Barry Hall at the Brookfield Craft Center
Feb 9th, 2007 by Richard
Brookfield, Connecticut. I had the pleasure of attending an opening at the Brookfield Craft Center of a show called: The Sound of Earth: Ceramic Musical Instruments. I have a background as a potter and clay artist but what was more interesting to me was that the show was curated by Barry Hall, a multiply-talented artist and musician in conjunction with the release of his new book From Mud to Music.
After the typical opening mingling with way too many people for the small gallery Barry gave a lecture on the history of using clay to form instruments and in the process played most of the instruments in the show which were made by artists from all over the world, including many by Barry.
The didgeridoo is a wind instrument of aboriginal Australians, usually made out of a long cylindrical piece of wood and buzzed into much like a trumpet or other brass horn. The sound is a haunting drone (when played correctly) and they’re quite popular in many kinds of modern as well as ambient music.
This one by Barry Hall is made of clay and because forming clay in a long, straight tube is rather tough (breakage) Barry decided to bend it much like a typical horn. The sound is authentic and fantastic.
Here Barry is about to blow into his clay digeridoo.
A clay three chamber ocarina. The center chamber is a drone and each of the side chambers is tuned such that they harmonize with each other and the drone and are played separately. This was my fav instrument in the show. Beautiful, imaginative, incredible sound.
Barry is a professional musician and he made these instruments shine. Here he is playing the three chambered ocarina.
The udu is an African clay drum evolved from water bottles carried on the head. Modern udus have holes on top and a second hole on the side (not shown here but on the back side of this piece). One can play either hole or both, covering either to create different kinds of tones and hollow sounds.
The Indian equivalent of the udu is the ghatam which is a water bottle with a single opening on top which is bigger than what is shown here.
Barry plays his handmade clay flute while his wife Beth shakes a ceramic shaker.
