Fascinating Looping

Cowal Music Club’s concert in Dunoon Burgh Hall last Sunday featured the highly impressive and versatile Steve Bingham, who performed an intriguing and varied programme using 3 violins and a highly effective looping system.

Based in Aberdeenshire, Steve has long been very interested not only in violin playing, but also variations on it such as those exploiting modern technology. He explained early in the concert that with his looping system, everything is performed ‘live’, whereby the performer builds up layer upon layer of  varied sound patterns, these including some very effective pedal notes and musical units repeated in consort with his own playing. Intriguingly, this means he can stop playing at times and let the musical structure created continue with the performance.

To enable this, Steve played on no fewer than 3 violins! One was conventional, while a second was electric (with 5 strings), and the third almost a hybrid, with 6 strings, and a consequently greater range, with the ability to create sounds like the viola and cello. It is quite a tour de force for a performer to cope with 3 different instruments as well as the looping technology, and Steve coped with all of this with ease and confidence.

Steve very ably introduced his programme, which embraced music ‘from Bach to the Beatles’, and indeed there were many amazing highlights, these including  arrangements based on Coldplay’s ‘Clocks’, Sir James McMillan’s very beautiful The Tryst, Pet shop Boys’ It’s a Sin,  and Michael Nyman’s Time lapse.  And two works by the young Leeds composer Rowan Alfred made an outstanding impression, being highly effective as well as often minimalist, with many fascinating rhythmic features. One started using a recording of cuckoo bird song, which indeed then formed the backdrop to the whole, highly imaginative and fascinating soundscape.  Another, Steve’s own arrangement of Beatle George Harrison’s While my guitar gently weeps, impressed with its quiet rhythmic introduction (including percussive sounds made by tapping  the body of the violin) and subsequent beauty of expression.

Sunday’s enthusiastic audience were obviously fascinated by the afternoon’s music making, and an extremely lively energetic encore for solo violin by Alex DePue was then played, which is based on Owner of a lonely Heart by the rock band ‘YES’, - a truly remarkable piece!