Musical Bowls

 

 
Thursday, 24 May, 2007, began as a day which kvetch and I had arranged to go do some shopping in the afternoon.   I needed some whole spices, and there was some other messages we needed to get done.   And at the end of it all was going to be a meeting with some friends in Keatings for some vigorous conversating.

So, into town we toddled, got our messages done, and as a matter of course, stopped into a wee housewares shop which changes it’s stock frequently.
 

(the shop is wee, not the housewares)

 
We were in search of the kind of bowls I like, but the size of which are difficult to find except in very well stocked Asian shops.   You know, the size of a bowl which Asian restaurants serve soup noodles in, where there is enough room in the bowl for the kind of amount of soup noodles which make an ample meal?
 
Anyhow.
 
That day, there ended up being two rather interesting finds.   Well, actually there were three, but I wasn’t to know about the third til we were at the till, right at the end of the purchasing experience.
 
I’ll get to the third later.
 
 
As it happens, kvetch had been in the FCÁ, and that day, there was an absolute shitload of mixed assorted Irish Defence Forces crockery, including dinner plates, side plates, bread plates, and soup bowls.
 
 

 
The Officers, NCO’s, and Privates each had different sets of crockery.   The Privates had plain white dishes with just the Irish Defence Forces logo on, the NCO’s had white dishes with a plain blue border and the Irish Defence Forces logo on, and the Officers had white dishes with a blue border, gilt edges, and the Irish Defence Forces logo on.
 

(kvetch knew which were which because of having spent interminable hours washing all of them)

 
 

 
 
kvetch had been an NCO, and those dishes made up the bulk of what was on offer that day, along with a few Officers’ dishes.   kvetch piled up his arms with four each of NCOs’ dinner plates, side plates, bread plates, and one Officers’ bowl.
 
 

 
They weighed a tonne and a half, I can tell you, and I wasn’t even the one who had to schlep them. :p

kvetch reckoned, knowing the Irish Defence Forces, that there would very likely be lead or something in the crockery, but he didn’t care.   :)   Still, it was his decision, and his schleppage, so, fair play to him. :)
 
 
Now, the other find……

There were also, above the Irish Defence Forces dishes, in amongst the other assorted bowls, some rather niftily sized bowls, even if they were a bit heavy stoneware, and just a teensy bit ugly.   As I was stacking four similar ones to take away, one of the bowls accidentally pinged against a prettier, but slightly smaller bowl sitting on the shelf.

The sound was  amazing.   The purest pitched note, with a decay that took forever.   I stopped moving, and looked in amazement at this innocuous looking bit of crockery just sitting there, minding it’s own business.
 

Holy shit.

 

 
 
kvetch was still immersed in playing with the Irish Defence Forces crockery, and I noodged him urgently, and said something like:
 

“Hey! kvetch!   Did you hear that?   Listen to this!   Shhhhhh!”

 
kvetch stopped what he was doing, and listened. I pinged the bowl again.
 

tiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggg…………………….
intoned the bowl, for what seemed like half an hour.

 
We both stood there, silently, almost reverently, for a few minutes as the sound took forever to die away.

“Wow.” I said, slowly, with feeling.

I took another bowl, put it by itself on the shelf, and pinged it.
 

toooooooooonnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggg……………………
sang the bowl.

 
“Wow.” I said, again.
 
 
It didn’t take long to work out that the small sacrifice in size I’d have to make to leave the first, weighty, rather ugly bowls, for the second, slightly smaller, prettier, and astoundingly sonorous bowls, was absolutely worth it, according to my code of priorities.

So, with a symphony of pings, and tongs, tings and bongs, and yet more tings, I assembled a stack of four of these bowls to have for my very own kitchen orchestra cuisine.   :D

Coincidentally, both the Irish Defence Forces crockery and my bowls had a deep cobalt blue stripe on them.   Mine had a fat stripe and two thin stripes, kvetch’s just had the one fat stripe.

Also, possibly less coincidentally, the Irish Defence Forces crockery pinged very nicely as well.   Considering there may well be lead in it, I don’t suppose that’s too surprising, actually.   Still, that was a pleasant bonus. :)
 
Oh, and the third find, which I spotted at the checkout, and added to the pile, was this kind of silicone pastry brush thingy.   Soft, bendy, stretchy silicone strands set into a plastic handle, the whole thing a deep vibrant blue colour.
 

(in case you haven’t guessed yet, I am rather a fan of the colour blue :p )

 
I brushed the brush against my face, a lovely sensation, sort of soft, slightly grippy, strokey sensation, mmmmmmmmmm………..

So I tossed two of those into the mix, to play with at some future moment. :)
 
 
But for me, that experience was all about those singing bowls.   :)   So, with that in mind, I created a little something to share with you.   Just a wee doodah I composed, and specially performed using three of the bowls as musical instruments, and recorded to share with you here.   :)
 
 

The bowl with the lowest pitch is on the far left, the middle pitched bowl is in the centre, and the highest pitched bowl is on the far right.
 
Incidentally, in attempting to find a site to upload this file to so it can stream to this page  (a much harder task than I imagined),  I had to sign up for a site where I had to register a band in order to upload their music.

So I invented a band called Bowls, featuring the Bowls sisters, Crockery Bowl, and Stoneware Bowl, from Ballyneurosis, Ireland.   ;)
 

(there was more than one moment during the creation of that page where I just wondered if it was possible to be too silly   :p )

 
 
And now …   the moment you’ve all been waiting for …  
 

The World Premiere of …   (drumroll please)

Musical Bowls!