Nose flutes? Saints preserve us!

Some children, on getting hold of the latest copy of The Beano, will go straight to the characters they like the best: The Bash Street Kids, Roger the Dodger or whoever. Despite the dangers of confiscation by a teacher, or appropriation by an older child, I would always start at the beginning (Biffo the Bear back then) and work my way through, enjoying the anticipation, until eventually I reached Dennis the Menace on the back page. So when first I opened Polynesian Sound-Producing Instruments by Richard Moyle and discovered there was a section on nose flutes I resisted the temptation to go straight to it, much as it appealed to my inner ten year old.

If you live in north-west Europe the fact that nose flutes never really caught on here will need no explaining. The damp climate creates a perfect host for the common cold and noses are frequently either blocked or running too freely. When I even tell young students about the existence of a flute you play with your nose their lips curl with distaste and they treat the information with the same suspicion as when I tell then how Lady Greensleeves got her name. young children are obsessed with bodily functions and secretions and those that emanate from the nose, being not 'rude' but still disgusting, have been a gift to purveyors of comics and other low humour for generations.

Perhaps this European distaste contributed to the decline of the nose flute in Polynesia. On many of these islands the instrument was used to serenade one's lover - it made the music of love. It steadily lost ground to the ukulele when this arrived with European visitors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The ukulele has the advantage that you can croon along as you play.

When the Europeans arrived in the paradise that was the Pacific islands they brought missionaries who set about trying to improve the place. Catholics introduced the concept of original sin (guilt) and Protestants brought the work ethic (more guilt). They frowned on many of the rituals and pastimes practised by the indigenous peoples and many were prohibited. In museums there exist instruments from as recently as the nineteenth century whose music and purpose are lost forever. Moyle, whose book was published in 1990, describes curious instruments called sounding boards used to accompany a particular dance on Tonga and Samoa. (Not to be confused with either the sounding boards of Bellona Island or those used in the manufacture of pianos or other European string instruments.) The 19th century Christian missionaries on the islands regarded the dance as 'heathen' and it was outlawed, never to be seen, or heard, again.

Bellona, part of the Solomon Islands, has a different type of sounding board. Whereas the Tongan and Samoan boards had a hinged slat that rattled when the board was struck, the board from Bellona has no moving parts. It is a crescent shaped piece of hardwood beaten with two sticks. Although I speak of it in the present tense, Moyle writes that the 'heathen dances' are under threat from the Protestant church which is very powerful on the island.

Back to nose-flutes, it would be a pity if the Polynesian type disappeared altogether. There are other nose flutes to be had and a quick search of the web reveals modern, brightly coloured examples in hygienic plastic that can be mail-ordered. I'm sure they are worth a sniff and I shall not be put off by their Christmas-cracker-freebie appearance.

Polynesia is not the only part of the world where cultural diversity is threatened by bland commercially driven homogeneity or prudish evangelism. Whether any attempts to preserve its dances and rituals can be successful, once the culture that gave them meaning has been destroyed or diluted, is uncertain.

Before I finish with nose flutes (Anglo-Saxons: you are allowed one last snigger) I have a question. Answers on a postcard, or in a comment, please: What is the nasal equivalent of an embouchure?

Recording the blacksmith

Back in May, Cogitator posted a short clip of a blacksmith hammering away at an anvil. This made a strong impression on me and when I came across a blacksmith at a camp in August I knew to take advantage of the situation.

Dave Perks brought a portable forge with him to the camp and set it up in the shade of some trees. He was very happy to demonstrate the rhythmic nature of his hammering technique: so many beats on the iron being forged, interspersed with beats on the anvil in order to maintain momentum. He had brought along an unusual piece of scrap iron, a disc with fins, that he wanted to make mountable as a gong. I managed to capture most of the process in one way or another and have made the results into a short movie (3'52).

Sounds of Africa

I buy a paper most Saturdays and spend the rest of the week trying to read it. This morning I actually made it to the travel section of The Guardian where they drew my attention the their Blog of the Month. It's truly an amazing site called Listen to Africa and it features photos and audio clips gathered on a two year cycling trip. It's gone straight in to my bookmarks.

There is a splendid variety of sounds and commentary but I'll stop prostrating myself before the blog's creators and let you check it out for yourself. Beware the python-chicken clip. (They warned me but I couldn't help myself.)

Tomorrow's World

I am a habitual cyclist. I tend to avoid the adjective 'keen' because, although I do enjoy the practice, my main reasons for cycling relate to convenience, economy and carbon emissions. Cars, which I also use, impact negatively on my enjoyment and it could be argued that any urban cyclist must be keen by definition. But recently, in Britain at least, the increased pedestrianisation of town and city centres has added new hazards.

Because we tend to rely heavily on our ears to warn us of danger when crossing roads we don't hear cyclists approaching and this leads to misunderstandings, especially in those streets closed to 'traffic' but open to bicycles. No one likes a pedestrian who just steps out in front of them. And of course no one likes being snuck up on regardless of whether the sneaker is on tiptoe or riding a bike. Introduce silent vehicles the size and weight of cars and these little altercations become far more serious.

