I finally finished another piece for the Clutha Project!

The Firth of Clyde has many types of sea birds and waders gracing its shores. I particularly love the antics of the Oystercatchers. These strikingly handsome birds with their beady red eyes strut and fret through the sands and rock pools as they prod and poke for their next meal. Their pace is slow, slow, quick quick, slow, as they dispute a scrap of ragworm, or chase off the smaller wading birds that get in their way. 

Ever watchful for disturbance or danger, they will instantly take off at the slightest provocation and wheel around in their groups, low over the water, before settling down again just a few yards away. 

I find them a perky and jolly sort of bird. I was watching them during a recent holiday in Berwick on Tweed, when i got the idea for this tune, which tries to capture their strutting and their sudden take-offs. Hopefully you will find it a jolly tune. Lord knows there's a current shortage of jollity in the world....

The guitar is real and played by me. The other instruments are virtual,  courtesy of Spitfire Audio Solstice Orchestra, and 8DIO Bazantar. Field recordings were taken by me at Berwick.

The Oyster Catchers (Clutha Project)

Another piece for my "Clutha Project" reflecting on my memories of the River Clyde and the various aspects of it that have changed over the years.

On the west side of the Isle of Cumbrae is a beautiful spot called Fintry Bay. It faces towards the isle of Bute's Kilchattan Bay  (where my Great Grandmother had a farm), and the isle of Arran where other relatives of mine still live.

As a child, when visiting my grandparents in Millport, it was a great delight to take a hike over the hill to Fintry Bay where there was a wonderful tearoom on the shore side, overlooking the bay. It had been there for many, many years, having been started by a man called John Kennedy who also made and sold there a variety of carbonated drinks from  nearby spring water that he had rights to. There was a drinking fountain nearby which was sourced from that spring water and I remember it had a slight fizz to it. The cafe's decor had seen better days and I particularly remember the paint peeling on the woodwork outside. The food and drink inside was always lovely though and the beach was a great spot for playing. In many people's family photo albums there will be pictures of them or their ancestors at this spot as they did the tour around the island when it was in its tourism heyday. Eventually, the cafe's physical decline led to its demolition in 1987, but a replacement was built across the road from it which still runs today and serves beautiful and diverse foods to all who come.

This piece seeks to evoke the beauty of the spot and the warmth of wistful memories is has generated for many people over the years. All instruments are virtual via Native Instruments and Spitfire Audio.

The photo depicting John Kennedy outside the old tea room  is borrowed (fair use policy applies) from the North Ayrshire Heritage Trails website, and copyright remains with them.
© Copyright 2019 North Ayrshire Heritage Trails

(Clutha Project) Fintry Bay

This track is part of my ongoing "Clutha Project" - music inspired by my childhood memories of the River Clyde and its surrounding countryside as well as the changes wrought over time to the communities set in this region. It is an elegy for the passing of the numerous wooden piers that once serviced the extensive and highly popular Clyde steamer routes and the various ferries that took hundreds of folk (and sometimes their cars) back and forth across the Clyde.

Boats and shipping of all sorts  have been the lifeblood of the River Clyde throughout the centuries.

The era of the Clyde steamer began in August 1812 with the very first successful commercial steamboat service in Europe, 
when Henry Bell's Comet began a passenger service on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock.

By 1900 there were over three hundred Clyde steamers operating, and the industry was still in full swing by the early 1960s. Then, competition from new forms of holiday travel brought the era almost to a close, but the Paddle Steamer "Waverley" still continues to provide excursions as the last of her kind on the Clyde.

Ferry crossing points on the Clyde, such as Erskine Ferry, were made redundant by the construction of modern bridges. 

The jobs that these services once provided also became redundant, and their employees faded into obscurity as did their ships and ferries.

Most of the wooden piers that serviced this once bustling trade now lie derelict and unloved. Their memories linger on in forgotten holiday-snap albums, specialist history books tucked away in local libraries, and in the hearts of the small bands of enthusiasts who work to save what is left.

In dusty corners of Britain's antiques emporiums, lie cheap pottery pieces bearing the names of these places - trinkets brought home years ago as souvenirs of a brief holiday away from the dull routines of town-dwelling and factory-working.

There's a video to go with this soundtrack at https://youtu.be/OkBOZSx91pc if you fancy a peek back in time.

Cover image - Sunset from Craigendoran by Colin MILNE (@argyll66)

This track was composed using only 8DIO Soundpaint instruments, which was part of the challenge I set myself in making this.

End of the Pier

End Of The Pier (Clutha Project)

This is another track for my "Clutha Project" series - music and/or lyrics evoked by my childhood and family links to the River Clyde. 

In this case I was  playing with my new musical acquisitions - "String Murmurations" and "Small String Gestures" by the Crow Hill Company (they are fab!) - and I fell into thinking of the rhythm of the tides and how they connect (and affect) folk all around the world. At some point in every river's journey, it meets the tidal power of the moon and sun and becomes a party to that twice-a-day rising and ebbing that affects all estuary and coastal life.

On the Clyde (as with all rivers of the world) , sandbanks appear and disappear, water channels change their courses, vessels come and go, birds feed and depart, children play in rockpools, all to the rhythm of the slow swelling and departing of these tides every day. This track tries to capture that slow rhythm that most of us take for granted and the beauty that it contains.

Image Clyde sunset courtesy of Colin Milne (@argyyll66)

I have made a video to accompany this, which is at https://youtu.be/WQCp0cQJBU4 if you fancy a look as well as a listen. :)

The Murmuring Tides (Clutha Project)

This instrumental track was composed as part of my "Clutha Project"  series where I use memories of my childhood and family connections in the   area of the River Clyde as the basis for the composition.

As a young boy I lived in a house where the fence at the bottom of our garden was the perimeter fence of a sprawling factory complex in the Clyde Valley that made explosives for the Ministry of Defence. There were cooling towers and tall chimneys scattered across it and these used to churn out huge columns of steam and smoke so big that I thought it was these that were creating the clouds and the weather. I spent hours of my childhood watching these form and rise into the real clouds.

Later, as a young man, I lived in a village that faced south across the Clyde estuary and out to sea. Most of our weather came in from that direction. You could see it advancing up the Firth of Clyde and, with experience, you could work out if you had enough time to get to the shops without getting a good soaking from the next rain storm.  The weather was immensely changeable there. No sooner had one weather front passed by then the next one would be rolling in from the sea. The pocket-sized folding plastic mackintosh was in frequent use in those days.

I have created a video to go with this, which can be found at:
https://youtu.be/zPNzutpKtEI

The cover photo is by courtesy of Colin Milne (@argyll66)

Weather Front

This is my latest spill-over page for newer stuff. The older material is at @enlimila and @enlimila-plus

Thanks for looking. :-)

 SoundCloud
 hearthis.at/4YJwNLhy/
 metapop.com/enlimila

New tracks tagged #cluthaproject