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ragazzi:
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At what age did you develop an interest in music? Did
your family or a teacher promote this interest?
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Frank:
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“At 15 and ¾ years of age (Spring 1964).
Nobody promoted the interest. I was about
to leave school and was wondering what career I’d follow when I
thought I might be a musician. Someone was playing a drum rhythm
on a desk (“Wipeout”) I asked him to show me. I got it right
away. I asked him for more and he sent me to the guy who showed
him that rhythm. The next guy showed me two standard rock beats. I
got them down in ten minutes. Next day I asked him for more so he
sent me to the guy who taught him (the top drummer in the whole
school of 900 boys) and he showed me jazz rhythm and independence.
I got that down in less than an hour. I went back next day and
asked him to show me more. He couldn’t believe that I could do
it so quickly so he asked me to show him. When I did he swore and
said that it was 5 years before he could do it. Then he said,
“You’d better get yourself some sticks.” That’s all the
training I had. Around 5 years later I went on a jazz course and
learnt to read drum music in a couple of lessons and then wrote
out my own exercises. That’s all the teaching I’ve ever had in
music or sound.”
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ragazzi:
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"Have you been interested only in rhythm and drums
or did/do you play other instruments like piano, violin, flute,
guitar etc.?”
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Frank:
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“I never played any instruments before
drums. During early 70s I bought some Chinese flutes and I like to
play them – also a Sheng (Chinese mouth organ [played on Ovary
Lodge - Ogun] and a Chinese trumpet – also used in TEE-PEE - a
duet with flautist David Toop from mid 70s for a few years) and I
sing Tibetan Tantric undertone chanting (1972/3) and Mongolian
overtones (1980) – both self-taught and immediate. I was given a
guitar by Roger Smith during late 70s and I spent time discovering
how to restrict my listening in order to tune it! When he came
back round he said I’d got it perfectly in tune!”
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ragazzi:
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“What kind of popular music (pop, rock, jazz, classical
music, world music etc.) has the most spiritual power in your
opinion?”
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Frank:
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“That which is created by spiritually
evolved musicians/composers (or those through whom spiritual music
is allowed to pass unconsciously) whatever the category. Of
course, rock music is mostly for dance and sex and so for Root
chakra and therefore lower spiritual energies. In World Music:
Sacred music from all religious backgrounds especially Tibetan
chanting, Japanese Zen Buddhist, Indian classical (especially
Dhrupad) derived from a spiritual tradition; in jazz: late John
Coltrane & early Albert Ayler – to an extent the musical
forms will restrict or liberate spiritual energy e.g. a blues band
with song titles about UFOs/whatever will not truly resonate with
their chosen message as the form is derived from human misery
whilst pop songs are for teenagers, or younger, experiencing
heartache or anarchic reactions to authority, etc – which could
be considered spiritual (although not powerfully so!). MUSIC FOR
ZEN MEDITATION by Tony Scott is an old favourite from mid 60s.”
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ragazzi:
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“Was there a special key event for your interest in
sound bowls, gongs and metal sounds in general or did it develop
“organically”?”
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Frank:
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“Whilst I was seeking how to spiritualise my
drumming I heard Jon Stevens (S.M.E. – in 1968) play a dinner
gong and realised that this was the kind of instrument I should
search for. My father bought me one very soon after that from a
junk shop (I still have it) and since then hundreds of metal
instruments have come to live with me.”
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ragazzi:
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“Are there any recordings of your drumming with HENRY
COW?”
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Frank:
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“I have something on R2R – can’t
remember what the quality is like. 3&3/4 mono, one single
cheap microphone, and the tapes are almost 40 years old! (I left
Mildenhall – near Cambridge where I rehearsed with Henry Cow -
in January 1970).”
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ragazzi:
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“Are some of the jazz records, you played on in the
seventies, still available?”
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Frank:
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“Blueprint & Ovary Lodge – originally on RCA/Victor
label are both available on CD but not on RCA/Victor.
