A NORTHUMBRIAN MIDDLE-SCHOOL EPIPHANY (To be Sung to a Gelinaeu Psalm-Tone) When I was nine in 1970, I played Mechior in the school nativity; and I banged a big frame-drum from Bethlehem, brought back from a Holy Land holiday by Miss Morrison, who showed me some choice cyclic Arabic rhythms, that have been with me ever since. Miss Morrison played upon a shawm, because she played the English Horn; though that is only what the Yanks, in their funny way, call the instrument we Brits know as the Cor Anglais.
|