Playing music with pineapples

Savinder Bual and Rowan Bishop carried 10 different instruments through the foyer of the Colston Hall on a recent Thursday afternoon in preparation for a rehearsal taking place later in the day.

“Oh, the pineapples are back!” a Colston Hall member of staff exclaimed as he saw what Savinder and Rowan were carrying. For these are no ordinary instruments, but unique designs featuring two, three and four strings all with one common element: they are all made with pineapples.

Savinder takes four to five hours stringing the instruments before they are played; each time with a fresh pineapple which a bow spins, with the sound created by the fruit’s sharp leaves plucking the strings.

When artist Savinder, who lives in the city centre, first had the ideas for pineapple instruments, she did not have an end goal in mind but then an opportunity presented itself at the Colston Hall around the theme of the venue’s change of name.

“I wanted to address the issue in quite a playful way, using the history of the pineapple as a parallel,” Savinder said before Thursday’s second rehearsal of The Pineapple Band, whose members are drawn from across Bristol from Lockleaze to Stoke Bishop.

Pineapples were used as trophies by European royalty as a symbol of their power and control over the new world, with Savinder seeing a theme in Edward Colston’s trade in slaves.

“This has now been turned on its head from having negative connotations to quite positive ones, using that dark history to create an inclusive and joyful environment,” she said.

Savinder and composer Rowan are two-thirds of the creative team behind this project, with designer Elena Blanco also helping to create the instruments out of gourd with the help of professional musical instrument makers.

For Rowan, who lives in St Paul’s, the project is an opportunity to let his creative juices flow. To his knowledge, nobody has ever composed music for pineapples before.

“They are not one thing or another, but they do share characteristics of other instruments,” said Rowan, likening the pineapple creations to a mandolin, tambula and sitar.

“There are no conventions around pineapple instruments. I can do whatever I want from them really.”

One thing that Rowan has done is to compose the still-untitled piece in the key of F sharp major.

Writing in 1806 about the history of classical music, Christian Schubert likened this particular key to the theme of triumph over evil.

“I thought that was fitting for the name change,” Rowan said. “Overcoming this problem with Bristol’s colonial past and presenting something positive.”

A variety of instruments ready for The Pineapple Band’s second rehearsal

Milling around before the rehearsal began later in the evening, the musicians (some of who had never played an instrument before) chatted to each other, with slices of pineapple on plates for the peckish next to homemade rock cakes.

“Okay pineapple gang, would you like to make your way to the pit,” Rowan said over a microphone, before demonstrating the technique of how to play the instrument to a new member of the band who had missed last week’s first rehearsal.

Instruments were officially allocated and sheet music projected onto a screen, with ‘tap’, ‘strum’ and ‘slide’ the three methods of playing.

Tappers tapped, strummers strummed and sliders slid, and as if by magic order was created from chaos. What at first sounded south Asian, the sitar-esque sounds dominating, morphed thanks to a spinning session to what sounded like the strings section of a classical orchestra tuning up before a recital.

“Sounds glorious,” Savinder said with a beaming smile on her face having heard this particular sound played by a full band for the first time.

Once the evening’s rehearsal had finished, the musicians talked through what had just happened, over a glass of pineapple juice.

Watch The Pineapple Band’s debut and only performance in the Colston Hall foyer at 6pm on Thursday, November 22. For more information, visit www.colstonhall.org/shows/the-pineapple-project-pineapple-band. The Pineapple Project is commissioned by Colston Hall with funding from Arts Council England.

Read more: Pub of the Week: The Pineapple