Bob Downham

This uses the same as tune the Heugh but with a lot of the ambient sound removed, with the idea being that inside the ruins of the old lookout tower one is sheltered from the wind; only the recorder and sound of migrating geese overhead would be heard. This site particularly provides one of the few areas to sit during the walk and rest, along with the more recent lookout tower next to these ruins.

starling

goldfinch

hoopoe

This is one of a few scenes in the project with synth patches incorporated, the idea being that the interiors of the most striking and unnatural structures on the route could be used for a fuller, more modern sound than the sparse and instrument led scenes set outside or in decayed buildings. This piece uses a minor, legato rendition of the Vals used late on the route during Ouse Bay, designed to reflect the darker and slightly oppressive atmosphere at the bottom of the stairwell. This shifts later into a brighter pentatonic motif representing wide open views from vantage points inspired by geese calls and the reflective quality of the sea while the tides are in. All around can be heard Cuddy Ducks, Northern Lapwings, Common Moorhens, seal calls, Pink Footed Geese and Eurasian Skylarks.

This composition is the only one that is not included in the video, as walking to this disconnected section of Holy Island is only able to be reached during the lowest tides, with water separating it from the rest of the beach at the other tide times. This is somewhat of a microcosm of the holy island itself, and the composition here is based around incorporating a lot of the elements from elsewhere on the island. Using both St Cuthbert’s theme with celeste, harp and voice all playing layered on top of one another, and the oceanic elements quad panned all around the listener, isolating them from the rest of the route both aurally and geographically. Additionally, I wanted the warding whistle to be more prominent here than in any other track, as this is the farthest point away from the Island along the whole route. The scene contains Cuddy Ducks, Common Snipes and Eurasian Skylarks.

The old lifeboat station here has been turned into somewhat of a miniature museum, with this scene reflecting one of the stories of a rescue by the Lindisfarne Lifeboat crews. It is based around the rescue of a Swedish vessel called the Jolani in 1916, alongside 2 other rescued vessels near Berwick within the same fortnight8. This would have resulted in a number of Swedish nationals around the area that year, which inspired me to write a Pols based on those found in the Norwegian region of Østerdalen, on the Swedish border9. The scene’s premise is the idea that one of the rescued sailors borrows a tin whistle from one of the islanders and uses it to play repertoire from his home country while sitting in the lifeboat station with the 13 other rescued men, likely adapted from a tune for Sjøfløyte or recorder, which is commonly played in the Østerdal region. The tune is an original composition and was based on the Pols found within that region, though they are commonly played across the country, with also a strong similarity to the Swedish Polska found across the border.

This scene is a transitory one between St Mary’s Churchyard and the beach, and incorporates elements from both, with the sound of waves and St Cuthbert’s Ducks appearing near the end of the loop, whereas carrion crows, church bells and echoes of St Cuthbert’s motif and hint of the theme for the beach on harp. Once again, the brass lurs can be heard panned out to sea providing some tension in an otherwise relaxed scene.

This scene covers much of the beach East of the Heugh and in front of the lifeboat station and has the harp and celeste motifs from the Churchyard separated out by instrument, with the full introduction of the rising harp motif for the area, and the return of choir phrase referencing St Cuthbert’s personal chapel just off the coast on Hobthrush Island. Additionally, for this section I wanted to lean into the older nature of the shoreline and island chapel (with the structures on the island being built by St Cuthbert in the late 7th century) by moving from concert pitch to A=390hz7 to compensate for pitch inflation. With much of the shoreline here being untouched and the foundations of Cuthbert’s house and chapel being visible I wanted the listener to feel as if they had sunk back in time, incorporating this pitch lowering as an approach for this. The scene also is the first to fully introduce St Cuthbert’s Ducks or Cuddy Ducks to the route, as they frequently gather around this area and have a very distinct call, alongside the sounds of Common Snipes and Eurasian Skylarks.

This scene contains the most prominent use of the Brass Lurs, with both played together to form chordiods based around their own overtone series resulting in non-equally tempered polyphony, a dynamic showcased nowhere else throughout the project, as the also unequally tempered Seljefløyte is a traditionally solo instrument in comparison. My inclusion of an extended lur section here at the war memorial is due to their reminiscence of the style of military horns and trumpets played at remembrance events; intervals of 5ths, 4ths and 3rds common in both military style trumpet music and in the overtone series.

