Moving from drums, gongs, chimes and bells to rocket nose cones is a natural progression for the percussive professor Michael W. Udow.
Not one to let something he can beat get away, Udow purchased several of the cones at sales conducted by the government outside Los Alamos, New Mexico, and uses them along with cow bells, brake drums, clock springs, Buddhist prayer bells and the jawbone of an ass to create his brand of music.
A scavenger of sound sources and principal percussionist with the Santa Fe Opera Company, Udow can also turn himself into an instrument with a burst of body-slapping and hamboning. He even enjoys and can imitate the intricate rhythms of windshield wipers.
Although nose cones are designed for warfare and ancient bells for peaceful meditation, Udow finds that they share musical qualities. "They have more than one pitch center and similar shapes," he says, "and they are metal alloys. Greek church bells and ancient Chinese and Japanese bells share these characteristics."
Udow also sheds light on the biblical story of Samson. When the mighty hero found a "new jawbone of an ass" to slay "heaps upon heaps" of Philistines, he might have been wielding a musical instrument rather than a piece of desert litter.
"The jawbone," Udow says, "comes from folk tradition. In antiquity, the bones of donkeys and other farm animals were honed into tools and fashioned into instruments. The jawbone can be struck, shaken or scraped, characteristics of most percussion instruments.
. . . June 1996
