I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE-“Saidi Swing” (Field Recordings, March 26, 2014).

I really enjoyed the Silk Road Ensemble’s Field Recording, so I was delighted to see that they did a second recording from the same session [A Field Recording Bonus Track: The Silk Road Swings].  I have no idea how they cleared everyone out and cleaned up the place for this video (how long did these four guys have to hang around?), but it was worth it.

What I find so magical about this piece is that it is four percussionists and yet they make such beautiful music.

They’re playing a piece written by Shane Shanahan called Saidi Swing. While it’s inspired by a traditional rhythm from Upper Egypt called saidi (which goes “dum tek dum dum tek” in its simplest incarnation, for those of you who want to find its seeds sprinkled through this piece), Shanahan uses that pattern just as a launching point. And with such fantastic collaborators — from left to right, Sandeep Das playing the Indian tabla, Shanahan playing the riq, or tambourine, Mark Suter on daff frame drum and Joseph Gramley playing the goblet-shaped dumbek — Shanahan can really let his imagination take flight.

The piece begins with the four drummers playing together.  Then comes the individual moments

First comes a solo by Sandeep Das playing the Indian tabla. I love that it’s mostly finger tapping–the tabla is a fascinating instrument.

Up next is Joseph Gramley playing the goblet-shaped dumbek.  To start his solo, he plays the side of the drum which rings out almost like a tambourine before returning to the proper method of playing.

The third solo comes from Mark Suter on daff frame drum (I assumed it was a bodhran, I wonder what the difference is…ah, the daf has metal rings inside of it and can be made of fish skin (!)).  Suter bangs it for a big open sound but then he rubs his fingers along the skin to create even more fascinating sounds.  It’s awesome.

Then they return to the main rhythm.  All four play loud then quiet and then it’s time for each of them to get a very brief (2 seconds, maybe) solo in order left to right.

Then it’s time for Shane Shanahan playing the riq, or tambourine, to get a solo.  It’s the most conventional instrument except it seems quite different from the one that we see in folk bands.  He does some pretty nifty tricks with it too.

In the last part they each play a solo that’s about a second.  Again, left to right, which sounds cool and probably sounds even better in person.

World music percussion is really fascinating and I’m glad it gets showcased in this way here.

[READ: February 7, 2018] “The Ecstasy of Alfred Russel Wallace”

I never understand why people write fictionalized accounts of true stories.  There must be a reason for doing it–maybe you can’t write a five-page biography and have it get published anywhere?  I don’t know.

This is the true (I assume) account of Alfred Russel Wallace.

Wallace was a student of nature–it filled whim with an ecstasy that sometimes felt like lust.  He was not one for theory–he was all about the search.

He collected specimens and he wrote letters home to his mother about his joyful expeditions.  He traveled endlessly, exhaustively.  Even when wracked with malaria he continued.

He received a communication from Darwin asking for specimens of the Malay domestic fowl.  He thought it was a practical joke, it was beyond his wildest dream.

Wallace sent a domesticated and a wild duck and also a missive about variations among species.

Darwin did reply and said that they thought along similar lines.

Then he began noticing thing about the species on the island of Ternate.  Death that eliminated the weakest, selected varieties and thus shaped the forms fittest for survival.  It was so simple and so beautiful that the moment he uncovered it, he could not believe that he, or any man, had ever thought anything else.

He wrote an essay and sent it off to Darwin on March 9, 1858. It was called “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart from the Original Type.”   And then he waited.

Communication was very slow then, it could take months of turnaround time for correspondence.  He waited penitently and then impatiently.

He began to worry that the mail didn’t arrive, and then worse that Darwin thought the idea was stupid, offensive even.

The story ends unsatisfying, frankly.  We learn that Darwin did approve and sent a reply, but that by then Wallace had gone elsewhere and it would take even longer to reach him.

History says that Darwin so approved of the essay that he had it published but gave himself a higher billing–ensuring Wallace’s fame but claiming more of the glory for himself (which is somewhat fair as he was on the same path, but he felt Wallace said it more succinctly).

So why would you write this?  Just to give Wallace his due?  That fair.

It was  generally interesting story and I had no idea about Wallace so I’m glad to have learned it.