99P-19 "Music Made for the Beach"

"What you see is what you get." "Can't you go to Penny's and buy a pair of pants?" "No." "After lunch we'll go to the beach and see what's happening. Did you bring your bagpipe?" "Of course! Two sets, and Elsa has hers." "Does this mean I finally get to hear you play?" "Yes. They should sound great by the ocean." "You're doing what? You'll get too dirty to go to dinner." "We'll be fine. We're just going to the beach to look around and listen to bagpipes." Strangely enough I was actually going to stay within the strictures.

Build number:	99P-19
Title:	"Music Made for the Beach"
Date:	November 11
Location:	Silver Strand, across from Coronado Cays (San Diego area)
Start:	1530; building time: approx 1 hour
Height:	2 feet
Base:	1 X 2..5 feet
Photography:	a few exposures, sculpture and other activity on RA w/WR

1. Improbable Music My grandfather was part Scot. Maybe that's why my sister Lise decided to learn the bagpipe some years ago. She came to Los Angeles once for a bagpiping contest and let me play her practice chanter. This gave me much respect for bagpipe players: blow hard with little volume and very precise pressure or the thing squawks. One day I was riding down to Rich's house for lunch. The bike path runs right along the beach, in and out, up and down, and it's a nice cruise to Manhattan. Standing on a flat place amid the riprap about halfway there a man was playing the bagpipe. I naturally stopped and listened and discovered bagpipe music goes with the sound of the ocean beautifully. I was enchanted, and late for lunch. "Hey, Lise. You should come out here and play your pipes as I make a sculpture." I know this will never happen, but it's a nice dream. "I'd like to. The humidity would make the pipes sing." 2. Instructor Mother wants to get gas for the car. Why a special trip? Who knows, but she drops us off at the beach and then heads south to Imperial Beach. Silver Strand is an expanse of varicolored sparkling sand reaching out to the low tide and brilliantly backlit breakers. Their rhythmic roar is muted by distance. The bagpipe fits in a neat black case. I think of them assembled and operating; without air and with the various parts disassembled they take up little room. Lise puts things together and the sound of tuning, that time-honored melody, mixes with the breeze and roar. This being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I chose to travel with the video camera rather than the skateboard. Not knowing any better I tape every move as she tunes. It's quite a ritual. She starts with the chanter, the part that like an oboe can be directed to make various notes. Then she tunes the middle drone, one of three pipes that sound one note as she plays. There are two high-frequency drones and one lower frequency one. After getting the drone and chanter in agreement, the other two come in with little trouble. This being a living instrument, sensitive to its environment, it changes as it warms from her breath and takes on humidity. Listening carefully I can follow what she does; when the drones beat against each other she has to change their lengths to bring them into line. Lise got the musical interest in my family. Starting with piano lessons--my brother and I also got these but didn't last long--and working her way into voice and guitar, music has been a part of her life. She and my father used to sing and play together. I was too young to know much about this. About six years ago she decided to let her bagpipe interest loose and it became a passion. And now the pipes sound. Make no mistake. The Great Highland Pipe is loud. The chanter alone pegs the meter on my camcorder. She plays a tune, grace notes and all, nimbly and intensely. Warm sun, gentle breeze, sparkle of sun on water and under that the continuo of the ocean. I'm enchanted. "That was a Strathspey." "OK." I try to get some blood back into my arms and then she fills the bag and starts to sing again. This tune is slower. The notes are drawn out, stately, allowing my slow brain to follow the movement. "That was the piobaireachd." Pronounce that as "peabrook" and you'll be close. Why they had to throw the rest of the alphabet in I don't know. In Gaelic they never use one letter when they can use three. Or four. They won't be pronounced anyway. "It was lovely." "Would you like to try them?" What? How in hell am I supposed to do anything with these? Sure, I've played a practice chanter, once, and found it humbling. "Sure." This means I need to get rid of the video camera, so I remove my shirt and make a sand-excluding nest. "OK. Forget the chanter; we'll just get you playing the drones. Hold the bag under your arm, yah, that's right." It's surprisingly comfortable. "Now, you blow up the bag." This takes about five breaths and then the drones take off. Now I blow like crazy, trying to keep the bag full, rapidly becoming red in the face and quitting. Every time I blow, the drones change tone, then change again as I take a breath. "You don't have to work that hard. Use your arm to keep pressure constant. Develop a rhythm of breathing. So I try again. This goes better; the drones stay fairly close to the same tone and don't howl. I begin to feel the rhythm of blowing while relaxing my arm, then pushing a bit harder as I take a breath. Now, this I could keep up for a while. Then I start drooling. Secrets within secrets. She'd written of the bagpiper's intimate relationship with spit but the reality is embarrassing. "Not bad. You already know more than the children in the band." "Don't count on me joining your competitions any time soon." It's a long way from sort-of-steady drones to rock-steady while playing the chanter. Pipe bands start each song precisely, all the players in synchrony. I have no idea how they do it; just getting the drones and the chanter to sound right with one well-timed squeeze of the bag is something I can't figure out. "You want to play, Elsa?" She's wandering around on the sand where the slow water riffles past her bare feet. "No." "What do you want to do?" "Do you want a sand sculpture demonstration?" "Yes!" Well, Mother will never know. 3. Reality "You start with a hole in the beach. See how the water seeps into it?" This beach is made of reasonably fine grains of a wide range of colors, all the way from a creamy white to nearly black. They make fascinating patterns as water moves them around. "Then you take a double handful, like this, and plop it onto the beach. Pat it to compact it and get the excess water to drain. See how it comes to the top?" In the distance Lise's pipes sing to the sea and sculptor. I build too rapidly and half the pile slumps. I rebuild it smaller, then start carving as the old Scots tunes join the gulls and wavebreak. This could go on forever. Our beach symphony loses a voice when the piper wants to get her hands sandy. Before long, both of them are carving intently. Lise has picked up a shell, but Elsa is just using fingers. "You're getting sand on your tassels." "That's far from the worst they've been through." I dig a little tunnel into the top of the pile. Lise is happily making corrugations on the south side and Elsa is carving delicate ridges on the sunlit west. "Do you have a place over there for a space to come out?" "How about here?" "That'll work." Elsa's ridges converge toward the pile's top and go into the tunnel I just holed through. The finished piece is a little rough. Also unfinished; it needs something. "Ah. I know. A South Texas Snowball." "What's that?" "Watch." I make a nice sand ball and place it atop the sculpture but it still isn't enough. "It wants another." This one's smaller, the balance delicate. And it still wants one more so I make an even smaller ball and balance it atop the whole thing. There. "Wait a minute! That's not yours!" Lise just swiped the top ball to put on her own sculpture. Having gained great confidence in carving she made her own pile. Elsa is also working on her own, but has set herself the challenge of using only feet to make it. This winds up being the first arch ever carved entirely with toes. A talented group, this. The breeze softens to a whisper of damp air. Sunlight wafts through mist near the horizon. We pick up our various tools and head back. The fun is over.

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