FRAMES – music for an imaginary
film, on Ogun is available
as a double CD.”
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ragazzi:
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“Opened playing jazz the door to improvisation for
you?”
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Frank:
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“Yes – at least consciously. I later
realised that I was improvising with the blues band (Black Cat
Bones with the late Paul Kossoff of FREE fame on lead guitar) and
this was why they found me difficult and ultimately unsuitable for
their desire to recreate old blues records. When I left the
Chicago Blues band to play jazz I went straight into group
improvisation as this was happening in 1968 – total
improvisation (not even any discussions). I never really played
‘jazz’ except for a summer season in Penzance, Cornwall 1970
playing in a jazz trio although it did play some Ornette Coleman
and Coltrane tunes.”
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ragazzi:
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“What is your favourite of your
recordings and why?”
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Frank:
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 “I answered this last because it is so very hard! I can say
that I love whatever one I am listening to at the time! I can say
that I like some because of the memories of who I was with and the
energies present. I can say that it is DEEP PEACE
because whenever I am ill I listen to it and it heals me. I can
say that it is CHAKRA HEALING (2001) because I had
to wait so long for the recording opportunity and it has decades
of research and unfoldment behind it and it is a milestone in my
work (as was DEEP PEACE - 1980). I sometimes think
that if I died, or stopped making music now, then CHAKRA
HEALING would have fulfilled my musical aims in this
lifetime. But DEEP PEACE was a remarkable
achievement – even if I say so myself (along with many critics
and friends, etc). Each of my recordings is as individual as my
instruments! Even though I now have 11 Tibetan Singing Bowl CDs
released – they are each different! I don’t like to repeat
myself!”
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ragazzi:
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“How did you become an endorsee for PAISTE in 1973?”
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Frank:
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“Evan Parker (who I had played with in The
Frank Perry Trio and was also friends with – Michael Sullivan
the Alto sax player in our group Musicians Union,
had been friends with Evan and we often visited his home) knew
Pierre Favre. I bought a pair of PAISTE hi-hats from Pierre. I was
later advised to apply (maybe by Trevor Taylor and/or Paul Lytton)
and send my records, etc. My application was accepted.”
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ragazzi:
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“You invented many metal instruments (Petalumines,
Pyrahermeezees, Pyrotahermeezees, Trianguhermeezees, Ufoms, Sun
Rays and Spirotapetals); is there a chance for other musicians to
buy these instruments – maybe PAISTE would be interested in
producing some of them.”
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Frank:
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“I doubt it. I’ve only made them by hand
(laboriously) and it takes around 8 hours for one. If
PAISTE were convinced that they could sell lots of these then they
might invest in the technology to produce them more easily than by
hand.”
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ragazzi:
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“Can you try to describe your compositional techniques
to synthesise a balance between formless and formal aspects of
musical improvisation with your bowls and gongs?”
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Frank:
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“As an example, one technique that I use,
as applied to the field of harmony, is to put bowls together that
are in sympathy with each other’s spiritual nature. For
instance, if I am playing a bowl that produces the quality of
Peace, then any other bowl that I choose to play along with it
must also produce spiritual peace or it may radiate a different
quality should I choose to move away from this spiritual peace.
Another would be to use repetition but in a metamorphosic manner
where notes are added or subtracted – e.g. a five-note phrase
could be repeated on different instruments of higher or lower
pitch; it could be extended to six and then seven notes, or seven
then nine. I can cast an astrological horoscope for the time and
place of performance. From this I can determine certain musical
parameters that are in harmony with the energies of the horoscope.
I can then use these sound fields as a loose structure that can be
abandoned if inspiration during performance takes off – or take
these sound fields as loose guidance for informing the direction
of the improvisation.
