June (Delia): Weird and Wonderful Gigs

Being a percussionist - or a harmonica player - means that you end up straying into some musically bizarre and niche territories. Here is a round up of requests that have come my way over the last few years..enjoy!

The One with the Wine Glass

You know that party trick where you circle your finger on a wine glass to make it “sing”? That is often genuinely my job and something I have to execute accurately in a professional setting. 

However, it got to new heights of virtuosity when I had to perform a piece with contemporary music ensemble House of Bedlam, which involved me drinking the correct amount of wine to change the pitch of the glass. I made some marks on the side of the glass, indicating which level changed the pitch, but this turned out to be :

a) Incredibly difficult to judge as the liquid slanted when it entered my mouth

b) Pretty embarrassing and funny in front of a live audience…do I, err, spit some wine back if it is too sharp?!

The One with the Face Slapping

Here’s the pitch that came into my inbox:

“(Artist will remain anonymous!) is going to be making a new film featuring percussionists making music in an experimental format and he loved discovering your musicianship. It will be a performative piece in two parts - one with two male percussionists and then one with two female percussionists who will play using each other’s face as a percussion instrument.

It will be based on the concept of ASMR so the slightest contact with the skin will create a very clear sound and the gestures and sounds resulting from the performance would become increasingly rhythmic over 4 or 5 mins (so starting very softly and increasing very gradually) to create a carefully prepared musical composition…would end when it’s no longer comfortable so there is an endurance element.”

I also received a disturbing video of one very red man being slapped. This one was a firm NO! I ain’t going around using my years of practice to slap other women in the face! May I also add that this video of me was going to be blown up to the size of a wall to be displayed in the art gallery..

The One with the Gong Marathon

High End Watch Company:

EVENT 1 Dinner for collectors 3.5 hours

They have a Michelin star chef providing a several-course dinner following the different phases of the moon. Sound artist/s to provide tailored soundscapes following moon phases/courses and background percussive sounds - Gong sound is important to include

EVENT 2 Cocktail Party for customers 3 hours 

Gong and DJ collaboration

More upbeat than the dinner: quieter start, builds to a more energetic atmosphere

EVENT 3  Press brunch 3 hours

Sound artist/s (gong) General background percussion (can be similar to the dinner sounds)

That’s a mere 9.5 hours of gongs folks. 9.5 hours! 

The One with the Lightning

OK, this one is kinda cool and I probably would have done it if I was free. The artist wanted me to hit a timpani cued by some technology linked up to satellites that he had set up indicating when there was a lightning strike around the world. Good test of my percussive reaction times! He also discussed creating an entire composition based on multiple weather phenomena generating scores for various percussion instruments. 

The One where Plants became Percussion

My favourite day in the recording studio ever. I was working with Hayden Thorpe on his album Ness which sets words by Robert Macfarlane based on a now disfunct nuclear testing site taken over by the National Trust based on the island Orford Ness. Hayden had picked lots of plants (teasles, moss) and sea coal from the beaches and we recorded them as percussion instruments (e.g. the spikes of the plants becoming a scraper, the moss becoming brushes, and the disintegrating plants building up rattly sound worlds on a bass drum) with lots of high end close mics.

It was amazing and inspired me to go to lots of forests and start playing the trees and plants as “instruments”! Hikes have never been the same since - every landscape now feels like a giant percussion playground. 

Delia x