back to SCORE 6

Descriptions from SCORE 6. CLIMB

DESCRIPTION ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEVEN

DESCRIPTION ONE

By John Purser - 7 June 2007 - On top of Ben Meabost, Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK.

There was no number in the air.
The human silence was only broken by a gentle whistle.
The whistle was made to hold the attention
Of a distant stag pausing also to listen,
But without giving an answer.
But there was an answer through the filigree of lark song
A few gentle whistles on a single note
The call of a Golden Plover

Pitch perfect in the sweet loneliness

Of the first unwritten score.

 

DESCRIPTION TWO

by David Balfe  - 7 June 2007 - On top of Ben Meabost, Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK.

I try to hear The17, all I hear is my mind. It says–

The great masses of the mountains are a music of their own, not the mathematical harmonies of the music of the spheres, but synaesthetic – those sheer blocks of stones are their own unheard sound.

Then I think of the Wagnerian Romantics that sought to capture these brooding magnificent presences, but I don't want to go there, to other music.

I try to get back to a fresh, empty mind to see what music might emerge into that silence. I quiet myself and listen. I hear the low rushing whistle of the wind through the grass and the stone cairn, I hear the distant pealing of birdsong, but nothing of The 17.

And then I become aware of my arrogance, and the sheer impertinence of man's pitiful creativity that could imagine his own music worthy of even idle contemplation when all he should be doing is worshipping the infinitely superior products of the original great creator.

Though many have used music to worship.

Maybe music by The17 should be music so humble as to question its own worthiness to exist?

No I'm wrong – a great song is the equal of a mountain range; a great songwriter the equal of any god.

Music may have been born out of man's attempt to recreate – in lowly places and dark hours - some mystical connection with the grandeur of all this. To recreate some morsel of nature's beauty when it has been cruelly removed by the night, or the oppression of crude and mundane civilisation.

Is music something sucked out of us by the vacuum of beauty's absence?

Or maybe music, for all its supposed virtue, actually is merely a product of man's pride. Born out of our insolent urge to compete with nature, or merely to impress our fellow man, or potential mates.

Or is it magic?

Or just what happens?

Or …?

But The17 is many people – ask a group of people what happens when they act together, not a single man what he thinks alone. This sublimely magnificent landscape forces me to contemplate myself as an insignificant individual. The17 is social.

In the end the mountains, the blue sea, the lochs, the bright sky, the awesome clarity of so much undigestible beauty is all too much. I can’t think about anything else. Put me in the dark and ask again.

I tried to hear The 17, all I heard was my mind dribbling as usual. Wait, is that The 17?

 

DESCRIPTION THREE

By Roger Marroquin - 13 May 2008 – On top of Cerro Alux, near San Lucas Sacatequez, Guatemala.

Natural Sincronia

mientras me abro paso rumbo arriba
y el viento se lleva mis temores
rodeado de cientos e intensos verdes
sintiendo la voz de la naturaleza susurrar a mi oido... preparando el "escenario"
encantado con una gran sensacion de tranquilidad.

Finalmente en la cima
mi mente y mi espiritu estan tan conectados
a esta enorme grandeza de naturaleza
como una consola humana.
diferentes frecuencias me invaden
empiezo este mantra, jimiendo solo la letra "M"

Derrepente ,despues de un minuto o un poco mas
abro mis ojos y todo a lo que dirijo mi vista
esta en perfecta armonia y ritmo con el sonido que produzco:
las hojas, las flores , hasta las piedras.

Esto es tan elevado y tan profundo
tan extraño..... tan pacifico

no estoy mas dentro de mi cuerpo
estoy danzando con el viento...
en una Sincronia natural.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

As i open my way up
And the wind blows my fears away
Surrounded by hundreds of intense different greens
Feeling the voice of nature whispering in my ear.... preparing the "stage".
Enchanted with a deep sense of tranquillity.