This would be like going on a planned holiday
to visit a certain place where there are certain visits you’d
like to make – say, like visiting England and wanting to go to
Oxford Street or Stonehenge. Then when in England somebody tells
you about an exciting place to go to and so you abandon going to
oxford Street, whatever/whichever. Maybe on the way to Oxford
Street you pass a really interesting Music Shop selling rare and
hard to find CDs. So you stop your ‘plans’ and go into the
shop and forget about time and schedules.
My music has a ‘hidden’ aspect and this is
the spiritual purpose of a piece. This is like a Key signature.
Everything that is played assists this Key purpose to actualise.
This is why the silences in my music are not silent; it is not
that nothing is happening, only that the outer silence allows the
hidden meaning to materialise! There is a link here to Nada Yoga
– the Yoga of Sound (most especially the Anahata Nada or
Unstruck sound). The sounds chosen are related to the inner silent
sound of my music. Not always – spontaneity sometimes allows
more contrast – and sometimes it is necessary to make
contradictory sound fields in order to actualise the dynamics
found in the horoscope for that time and place or in order to
transform the energy and consciousness of the audience in order to
bring them more in line with the forces present in that larger
(astrological) environment.”
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ragazzi:
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“On your website (www.frankperry.co.uk)
you mentioned PAISTE Symphonic Tuned Gongs that are attuned to the
astrological signs; can you specify the concrete models?”
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Frank:
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“In my article I mentioned that this is what
I found – not what PAISTE state. Low C vibrates to constellation
of Virgo, D# higher to Taurus, G# higher to Cancer, A in middle C
octave to Aquarius, etc. That’s all I’m happy to share.”
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ragazzi:
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“You “invented” a special form of sound healing,
the so-called “Spiritual Sound Healing”; how does this method
work and is it possible for everybody practicing the Spiritual
Sound Healing?”
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Frank:
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“Well, in theory, it is possible for everybody to practise it,
in principle, but probably few in practise. The healers would need
to possess certain gifts that I possess. Any body can
possess these gifts – but few
 do!
There are ways around this – to compensate – but it would need
to be that I find them bowls that will really do the job and then
teach them how to use these particular bowls of theirs and then
other things that are more to do with spiritual colour healing and
astrology and chakras and nadis, etc. This is because my system
works upon the Aura and especially the Chakras and uses the
spiritual aspects of sound (not simply scientific sound).
Sometimes people ponder “What is the note
for Fire?” But if one found that note and then stuck that key
down on a synthesiser and left it playing even for days or weeks
– would it burn the house down? NO, it wouldn’t. If a
magician-musician plays that note with spiritual intent then fire
can manifest! So there is sound and there is ‘spiritual sound’
– that which is allied to the spiritual consciousness-being of a
musician-initiate-adept.”
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ragazzi:
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“Is there a special “trick” in selecting sound
bowls that work upon the chakras or can it be simply felt by the
resonance phenomena which may be called “good vibrations” in
this case? What other instruments apart from the Chakra Gongs of
PAISTE can you recommend to stimulate the chakras?”
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Frank:
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“I would not recommend the PAISTE Chakra
Gongs as I do not agree that they work on the chakras. One must
have worked with one’s own chakras for some considerable period
of time to the point that one’s chakras are sufficiently
awakened to be able to recognise when a sound is affecting any one
specific chakra or not. So, yes, you could say that there is a
special ‘trick’ but very few people (only an expert) can apply
this trick!”
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ragazzi:
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“How did you get in contact with the music of Alan
Hovhaness? What other so called classical composers use many
different sounding metals in their work?”
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Frank:
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“I was a member of The Francis Bacon Society
(as was Alan Hovhaness) and some of the old ladies there spoke to
me of his music as they knew that I had Eastern instruments and
they spoke of Hovhaness as blending Eastern & Western musics.
Other composers would be Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Giacinto
Scelsi, John Cage, Lou Harrison, Alain Kremski, Eduoard Michael,
Morton Feldman.”
