’m having fun adding ripples of clay around the aperture; so far, I have had modest results, some alterations to the tone, but not nearly as useable as those of the prehispanic instruments
I’ll post some sounds soon.
There’s too much to do, lovely things to do. Help!!!
- Categories:
musical instrument makers, SoundsWork Flutes, UK & Wales travel - Tags:
clay flutes
At last I opened my first box, picked at random, of ancient, unique, and precious ceramic pieces. It was my bad luck that this turned out to be the worst packed box; three out of eight had very old glue repairs that fell apart when unwrapped. Old glues do fail; those from the past were not as good as now. But it sure scared the bejesus out of me, especially with the Music Department being closed for Spring Break. Yikes!!! Thank goodness most of the remaining boxes were better packed, with no more glue joints disintegrating in my hands.
Outside, the flowering cherry tree is in bloom, and petals are everywhere.
After about a week, Adje & his companion Olga finally arrived via a conference in Scotland. Adje is a German archaeologist specializing in musical archaeology; this project is right up his alley, and I’m happy to work with him again. Before she left for her own research project in London, Olga was most helpful in xeroxing Peter Crossley-Holland’s original records, and in taking some flute measurements.
We cannot look at the entire collection in the given amount of time and have been forced, forced I say, to pick and choose according to our interests. What a gift! to spend time with these objects, to play, study, and eventually make more clay pieces inspired by the collection. Quantities of small sculptural ocarinas and whistles, small and larger sculptures of musicians, bone rasps, conch shells, rattles, bells, drum forms, single pipes, double pipes and hundreds more pieces.
After a solid week of work, we have photos, sound files, and measurements on about 100 instruments that interested us individually or together.
Adje has left to return to Germany and tomorrow, I will record in the Bangor audio studio a selection of the single and double airduct flutes. These flutes are very sophisticated with evidence of manipulation in construction to change the timbre or sound of the instrument, as well as interval tuning on the double flutes. There is no evidence of fixed scales on any of the instruments.
We did find time for a few short hikes, including one to the Roman Camp. Bluebells were everywhere, laying down blue/purple under the trees, the plants. I wanted to roll in it.
On the hill in the late evening, looking over the Menai Strait, part of the mud flats can be seen, as the tide rolls in and out.
Adje & I then were tourists for a few hours before Easter supper with friends Kyle and Lewis.
- Categories:
musical instrument makers, SoundsWork Flutes, UK & Wales travel
Hi: Here are a few images. For the next few weeks, I’ll be walking into this red/orange building to work on the collection. Turns out there are actually about 325 pieces, mostly small ocarinas and whistles, along with a selection of single and double pipes, a few fabulous sculptures, and so on. I have also included a picture of the view from Bangor University across the town and its Cathedral. More to come.
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musical instrument makers, SoundsWork Flutes, UK & Wales travel - Tags:
pre-columbian