Finally at the top.
My mind and my spirit are now so connected
To this enormous grandeur of nature,
Like a human console.
Different frequencies invade me.
I started this mantra, humming just the "M"
Suddenly after a minute or so,
I open my eyes and everything i looked to,
Was in perfect harmony and balance with the sound I’m producing
The leaves, the flowers, even the stones...
This goes so high and so deep
So strange.... so peaceful
I’m no more inside my body,
I’m dancing with the wind....
In a natural synchronicity.

 

DESCRIPTION FOUR

by Tony Whitehead - Dawn 5 September 2008 - Bellever Tor, Dartmoor, Devon, UK

The wind whips around the tor,
tracing its sound
in the lines and
fissures of the granite.

It shapes the rocks.
Gives them a unique voice

...

I hear a choir
Holding a note.

Air forced out from the lungs,
tracing its sound
in the folds of the throat,
mouth and nasal cavity.

It shapes the choir.
Gives it a unique voice.

...

I listen now without thought.

Simply sit and let these sounds be.

Their harmonies and dissonance.
Their intensities.
Their movement.
All at once,
without the burden
of imagination, memory,  experience,
myth or history.

Just air moving.

This is the sound of the 17

 

DESCRIPTION FIVE

By Saul Taylor - July 2009 - Snowdonia, Wales, UK.

The first time I tried to think about the music on top of a mountain I was part of the 2009 Welsh 1000m Peaks race and it was stopped because of bad weather. The event is a foot race across Snowdonia that's based on an old military training exercise and it covers all four peaks that reach over 1000m, starting on the coast at Aber and ending on top of Snowdon. As my chance for peaceful consideration of music on top of a mountain had slipped by I took it upon myself to see all four peaks in a different day and listen to the noise as I went.

Whenever I take part in this kind of adventure I always begin by singing Brown Girl In The Ring as an ode to Joe Simpson, and it helps me to reconsider any whining I might do as I stretch my legs running across mountain tops and filling myself with the view and the air. Boney M lasted from Nant Peris public car park until about halfway up the hill to the saddle between Y Garn and Glyder Fawr. Going down to Idwal I passed some misplaced inner city Rockcorps volunteers who were beat boxing on the steps, and at the end of the day a mountain is for all of us, even the hip hoppers with bleach white shoes. The ascent of Pen Yr Ole Wen was marked by a jet fighter plane passing about 200 metres into the valley at my height. I stopped to watch the plane disappear and waited even longer for the rumble to stop rolling around in the Ogwen valley. The birds returned to their duties so I attended to mine.

The Carneddau ridge is high and exposed so the running was clean and Dafydd was passed with ease. All I could hear was my own breathing and the flashback snatches of the recent aborted race and other times I had spent on that ridge in high winds, torrential rain and a running vest. Walkers appeared ahead and beyond them were wild ponies, further to my left was the unmistakable desolation of Llywelyn and the sound started to change. Breathing gave way to recounting notes about how to run up hills, that in turn gave way to a tumbling recollection of the days weather forecast and that was replaced by mathematical chants about calorie intake and the time it would take to get down past the reservoir. At the summit of Carneddau Llywelyn Boney M had gone for good, breathing was back to normal and as I set off all I could hear was a childish scream of delight as I ran down the gravel path and on toward the A5.

My next task was to go up the often hateful cwm that reaches up to Y Foel Goch. The gravel crunch of the Carneddau was swapped for the energy sapping bog squelch of the Glyders and as I popped out of the top at Llyn y Caseg-Fraith I heard tinnitus ringing and wished I'd put those earplugs in at all those gigs I'd snuck into as a teenager. Passing Llyn Cwmffynnon I noticed the singing from the rocks for the first time and it's worth mentioning that rocks and indeed almost all things in your immediate environment sing and call out to you from time to time. I have managed to identify three types of song that the rocks sing; songs of encouragement that remind you that you can rise to the challenge ahead and to remain optimistic about future events, songs that speak of darker things and that serve to warn you of pitfalls that may lie ahead, and songs that are not sung at you or for you but with you and require you to be there before they can take place. The rocks were being kind to me as I crossed the craggy outcrops behind the hotel at Pen-y-Pass but I didn't have time to listen.