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ragazzi:
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“Do you have any plans of combining the sounds of gongs
and bowls with other percussion instruments (drumset, vibraphone,
marimba, balaphone, Latin Perc., Indian Perc., African Perc.
Chinese Perc., Gamelan etc.) to create a percussion concerto with
entertaining as well as therapeutic aspects; I read that one of
your sons is a good drummer.”
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Frank:
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“No I do not. Of course, when I played with
Ovary Lodge, etc, in early 70s, I already had various gongs and
bells and metal objects (car hub caps, car gear wheels, glass
bells and bowls, cow/sheep/goat/camel-bells, etc [metallica])
around my drumset alongside skull blocks and Chinese woodblocks
and various windchimes.”
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ragazzi:
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“I think it would be very interesting if a man with
your knowledge of sounds would play and record on a drumset with
many metal sounds like Alex Cline, Andrea Centazzo or Pierre Favre
do; also possible would be a drumset-duet with your son or a duet
of drumset and your metal sounds.”
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Frank:
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“Of course, Alex Cline is very influenced by
my playing – especially from those early days with Ovary Lodge
and the Frank Perry Trio (Evan Parker & Derek Bailey)
– perhaps the nearest was my percussion
solo on FRAMES the Keith Tippett large band called Ark – where I
play metallic sounds alongside woodblocks, etc. Otherwise, there
was the solo on the RCA/Victor Ovary Lodge album (AMETHYST, GOLD,
& ROYAL BLUE MY WAY OF SAYING THANKYOU), there is also the
solo piece WEDGED INTO RELEASE on the LP FOR
THE LOVE OF. . . . also with a duet with Evan Parker on the Italian label
(from 1972) otherwise my live solo piece from 1973 recorded at the
Wigmore Hall as part of the MUSIC NOW series called THE
TRIBE SALUTES YOU IN MEMORY OF MANY LIFETIMES
(the concert was on the very day my father died and so it is
dedicated to him) and there is another unreleased solo titled THROUGH
THE WALL, A LIGHT recorded for the B.B.C. at Alexander
Palace North London 1973 or thereabouts. Otherwise, there is an
amateur recording of
The Frank Perry Trio and also of The Derek Bailey Group, both from
1972, featuring such a set-up that may get released sometime soon.
The Ovary Lodge solo was released, alongside my solo for The
Improvising Percussionist (Mountain Angel from Venus
1973/74), last year on Tibetan Singing Bowls Volume 11, whilst the
latter appears on the Improvising Percussionist CD released on FMP.”
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ragazzi:
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“Can you recommend some meditation exercises
accompanied by sound bowls or gongs, especially for children?”
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Frank:
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“I don’t know how much space you have for
this question. To describe one exercise would
take a lot of words. It would also depend on the ages of the
children. Briefly, I would probably use Tibetan Bells (Dingsha)
and explore improvisation. Otherwise, I think that it would be to
do with listening to a bowl and when they hear the sound end.”
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ragazzi:
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“What tips can you give somebody that wants to buy
sound bowls?”
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Frank:
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“The main thing is to listen to the quality.
Try to make sure that the sound a bowl makes has many sounds. This
requires a good ear. I played a bowl to a sound engineer and he
could only hear one sound – I could hear five! Listen if it has
a loud overtone; listen to see whether the bass (fundamental)
sound has a fast or slow pulse. Listen repeatedly to the sound of
the bowl and try very hard to concentrate to notice what effect
the sound of the bowl has upon YOU. Some new bowls can sound good
– so it isn’t necessary to only buy old bowls as the sellers
can sometimes charge more for the age of the bowl. If the bowl
rings on for over 20 seconds after striking it, then it will most
probably sound ok rubbing it around the rim. Some bowls sound good
only when struck whilst others only when rubbed. Beech is a good
wood to try bowls with as it works well on nearly all bowls. It
doesn't matter if the bowls are from Bengal, Orissa, Bhutan,
Manipura - only if they sound good when played and if they speak
to the buyer. Often the sticks that they sell with the bowls are
not right for the bowl. They give you the same size stick even if
the bowl is 3 inches diameter or 18 inches diameter! Often they
are not the right kind of wood. For Yang
bowls (with a thick rim) one needs hard woods - for a Yin bowl
(same thickness wall and rim) a softer wood is needed.”