The Heugh was the site of one of the earliest chapels on the island, located on the Eastern tip near Osborne’s Fort at Steel End10. However, it is the fort, constructed around 1671, around which this scene is based. The fort was mostly used to defend the bay from Dutch raiders, so I decided to incorporate a traditional tune from that period likely to have been in the repertoire of both the English and the Dutch. The tune ‘Daphne’ appears in the Dutch recorder manuscript ‘Der Fluyten Lust-Hof' (First Edition), published between 1644 and 165611, as well as in ‘The English Dancing Master’ (First Edition) with editions published from 1651 all the way up to 172812. The idea for the scene was to have the solo recorder tune (played by Rhodri Gibbon) out at sea, playing the version from ‘Der Fluyten Lust-Hof' that they likely learned in their childhood, only for the melody to be practically identical to the version English soldiers manning the fort would have heard in their own childhood. In this scene Cuddy Ducks can be heard from the waters below, as well as Pink Footed Geese overhead and Northern Lapwings all around.

This scene is based around the inner half of the harbour, where much of the remaining fishing takes place and comprises of a tune for the Seljefløyte written in the style of the Rulls (or Reels) found on the West coast of Norway, primarily around the Vestland region13. The landscape of the inner bay and shared maritime culture, along with the history of Norse raids along the area, the Seljefløyte seemed a great choice for this stretch of coast and appears in many of the scenes around the area, but with the melody mirrored an octave down and the sounds of birds from the area, this track should prove to be easier and more accessible listening for those not as accustomed to the unique tone and temperament of overtone flutes. Above and around can be heard the calls of Brant Geese, Northern lapwings and Sandwich Terns.

This scene directly follows the Steel End walk around the interior bay and is heavily based around the building itself; with a wide V or even W shaped chamber, sections of the room are dark at all times of day. This aspect heavily inspired the metallic, almost eerie start to the track yet with the sounds of Seljefløyte the listener has grown accustomed to. This then begins to open up to a brighter, more open sound as the bird calls come through and the window itself illuminates much of the chamber revealing a plethora of birds and wildlife in the marshland. This is also the first introduction of this E, D# to B motif on the Seljefløyte that appears in several of the scenes of the second half of the route and in the Vals for Ouse Bay.

This section was originally designed for a road (Marygate) slightly to the West of the Window on Wild Lindisfarne; a small, sheltered area out of the wind but far enough away from the loudest parts of the town (Fig. 1). However, this placement changed the flow of the walk a little too much, as you would have to walk away from the castle for a short time before turning back on yourself, thus it was moved to the centre of town around the area surrounding the priory museum. The idea that the walk could be done in any number of ways and directions with the blending of each scene working regardless but the scene’s placement disrupted either of the two common routes; this element had to be removed from the project. The scene consists entirely of bird calls, a makeshift morning chorus, incorporating Brant Geese, Red Knots, Greylag Geese, Black Headed Gulls, Sandwich Terns, Spotted Redshanks, Meadow Pipits, Pink Footed Geese and Eurasian Skylarks.

This scene follows the outer half of the bay, turning towards the castle with a main inspiration being again the traditional music of Western Norway, and the shared history of 19th and 20th century ‘Fashionable Dances’, such as the Waltz, Masurka or Polka. In the UK these types of dances were popular among the social elite during the regency period and following decades14, whereas these types of tunes continued to be popular in Scandinavia for much longer, melding almost into a second but mostly partitioned folk music known as Gammeldans15. The North of England and the West Coast of Norway had a substantial amount of musical interaction during this period, the early 20th Century, with the British tourist vessels in Bergen, for example, forming an avenue for musical transmission; as in the case of Nils Tjøflot, who would row out underneath these vessels with a fiddle to learn the tunes being played16. The concept for this scene was the potential for a Waltz (or Vals) to have been transmitted this way, with this being a more stylised composition using the Hardanger Fiddle (played by Lisa Haugeland) and Seljefløyte, akin those by Gjermund Larsen17. Overhead and around are the sounds of Northern Lapwings, Common Snipes, White Wagtails and Meadow Pipits.