I read recently (on the BBC) that the Japanese are considering the introduction of noise generators to hybrid cars to make them safer for visually impaired pedestrians. This seems like a very good idea. And not just for the visually impaired. For those of us with a penchant for science fiction films there is a frisson of excitement about this prospect. It's so futuristic. The city soundscape will be awash with tasteful sound effects straight from Blade Runner. No more adolescent joy-riders tearing my ear-drums to shreds. A calm, orderly and sonically restrained future is just around the corner. For where the Japanese are tomorrow, surely we will be the day after.

Oh, if only that were the case. Spend any amount of time in a public place and what do you hear? Amongst other things you will hear a succession of ringing telephones. Except that they don't ring, even the ones that pretend to. Instead they emit a variety of cheesy 'ring tones' ranging from Roquefort to Dairylea.

Now compare the amount of time phones spend ringing to the time cars spend driving. Traffic in a city is a virtual constant and the sounds of the engines are sufficiently similar, and of a range in pitch, that we can screen them out for much of the time. But imagine if all these sounds had been selected by their owners. The vehicular equivalent of the ringtone. Not everyone likes Star Trek. And not everyone wants to drive a black Model T Ford, devoid of furry dice or racing stripes. Standardised sounds? For how long, if at all? If you think you hate traffic noise now, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Now excuse me while I go and attach playing cards to the spokes of my front wheel.

Seaside Sounds

A sunny day and a fine one for the North Norfolk coast. I dropped my partner and the kids near the front and went looking for a parking place. When I reached the cliff top a few minutes later there was no sign of the rest of the family but I did find, between the ice cream van and the lobster traps, a gathering of some thirty souls on a triangle of grass. 'Scripture Union' read the banner but I'd already heard them and their little P.A. system from around the corner.

The Billy Graham figure (vicar?) was a mild mannered chap in his 30s with all the iconoclastic zeal of a children's TV presenter from the 1970s. All very English and understated. "So God spoke to you in London," he was saying into a megaphone to a member of the congregation who gave confirmation. "And [to another] God spoke to you at work? What work do you do? A librarian. In which county? Sussex. So God has spoken to us in London and in America and in Sussex. And this is evidence that God..."

Hang on a minute, I think, my heckles rising. Evidence? God forbid you're ever called for jury service. And I find I'm resenting the din of the megaphone as much as the smug self-certainty of the man of faith behind it. But as I wander down the cliff path the tinny music that follows the sermon merges with the sounds of laughing children, gulls and the breeze and I realise this is what the seaside is all about. The world on holiday and all the hullabaloo that goes with it. To me this born-again evangelist is an echo of the showmen and callers of yesteryear. All his flock need to do now is ditch the canned music and form a brass band. That's the kind of revival I'd be game for on a sunny day at the beach. A little tiddly-om-pom-pom along the prom to wake up a sleepy little seaside town and breathe life into what's known here in Norfolk as God's waiting room.

Disappearing sounds - the British Bulldog

I recently played at a very individual pub called the The Cidershed, or the Shed for short. A wonderful venue with none of that 'straight from the catalogue' theme-pub nonsense. There is a fair amount of railway memorabilia, including full sized buffers and signalling gear, as well as the biggest collection of hand-cranked sausage mincers I've ever seen clamped to the rafters. The selection of real ales on offer was well-chosen to provide variety of strength and flavour.

It was a Friday evening at the end of a rather stressful week and this was the second gig of the night. The beer that most captured my mood was called Bitter and Twisted. The landlord's generous offer of free beer to for the band did little to cheer me up as it was my turn to drive and I knew a pint at most of something low-strength was all I should imbibe. But the charm of my host and his hostelry worked its magic and I was steered in the direction of something called Summer Gold. My mood lightened considerably.

But it is fun to caustic on occasion and this latest celebration of a disappearing sound is just that. It has a sonic dimension, although I admit feeling a little mischievous when I apply a 'disappearing sounds' tag.

Although he lives in an upstairs flat, is out at work all day and shares a small garden with me (and my children), my neighbour decided to buy a puppy last year. Don't get me wrong. I have no quarrel with dogs in general, or even this dog in particular who is friendly and who can’t be expected to clean up after itself. And it can hardly be blamed for being so severely inbred that it struggles to climb stairs, run about, cock its leg or do other things a dog usually does. As a national symbol it seems perfectly appropriate for a post-colonial power searching for its soul in Britain's Got Talent.

OK, so now you know I'm bitter and twisted about this dog. And just because my kids can no longer play on the grass and visiting woodwind students have to watch their step. But why is a bulldog a disappearing sound? Well for one, the Kennel Club has bowed to pressure to change the rules regarding the breed in order to ensure healthier animals in the future. This means the gravelly wheezing of sleeping bulldogs, as they try to get air through narrow nostrils in deformed faces, will become a thing of the past. The dog in question, Arthur by name, sleeps on my neighbour's kitchen floor and at night this sound reverberates through my part of the house at night. I have tried to capture it but I fear the volume level may be only subjectively loud because of the relative peace elsewhere.

And a second reason for the great British Bulldog being a disappearing sound affects me only. It's more a case of a disappearing audience. Yes, I'm moving out; and I will leave the sound of Arthur's claws on my neighbour's floor (my ceiling) behind. And as another neighbour has just installed his new baby in the room next to my bedroom the timing could not be better. Detached house here I come!