Tourist noise, extreme adventures, oversized watches, technical outerwear, walking poles, energy bars, car radios, bus holidays were all thick in the air in the car park. WIthin 20 metres it had all passed away and by the time I reached Bwlch y Moch I could hear the rocks again. By now they were buzzing and shouting, like bees in a jam jar. That mountain of rock that had survived for so long was once again pulling me upwards and pushing me back down, repeating the same message at every footfall that it would hurt, that it should always hurt but would hurt even more if I didn't make it.

At the finger post of the Miner's Track my legs gave way, I stumbled and took a head first dive into the mountain. I clawed at the scree, clearing a hole and began tunneling upwards, swimming through an eternity of rain soaked rock, squeezing through fissures and finding my way into gaps and crevices. The zig zags were gone, the obelisk was gone, Carnedd Ugain was passed without a mention and finally I burst onto Snowdon among tourists fresh from the train and walkers fresh from the cafe. I touched the trig point and melted back into the cairn. The song of the mountain came to me and I drank it all in. A noise like no other that was conceived millions of years ago and which can never be found had brought me here for one more time. It sang and I sang back. All the atoms and subdivisions of myself joining in with their own voice in a sea of sound where the waves continually crashed and recombined to become even more profound and direct. Sound that has no sound and we can never step into the same river twice.

Clouds rolled in as the descent started and spilled up Clogwyn and over onto the green side of Snowdon. Those clouds were like the music, inconsistent and intangible but always there and impossible to live without. I hoped that music in the future would be more like a cloud and that we would do away with electronics to allow it to seep out of the environment in the same way that colour does, without barriers or end. Until then I'll have to settle with the nagging pull of the mountain and it's stealthy counterpart the sea on every minute and every second I have to spare.

The pain came back to me during that long dance back down the hill. Flip flopped tourists chattered to each other and I paused to look at the indian face of the black cliff half covered in white mist. I sang some Frank Zappa in my head to stop the throbbing and remember Johnny and his disjointed rants about the music that rocks make.

 

DESCRIPTION SIX

By Jennifer Woroniak - 8 August 2010 – On top of Mount Fuji, Japan.

Mount Fuji Summit
A hundred ears attempt to hear
Natures echoes
Of a Thousand years
Trying to hear
Amongst the company of others
Strains the heart
And makes me cry
A paradigm shift
Breaking dawn
A combined chorus
Followed by calm
A choir of thousands
Release a call of 17
Descending into midst
Forming nature’s gentlest wrath.
The harmony of wind
Meets the rumble of volcanic rock
As I hear my imagination become part of the call
And move my weary limbs.
Descend.
The scorched rock aches
Beneath my feet
Listen, pause and delete

 

DESCRIPTION SEVEN

By Claudel Casseus – 30 August 2010.

Montay Boutilye

Pandan tout tan mwen tap viv, mwen pat janm imajine menm nan yon segond ki bote lanati genyen. Ebyen jounen jodia, mwen reyalize ke sel mayen ki egziste pou yon moun dekouvri bote sa a, se le ou ale yon kote byen lwen, detache de tout bri la sosyete, yon ti kote silansye tankou nan yon ti jaden femen ou byen sou yon montay byen wo,epi pou ou ap obseve tout sa lanati genyen ladann. Le mwen mete lespri'm byen lwen pou mwen egzamine diferan son ke'm tande pandan mwen pou kont mwen sou montay la, tankou: Chanson zwazo nan bwa yo, ki bay entansyon leve tet gade syel la, pou we yon koule ki fe ke kontan, kri zandolit yo ki bay enpresyon ke lanati ap vibre, kok kap chante pou fe konnen ki le liye, chyen kap jape pou fe enkoni kap pase yo pe,bourik kap ranni pou fe santi ke li grangou, bef kap miji pou annonse swaf li, koulev kap soufle bay sansasyon ke zeb yo ap pale, kabrit kap bele pou montre chale soley la, gwo van kap soufle nan pye bwa yo menen'w tou dwat nan yon inive majik. Gen yon paket lot anko ke mwen pa gen mo pou defini paske bote sa yo avek vid ke mwen resanti a provoke yon ekstaz nan lespri mwen ki koz mwen santi'm yon dye, paske tout kri bet sa yo ak gwo van sa kap soufle nan pye bwa yo fe'w santi ke wap tande yon mizik nan yon silans byen amonize. Ebyen pou vale bel son yon moun ka tande le ou nan yon andwa konsa, se yon bagay ki fe apel avek anpil imajinasyon.

