A beautiful sunny, and windy, day. As ever, the highest tide of the month, played this and last month by Beth de Lange.
Thinking about the Facing the Past project in Lancaster that is focused on the slave trade. Beth singing a sing by Angeline Morrison called 'Unknown African Child' while playing the bell.
Here is a particularly successful improvisation with two performers, at High Water Springs in January 2023.
This month's recording at high water springs is dedicated to mothers: Pete's mother-in-law Eileen McDonald, his mother, who died in February aged 100, and Barbara Wood, who died in August.
This month Pete used a new clanger, in memory of his friend Tim Fleming. Sadly there will be a pause in Moser's tour of bell sites, as he has upcoming operations on his knees.
Pete Moser's salute to high water springs on March 4 2022. His grand tour has been delayed a bit - but it will definitely happen.
Pete Moser ringing the bell on a chilly day at High Water Springs, January 5 2022.
On a windy day in Morecambe, Pete Moser rang out the bell for COP26. The same day that Barack Obama arrived in Glasgow....
This month Pete Moser is accompanied by Ben McCabe. For the non-initiated, Springs (the opposite of Neaps) is the highest tide of the month.
This month Pete Moser dedicates the bell ringing to his friends in Hong Kong. May you live in peace and may your communities grow stronger in the face of terrible hostility.
Pete Moser's playing of the bell at high water springs brings out its extraordinary harmonic properties this month.
Photos from throughout May.... One of the unusual features of the Morecambe Bell is that it only rings due to the waves at higher tides, those either side of springs.
Pete Moser and friend celebrate the highest tide in December 2020.Wrapped up warmer than in August , and with less wind. Thanks, all!
Exploring the full range of harmonics, using a variety of mallets and strikers - multi-instrumentalist Pete Moser is at it again.
The unusual installation of this bell took place in challenging weather in February and March of 2019. After extensive engineering work to the Stone Jetty, undertaken by VolkerStevin, the bell was hoisted into place and final adjustments were made by Marcus Vergette - shown in the photo.
This is a project of the Morecambe Artist Colony. Much of the work was undertaken by Sian Johnson, to whom profound thanks.
More photos of the installation:
We are continuing to develop our Citizen Science programme, after the long break enforced by the lockdown, furloughs, etc etc.
At the heart of this project is the enormously powerful tool iNaturalist. We have created what the platform calls a 'place' - see below. It is deliberately somewhat larger than the immediate environs of the bell.
Within that place we have created a 'project', which will be central to data collection in the area. Much the best way to explore that is to use iNaturalist itself - see the link to the project here.
Having said that, examples of the observations are presented below. Click on any of the observations for more details.
Here is a group at our first meeting, in rather bleak weather on March 3rd 2020. The tide was out, always handy if you are going to explore the foreshore.
This is a different way of ringing a Time and Tide Bell... Multi-instumentalist and composer Pete Moser uses a soft and hard mallet. There are plans to repeat this every month....
Pete Moser of Morecambe wrote this song. It was sung by a group of schoolchildren at the formal opening of the bell on June 7 2019.
The song underlines one of the key themes the bells explore - climate change, and hence rising sea levels.
We'd love you to sing it too. Here's the score - you can download it here.
On March 3rd 2020 about 20 people gathered to spend the day in the Platform, the splendid venue based on the former railway station near the Morecambe seafront. It was a grey day, and rather a damp one, for the session outside exploring the marine life near the bell (fortunately it was low tide).
There was an excellent briefing on the subject by Jack Sewell from the Marine Biological Association. After the session exploring the foreshore near the bell the afternoon was spent developing ideas for a citizen science project linked to the bell.
As with the meetings in Appledore and Mablethorpe a number of very promising ideas were put forward for a programme of Citizen Science activity, which will be considered, distilled, and shared with whoever from the group who is interested as soon as possible.
This bell features much the most complex and informative Interpretation Board of any of the bells. In particular it focusses on the change in sea temperature caused by climate change. That is of concern to all, of course, but is of especial concern in Morecambe Bay, where it appears that problems with the extremely important local fisheries may be linked to changes in sea temperature.
