Hi chums, Caitlin here today. I'm re-sharing all my blog posts on the making of our album The Promise. I'm starting with the last track first! Call of the Clans is the final track on the album and holds a special place in my heart. I have waxed lyrical in this blog post, so if you love history and music, then put your feet up! XX
Call
of the Clans
'A
lone piper stands sentinel on the Scottish hillside,
As
through the heavy mists, the clansmen advanced.
From
the far corners of Scotland they came,
United
against a common foe
To
fight for freedom
In
a battle that would echo through the ages
As
one of the bloodiest of them all;
Culloden.'
And
so we reach the end...the final track...Call of the Clans!
If you've read every post on every song, I thank you!
Well,
Call of the Clans….Neil and I did 'um and ahh' over whether
to include this track on the album. It is very different from
every other song and we did worry a tad that people wouldn't like it
for that reason. But we felt that it was the right thing to do, so we
decided to make it the final track and finish the album in dramatic
style.
There is much to say about Call of
the Clans, so settle down with a nice hot beverage and a biscuit
of choice!
Funnily
enough, this track began life as an instrumental piece on another
album entirely. In actual fact, it still is on a chill out album and
has a distinct North African feel to it. (In case you're wondering,
we haven't released that track yet).
I
really loved the melody and felt it could work in a Celtic style, if
we altered the drums and used Celtic instrumentation. With this
track, I had a vision in my head of what I wanted and tried to relay
this to Neil. At this point in the creative process Neil can often be
found scratching his head and muttering a lot!
The
inspiration
If you've been reading my blogs you'll
have guessed by now that I love history and literature and I
particularly love the Tudor/Elizabethan/Jacobean period. Never tiring
of reading about the drama surrounding Elizabeth 1st and
Mary Stuart, I had just finished reading the fabulous novel Legacy1
(again!) when we were developing the album. I then happened to watch
Rob Roy2
(superb film!) and I was carried away with the drama of it all.
Inspired by the wild Scottish heartlands and the passion and bravery
of the people, I wanted to include something on The Promise. I
loved the idea of the rival clans from all over the Scottish
highlands uniting as one to fight the English. I could see it and
hear it in my mind and decided to try and craft a track about another
famous period in history; the Battle of Culloden.
Neil loved the idea but was a little
concerned that we wouldn't be able to recreate it musically. Well, we
did our best and, in the end, it's for you, the listener to decided
if we managed it! Eek! Answers on a postcard please! :-)
The
Music
Initially,
as I mentioned earlier, Call of the Clans was a 'new age' type
track with a North African feel, on a chill out album. For its
inclusion on The Promise, we kept the vocal but added
Celtic instruments around it, with the hope that it still worked as a
melody within the Celtic context. Call of the Clans is not a
song per-Se and so when I talk about the vocal, I'm referring to the
vocal melody that is 'hummed' throughout the piece. Apart from the
intro. narration, the only other vocals on the track are the Latin
chants at the end. Talking of the narration, I know it's a little odd
to find some 'talking' in a musical piece, but I'll explain! Once the
music was all down on tape (am I still in the 80's here?) we worked
on the introduction. Setting the scene for this track was very
important as we were telling a story; a true story at that. I wanted
the listener to hear the winds howling through the hills and get a
sense of the magnitude of the events that were to follow on that day.
I wrote a little narrative and read it out to Neil over the intro. It
sounded effective and added atmosphere but something was not quite
right...yes, you've guessed it...me! Not to put too fine a point on
it, but my spoken voice is not very sonorous, it's a little flat and
dare I say, tinny! We needed a voice with depth and gravitas. So Neil
was out too! Joking aside, Neil's voice wasn't right either and,
besides, he doesn't do 'acting'!
So,
I began searching online for voice-over artists and found the
wonderful Scottish actor John Hannibal. John agreed to do the
narration and sent us several 'takes' with different inflections,
speeds, accent variations etc., all of which were brilliant.
Ironically, we chose his final, once more for luck, 'throwaway' take.
As soon as Neil placed John's narration into the track, we knew it
had that extra dimension we were looking for. I'm sure you'll agree
John's voice is wonderful and sounds fantastic. Who needs Sean
Connery?!
Listen
to Call of the Clans here.
N.B. The narration actually started
with,
'1745... a lone piper stands
sentinel...'
But as I'd got the bloomin' date of
the battle wrong, (it's 1746), we had to cut it as we didn't have
time for John to re-do it. Shame, as it sounded splendid!
A musical battle of wills...wild
Celts against 'regimented soldiers'.
There
is a little bit of binary opposition3
(say what?) going on in this piece, creating (hopefully) a musical
dialogue of opposing forces.
The
wildness and freedom of the clans represented by the Scottish pipes
and my glissando vocals, both chromatic and rubato, contrasted with
the strict percussion, tonal strings and military snare drum
symbolising the regimented control of the English redcoats creates
the musical 'battle'. In addition, further symbolising the victory of
the 'English colonisers', we added the Latin chanting ('In nominee
Patris' - in the name of God) towards the end, gradually increasing
in volume to represent the English troops completely overwhelming the
brave, but massively outnumbered, clansmen.
Holy
malone...the middle!
Yes,
we went a bit OTT with the middle but we felt it was necessary due to
the nature of the track. Bearing in mind the limited resources at
Neil's disposal, in terms of orchestra, (ie. None!), I think he
surpassed himself with the orchestration. The crescendo in the middle
highlights the intensity and drama of the battle adding a cinematic
feel to the whole track.
In fact, award-winning film director Richard Bazley of Bazley Films approached us to use 'Call of The Clans' in his exciting new film George and the dragon. We said yes, of course!!
Watch the trailer here.
As our production software in 2014 was of limited scope, we do plan, at some point, to revisit the whole album & take advantage of our new beautiful orchestral sounds from Spitfire Audio to add even more gravitas & depth to this track.
(Author's note 2023)
So,
there you have it...Call of the Clans – demystified!
I've
added a link in the footnotes if any geeks out there would like to
read up on binary opposition in literature! Also, do check out Rob
Roy if you can. It's an excellent film and has the
added attraction of the sublime Scottish singer Karen Matheson
performing Ailein Duinn. If you recall, this is where I first
heard the song, Ailein Duinn and decided to put it on The
Promise.
1Legacy,
Susan Kay 1985
2Rob
Roy, 1995 film starring Liam Neeson, directed by Michael
Caton-Jones. Based on the life of Rob Roy MacGregor.
3
Binary opposition -
http://study.com/academy/lesson/binary-oppositions-in-literature-list-of-examples.html
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