Kounye a si'm ta vle pale de sa mwen santi, mwen panse ka gen yon diferans nan esplikasyon chak moun, men! Se pa nan sansasyon, paske toutjan depi yon moun chache jan de andwa sa yo pou yo pase yon moman w'ap preske santi menm bagay, men li enpotan anpil pou'm esplike kijan mwen te santi'm yon kote konsa. Premye sansasyon ke'm te genyen se te bel efe inesplikab koule vet pye bwa yo, akonpanye ak koule ble lanme a ki te tre lwen de mwen, fe yon efe sou je mwen ak nan lespri mwen, ou pa ta di se chemen ki bay la vi a menm! Ke'm t'ap gade, dezyeman gen yon bon van, e van sa travese'm pou rive nan tout branch cheve'm, sa pouse'm a yon imajinasyon ki depase'm e le'm fe 5 segond san kem pa panse ak anyen, ke obseve tout sa ki devan mwen, rapidman mwen santim nan yon gwo silans ki ap goumen tre lwen ak yon bri e finalman le mwen leve tet mwen pou'm gade syel la, mwen we ke'm nan yon nouvo mond, anverite, anverite se premye fwa mwen te santi'm byen konsa.........

Boutilier Mountain
Translated from Hatian Kreyòl into English by Leah Gordon

During all the time I have lived, I never imagined, even for one second, what beauty nature contains. And yet today, I realised that the only way that a person can discover this beauty, it is when you go to a place very far away, detached from all the noise of society. A little quiet place like a small enclosed garden or otherwise on a very high mountain. Then you can observe all that nature contains within itself. When I let my spirit travel far I can examine the different sounds that I hear whilst I am alone on the mountain, like the birdsong in the trees that compels you to lift your head to the sky above to see a colour that makes your heart content. The cries of the lizards can give you the impression that nature is vibrating whilst the cock is crowing to tell you the time. The dogs are barking to hide their fear whilst the donkeys are braying to pronounce their hunger and the cows bellowing their thirst. Snakes whistle to give the sensation that the grass is speaking, the goats are bleating to say the sun is hot and a wind blows in the trees that can take you straight away to a magical universe. There are so many more things that I haven't even the words to describe because contemplating these beauties along with the emptiness that I am feeling in my soul will provoke an ecstasy in my spirit which will cause me to feel God. Because the cries of the beasts and the winds blowing in the trees make you feel that you are hearing music and silence harmonising together. And to know the value of a lovely sound like this, you must listen in a place like this. It is a thing that appeals to your imagination.

These days when I want to express my feelings, I feel I think that I have different explanations for different people. But, with this type of sensation, however a person searches for places like this to pass a moment, they seem to think they feel the same thing. But it is very important for me to explain how I felt in a place like this. The first experience was the inexplicably beautiful effect made by the green of the tress accompanied by the blue of the far away sea. This affected my eyes at the same time as my soul, this is really the reality and way that gives one true life! Secondly there was a good wind, a wind that swept across to rustle all the strands of my hair, a feeling that grew into an imagining that overtook me completely and I didn't think of anything with my mind or my heart for a while, apart from observing everything in front of me. Rapidly I felt myself to be in a huge silence which is in battle with a far away noise, and finally when I lifted my head to see the sky I saw that I was in a new world, in absolute truth, absolute truth, it was the first time that I ever felt this well.........