We are right in the middle of the Celtic Connections traditional music festival at the moment and earlier this evening I experienced one of the most bizzare and fascinating musical ensembles ever gathered together - la Banda Europa.
If you already know the difference between your nyckelharpas and your hurdy-gurdies and your panderttas from your duduks then it may not be strange to you, but it was certainly strange to me... but great fun all the same.
Click on the link above to learn a bit more about the band, or drop into their myspace page to hear them for yourselves.
As most of my readers know, I love classical music (amongst other styles of music.) I guess it could be argued that in some way the classical orchestra gathers together musical instruments at the very pinnacle of their development - but this has meant leaving behind some of the fascinating instruments that preceded the ones we are familiar with now. I tell you, there is something hypnotically relaxing about a hurdy-gurdy quartet! (Although it does look a bit bizarre.)
Watching the players cranking the handles of their hurdy-gurdies reminded me of the mechanical calculating machines that my secondary school invested in - just a year or so before the invention of the electronic calculator. (What a waste of money that was!)
When the teacher left the room we used to play a game. A kind of competition really.
If you set all of the levers of the calculating machine to 9, then cranked the handle backwards as fast as you could, eventually all the levers would return to 0 and a bell would ring. The trick was to crank the handle as fast as you could and the first to get the bell to ring was the winner. Amazing. Fantastic exercise for the upper body! Although once or twice when the teacher returned early and saw everyone furiously turning the handles of their machines we had to quickly think up some highly implausible excuses for our bizarre behaviour.
I never once thought to say: "I'm practising for when I play the hurdy-gurdy!"
*by the way, just in case you wondered - the people in the picture above are playing nyckelharpas
5 comments:
Have I woken up on another planet?!
Only you can answer that, Lindsay! Although I doubt if you would be able to access the internet from beyond planet earth. Still, I know what you mean. I kind of felt a bit like that myself last night.
don't feel bad (or old) but I've never seen one of those mechanical calculator things before. I am old enough to remember the manual photocopier thing we had in junior school (like a mangle, which I don't remember!)
I don't feel bad, louise, but I do feel old cos I can actually the remember the mangle!!
Hi Ian, Thanks very much for mentioning La banda Europa in your blog! I'm glad you enjoyed the event
all the best
Jim Sutherland
Director composer
La Banda europa
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