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February 13, 2005
Of Wind Chimes and Wine Glasses
A while ago I wrote that I was worried about losing my appreciation for music or at least for going to live gigs. Thanks to Ed Harcourt, it may slowly be coming back.
I've been to two Ed Harcourt gigs now. Last night's was at the St. James Church on Piccadilly, an absolutely beautiful venue. We sat in the gallery just above and to the left of the stage. I watched from a similar vantage point at the other gig as well. I prefer it to being front and center. It has a kind of I'm-with-the-band-backstage-groupie feel to it. The other gig was at Dingwalls in Camden (or whatever it's called now). That gig was much rowdier. There was much jumping up and down and spilled drinks and shouting. Ed brought his banjo to that gig.
St. James is not the kind of place conducive to jumping up and down or rock and roll banjo playing. It's a church, after all. What made the St. James gig stand out for me, though, was the trumpet player. Now HE was rock and roll. He was totally cool. He just did his job, ignored the crowd, and played his music when called upon. And the man didn't just play the trumpet. Oh no. He also played the xylophone, the wind-chimes, and the wine glass. This last was my favourite and completely made up for the absence of the banjo.
I used to play the wine glass on occasion after a big family dinner. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the sound, it seemed to drive the rest of the family into the kind of frenzy exhibited by dogs reacting to a noise beyond the range of human hearing.
The technique is simple but requires a certain mastery and practice. You dip your finger in the wine to moisten it and then run it slowly around the edge of the wine glass. This produces a delightful (or possibly not) high-pitched keening noise. You have to have just the right amount of wine in the glass, of course. This involves a long calibration process. The wine is carefully poured in, and then carefully sipped out until it is at just the right level. This is usually when the person doing the calibration is too drunk to distinguish between a beautiful ringing full tone and an irritating fingernails-on-chalkboard screech.
Fortunately, trumpet-playing dude was a professional and his wine glass produced the desired ringing full tone rather than the screech. Later on in the performance, when the wine glass was no longer needed, he knocked back the contents in between bouts of trumpet playing and wind-chime tingling.
The man was a consummate professional when it came to his other instruments as well. I remember one piece in particular where he hunched over, dangling the wind chimes carefully from his teeth and hit a series of precise notes on the xylophone, tingling the chimes all the while. Very impressive. I also liked the way he used a couple of empty paper coffee cups to mute his trumpet. The man is a genius. I'm confident he could produce beautiful music given nothing but a block of spam and a feather.
His coolest performance, though, was during the last song. He sat down at a bench towards the back of the stage and methodically emptied all his pockets. He then stood up, walked to the front of the stage and played his trumpety bits. When that was over, he sat back down on the bench, and searched through the items spread beside him until he determined the least crumpled piece of paper and then rolled himself a cigarette. He had just enough time to finish this before it was time for a final blast on the trumpet. Then, while everyone was taking their bows and waving to the crowd, he put the ciggie in his mouth, grabbed a lit candle and headed for the door. Now that is the kind of coolness that can make a man believe in music again.
Posted by YandaMan at February 13, 2005 10:25 PM
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