Stones
Burkhard Beins
Stones
I collected my first musical stones on a small beach near Dover. In the early 1990s, I drove several times to London with my old Mercedes to play some small gigs, joining Maggie Nicol’s Gatherings, or John Bisset’s Relays. On my way back on one of these occasions my ferry to Calais was delayed for several hours. And since Dover itself is not one of the most exciting towns to hang out in, I decided to drive to the next small beach I could find on the map: St. Margarete’s at Cliffe. At the end of the steep road that took me down the cliffs, I found this lovely little beach full of pebbles. The waves going slowly in and out on the pebbled beach was causing a beautiful crackling of the stones. I had a great time just listening and then making some recordings with my cassette walkman. But I also collected some stones because they also sounded great when they were clicked together or rubbed on each other.
I’m still using that particular kind of stone in the context of playing percussion with sound objects. It seems to be a kind of flintstone pebble that comes together with white chalk cliffs. I have not found them at any other beach so far. They are perfect to work with because of their size and shape—I’m always trying to find those which are almost flat on the bottom, so they don’t wobble when I leave them resting on a drumhead. Also, the texture is great. They don’t crack easily when I hit them together and the surface becomes rougher in a nice way when they are worn off a bit.
I figured out that this rather simple principle has quite some potential to be explored. I rub them loosely together in the air. When I’m amplified with overhead microphones, I can also go closer to the microphones and play with the left/right panning on the PA. When I press down the lower one of the two pebbles on a drumhead, the friction sound becomes amplified by the resonating drum. Altering the pressure on the drum can create an up or down glissando. But I can also have a metal plate resting on the drumhead and press the lower stone on that—or on a metal bar, playing with the subtleties by making tiny changes—or rub the bar itself with one of the stones. Although these pebbles last very long, they do wear away over the years, and they occasionally crack. So, at some point I need to replace them. I remember that some years ago I managed to convince Mark Wastell and Rhodri Davies to drive with me to St. Margarete’s at Cliffe on a free day after playing a concert with The Sealed Knot in London. We spent a lovely sunny afternoon there and I had the chance to collect new pebbles. I had the last pretty worn off ones with me in my case of preparations and objects and decided to throw those back into the sea.
Burkhard Beins is a composer/performer (percussion, drums, and electronics) based in Berlin.