Composed by Helen Ottaway  Voice Caroline Radcliffe

 

Visual artist, and my frequent collaborator, Rowena Pearce introduced me to Lydia Needle and her bee project.  I visited the FIFTY BEES II exhibition in Langport in 2018, including a piece by Rowena and found it captivating and full of beautiful work.  As far as could tell there had not so far been a response in sound and so I proposed that I might compose a soundscape for the next exhibition.  The bee chosen for me is Andrena flavipes, the yellow-legged mining bee.  This is a solitary bee, quite common in southern England, with, as the name suggest, bright yellow legs.

I particularly love the fact that Lydia made this bee while by the sea in Cornwall.  Water is often a strong influence in my work and in this case it’s already woven into the making of Bee 108.  I used the sound of bees as the starting point for my piece.  Bees buzz by moving their flight muscles and wings as they fly. Mining bees also buzz while pollinating, vibrating the flowers to release the pollen.  The pitch of the buzz varies according to the bee’s size. Buzz-pollinating has its own distinctive sound. When I was given my brief, at the end of August last year, the bees were still flying so I was able to do some field recording to capture the buzzing that forms the basis of my piece.

So with the buzzing in my ears I sat at the piano, pencil in hand and notated to the best of my ability the pitches and patterns made by the bees.  The resulting melodies and patterns for voice all have their origins in the field bee recordings.  Along with notating the musical sounds made by the bees I have included some of the names of the flowers frequented by my bee.  Like me, this bee likes to forrage on brambles, hence the title.

The vocal parts are performed by singer and choir leader Caroline Radcliffe and recorded in her home studio in Frome. The voice starts by copying the bee sounds and then gradually turns the buzzing into interweaving melodic lines.

The piece needed to be played through something and housed in something and so Steve and I set about designing a bespoke box.  He found materials – foraged from our cellar and railway sites – and put together a plain and practical wooden box.  There’s just room for the playback devise, mini headphone amp and plugs inside and there are holes for the power cable and heaphone leads.  The headphones hang on a piece of broom handle slotted across the width of the box.  It’s all very self contained and simply needs to be plugged in to play.