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ragazzi:
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“A sound bowl should consist of seven different metals;
do you agree?”
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Frank:
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“No. They can be made of anything from 3 to
12. It is very hard to tell. One
has to know about certain things – like the astrological rulers
of the seven metals - and also one must be able to feel the
energetic presence of those planets; one must have meditated for
long periods on the energy of each planet then one knows, for
instance, that there is gold in the bowl. One cannot tell only
from looking at the metal, and the seller is hardly ever to be
believed, and the modern bowl-makers are clever at disguising e.g.
Red Copper can be used to make it appear more golden colour.”
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ragazzi:
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“Are there any diseases that can be allayed or even
healed by sound bowls or gongs?”
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Frank:
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 “I have cured all sorts of things with bowls. I do not use
gongs for healing. A lady with a low rumbling sound in her head
since birth was cured in one sitting, a guy came with a broken
wrist in agony and the pain went after 5 minutes, a lady came who
had to change bodily position every two minutes but stayed in one
position for 60 minutes – the entire session, a lady currently
has breast cancer and is responding very well (she’s been twice) – BUT it is more to do
with the healer than the instruments! I have a beautiful 12th
century Heat chakra bowl and people would often go “Ah –
beautiful” and I sometimes used to say, “Would it sound the
same if Mrs Thatcher played it?”
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ragazzi:
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“Is it possible to learn how to use sound bowls in a
therapeutic way by books? What book(s) can you recommend in such a
case?”
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Frank:
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“Not really. I
just came back from Gong Camp over here. The main organiser plays
and sells bowls. In his shop it said, “Bowls for meditation and
sound healing”. But I couldn’t find any that he sold that were
for sound healing. Actually, they had good sound but none were
special – either for meditation or healing. Most books simply
use a system based upon our C Major scale – bowls are not made
in this scale or any scale. Each single bowl is individual.
Sorting through hundreds of bowls, some create a sound that
affects a certain chakra. Then I must study what does it do to
that chakra? The main problem is that every single bowl is unique
and has an individual sound – they even have an individual
sequence of overtones.
There are no rules – you cannot say that the
larger the bowl the deeper the tone. Some bowls are much smaller
than others but sound deeper in pitch than larger bowls. This is
to do with their design. I have discovered 45 different styles of
bowls. Firstly, there are Yang and Yin bowls and these have very
different sounds and affects. You could find two bowls that look
similar but sound different. So how can you write that you use
this type of bowl this way? You have to hear the bowl the person
wishes to use. Also the bowl can sound different according to what
you play it with and how you play it – do you grip the wand hard
or soft; how do you hold the bowl; do you press hard or soft; do
you use a hard wood or soft wood; do you use a thin wood or thick
wood, etc? For instance, you can only determine what a specific
bowl does when it makes the right sound – especially so with
Water bowls.”
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ragazzi:
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“Where did you get your Tibetan Bowls from?”
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Frank:
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“My Talking Bowl (over 1,000
years old, very, very rare) was brought over for me by the great
Tibetan Master Dilgo Khyntse Rinpoche – teacher of Dalai Lama
and Head of the Nyingma School (since reincarnated). Some (like my
Panic Bowl and the Whistling Bowl) I
swapped with (Tibetologist and retired bowl player) Dr Alain
Presencer others I bought from him, others I bought from shops and
other dealers. I have never gone abroad – they have all come to
me.”
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ragazzi:
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“Is there a chance to see and hear you in Germany in
the near future?”
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Frank:
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“If I am
invited and if it is practicable.”
Frank
Bender
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