This scene opens with an echo of St Cuthbert’s theme before morphing into the arpeggiated variations of a clustered inversion of an Emaj9 chord accompanied by octave Seljefløyte filling in much of the lower end. My intention for this track was to mirror the bright pentatonic idea from the Lookout on Wild Lindisfarne, so I leaned into the Lydian modality of the Seljefløyte’s mid-range, writing to avoid as much of the flute’s flat seventh to highlight the mode. The more modern approach to the structure for this piece (straying away from melody driven arrangement to focus on a non-functional approach to harmony) is reflective approaches I used for the other, almost intruding, structures on the island: The Lookout and the Window. However, the castle itself is much older than either the latter buildings, yet has gone through numerous refurbishments across hundreds of years to make it to its current state, so much of the instrumentation on this track mirrors the simpler instrument-based composition of the other tracks; those being Harp, Celeste and Seljefløyte. The approach here was mostly inspired by the limitations on writing for and within the building itself, which led me to write based around the views and topography of the paths around the castle. It prominently features Northern Lapwing, Common Snipes, White Wagtails and Meadow Pipits.

This scene uses the same tune as the Area Around the Lime Kilns but in a much less traditional setting, with a huge reverb echoing the size of the kilns, and the same melody shifted a fifth down for an unnatural wailing quality. The inspiration for this piece was the theory that the sounds of Sea Witches or Selkies are said to be heard by workers while the kilns were operational and were likely the echoes of seal songs and cries; thus I incorporated both the echoes of seals within the chambers but also an unnerving arrangement of the song heard just above ground immediately before this scene. The two textures blend with the long reverberations in the kilns, with the intention being heightening the experience of hearing the echoed wails when working lime.

This scene makes use of a traditional tune from Østerdalen once again, specifically a Laling, which is a type of herding call song designed to bring livestock down from high pastures at the end of the day. The melody comes from a smaller region in Østerdal called Trysil, directly on the Swedish border, and was adapted from recording of the tune played on Tungehorn18, a traditional instrument that consists of a single reed attached to a goat or cows' horn with fingerhole carved into the horn. The tune is employed here in a traditional fashion; sung unaccompanied, by a single singer (Elisabet Midtbø) with the sounds of sheep, as they often graze in the fields around the area, along with the far-off sounds of seals and Pink Footed Geese overhead.

This scene serves as a more accessible introduction to the route, with more stereotypical choices for birds calls for the churchyard, namely the use of corvids (Carrion Crows and Western Jackdaws) leaning into the already present associations of that family of birds with graveyards and death, alongside the only bird of prey used within the whole route; a merlin. This tracks also serves as the first introduction to the harp motif mirroring the church bells, pedalling an E, along with St Cuthbert’s motif on both harp and celeste (using the Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra plugin). This track also introduces the theme for places of worship, a vocal arrangement St Cuthbert’s theme vaguely inspired by sections of Gregorian chant in counterpoint and is incorporated into the various chapels along the route. This scene also features the first time hearing the brass lurs panned far out of eyeshot, which serves as almost a foreshadowing of the later Nordic elements of the route as it progresses.

Lindisfarne - Places Past and Present: Site Specific Composition for Heritage Sites

Lindisfarne - Places Past and Present: Site Specific Composition for Heritage Sites

16 ECHOES

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The Echoes

Old Watchtower

Lookout on Wild Lindisfarne

St Cuthbert's Isle

Lifeboat Station

Churchyard to Beach

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Lindisfarne - Places Past and Present: Site Specific Composition for Heritage Sites

room 16 ECHOES

DOWNLOAD OUR APP TO DISCOVER THIS TOUR AND MANY OTHERS.

The Echoes

Old Watchtower

Lookout on Wild Lindisfarne

St Cuthbert's Isle

Lifeboat Station

Churchyard to Beach

Discover more geolocated content in our apps.

Are you a creator?

Get in touch

Echoes creative apps

Echoes labs

About us

16 ECHOES