Pay the piper -- he’s earned it
QUESTION Which is considered the most difficult musical instrument to learn to play? It DEPENDS entirely on how well you want to learn to play your chosen instrument. Exactly like learning a new language, one can learn a few words to get by, or become fluent. So it is with learning a musical instrument.
Probably the easiest instrument ‘to get a sound out of’ is to bang any of the drums or other percussion instruments — but that is a far cry from ‘playing’ the drums or being an accomplished percussionist.
Just as no language is easy to learn properly, no musical instruments are easy to learn to play properly.
In 1997, physiologist Geoffrey Walsh of Edinburgh University, one of the world’s leading experts on the human hand — and an accomplished flautist — set himself a project to answer this question over the following five years.
He tested 2,000 individual musicians including some of the world’s best-known soloists and players from all sections of famous orchestras and other bands and groups. Using his specially devised instrument and setting complicated tests, he could measure the dexterity of the fingers of each of his subjects.
Dr Walsh concluded that, overall, general woodwind instrumentalists came a close third, behind string and keyboard players, but for superior finger dexterity, bagpipers were the clear winners.
By ‘bagpipe’, I mean the Great Highland bagpipe; there are many types of bagpipe throughout the world.
Contrary to most opinions, music for the bagpipe is written in the same way as any other musical manuscript, on staves of five lines. In playing some of the classical bagpiping (known as Piobaireachd or Ceòl Mòr), it is quite usual for whole passages of the piece to have as many as eight very short notes (grace notes) written and played between each of the main melody notes.
these eight grace notes are played in less than a second, and the dexterity of a piper’s fingers, therefore, make bagpipers some of the most skilled musicians, leading to the conclusion that the bagpipe is probably the hardest musical instrument to learn to play.
John Spoore, Wigmore, Kent. THE pedal steel guitar can be placed in this category. Derived from the Hawaiian and lap steel guitars, the modern pedal steel guitar — as used in country music — can be a single or twin-necked instrument with an E9th Nashville tuning on one neck and C6th Jazz/Western swing type tuning on a second neck, each neck having ten or more strings, with the whole instrument supported by four legs.
A pedal steel guitarist plays seated, out of necessity — using a steel bar in the left hand to select the frets over which to play. the right hand will normally have a thumb pick and two finger picks to actually ‘pick’ the notes.
Most modern twin-necked steels have eight floor pedals and four or more knee levers. these are used to either lower or raise the pitch of individual strings,
the floor pedals are normally operated with the player’s left foot, while the right foot operates the volume pedal.
So a pedal steel guitarist will be using both hands, both knees and both feet while playing!
How do I know it is a difficult instrument? Because I have been playing one for more than 20 years and am still learning.
Bob Rudge, Cheltenham, Glos. QUESTION Why does the Laxton Superb tree produce apples only every other year? What other apple trees have this biennial cycle? BIENNIAL bearing (cropping heavily one season and then very lightly the next) is a common issue with apples.
An apple tree’s primary goal each season is to produce as many seeds as possible. It begins this process by producing an abundance of flowers. Once these flowers are pollinated and set fruit, the tree will put its energy into developing that fruit.
Shortly after fruit set, flowers are actually forming for next year inside buds. the tree will ignore these flowers, putting everything it has into developing the current fruit filled with seeds. this heavy crop will drain the tree of critical carbohydrate reserves and lead to weak flowering or, in severe cases, biennial bearing.
there is evidence that seed-produced hormones exported from the developing ovules have a direct inhibitory effect on flower development, allowing the tree to concentrate on its current crop of fruit.
Varieties which are especially prone are Blenheim Orange, Bramley’s Seedling, Claygate Permain, Egremont Russet, tom Putt, Devonshire Quarrenden, Early Victoria, Wyken Pippin, Ellison’s Orange, Elstar, laxton Superb, laxton Fortune, Rev. W. Wilks and tydeman’s late orange.
this behaviour can be changed with judicious fruit thinning — removing excess fruit to allow space for remaining fruit to grow large, and to allow flower initiation and development for the following year.
Apples are not the only fruit susceptible to biennial bearing; pears, mango, apricots and avocado are also prone. Fortunately for wine growers, grapes are not.
Justine Marsh, Tillington, Herefordshire. QUESTION My mother, born in 1915, was given the first names St Margaret La Bassee by her father during World War I. Family folklore says she was named after St Margaret’s church in Folkestone, where her father embarked, and the town in France, La Bassee, where he saw action. Are both church and town still around today? What action would my grandfather have seen in La Bassee? FURTHER to the earlier answer, my mother as a girl lived in la Bassee before and during the early part of World War I. they moved to Bethune, eight miles west, because of the German advance, then to Bruay.
la Bassee and Bethune were heavily damaged, but both were rebuilt after the war.
the family never returned to la Bassee but settled in Bethune. My father — who was in Northern France, in the Royal Engineers, Railway Operating Division — met and married Yvonne Cornet.
there is a cemetery at la Bassee where some of the dead from the Battle of loos are buried, most of them unknown, but including the body of Rudyard Kipling’s son, aged 18. loos is six miles south of la Bassee, near lens. the Battle of loos took place in the autumn of 1915.
R. J. Tredwell, Dudley, West Midlands.