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Exclusive: Go Behind the Music of COME FROM AWAY with Ben Power!
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Oct 31, 2022
Eight times a week on Broadway and across the world, audiences are welcomed to the rock with the singular sound of Gander, Newfoundland. The worldwide hit Come From Away features a score unlike any other musical, and we're taking a closer look at the instruments that make the music. Watch below as Come From Away band member Ben Power gives us the rundown on the three types of instruments that he plays from stage left!
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Ben. I play the flutes and whistles and the bill and pipes that come from away
0:06
This is my station, stage left and under three trees. It's lovely
0:14
The first one here is my main instrument. Not necessarily main in the show, but my main instrument. It's an Irish flute
0:23
When they invented the silver flute and everybody switched over, these became inexpensive, so the Irish musicians suddenly got very interested in them
0:32
I play one other flute in the show. It's a big one. This is a big B-flat flute
0:41
Unfortunately, it only gets played for about eight measures in the middle of the show, so it doesn't get a lot of time
0:48
Newfoundland traditional music is heavily influenced by a lot of Irish immigration
0:54
so it's sort of heavily Irish, which is why they came looking for me to do the show
1:02
And they play flutes. They also play whistles This is a concession to musical theatre Usually people have two or three
1:15
Very nice, very inexpensive. They're sometimes called penny whistles. The very biggest one I play is this low A whistle
1:24
So at the beginning of the show you have the bower on the frame drum going..
1:28
And then the mayor comes in with Welcome to the Rock. The highest one is a little tiny F whistle
1:41
High pitched, really, really annoying. When we got to Seattle, we were in a cold theater in Seattle in November
1:48
and we found that, you know, a bunch of these whistles, I only played them like once in the show
1:52
and so if I would tune them and then I didn't play them until two-thirds in the show
1:57
they were completely out of tune by the time I picked them up, and I was sitting on them to try and keep them warm
2:03
had them under my eye and it was ridiculous and it wasn't working. So the lovely props people in Seattle made me a heated whistle warmer
2:11
You can see the grating here behind the whistles Air is drawn in here and through a little fan in the back And then there a heater inside it heating pad And warm air rises and keeps the whistles warm
2:27
As far as we know, this, and now the ones for the other companies, is a first
2:32
A heated whistle stand. It's entirely preposterous, but apparently necessary. So the last instrument I'm going to show you is the illon pipes
2:41
They're an Irish bagpipe. It's a reed instrument. See, there's the reed
2:47
Kind of like an oboe reed or something. It's a double reed. But you don't put it in your mouth
2:52
You drive air from a bellows, and the bellows fills the bag
2:58
And then the bag, which you squeeze with your left arm, drives the air through
3:10
You know, everybody knows the big bagpipes, the big Scottish ones. These are much quieter, they're an indoor bagpipe
3:15
It turns out every country in Europe has two or three different types of bagpipes
3:22
So the reason that all this traditional stuff is in the show is that traditional music in Newfoundland is really present It really a part of the community And so when they were writing the show they wanted to be
3:36
to have that background that's always around and in and around Newfoundland
3:40
they wanted that to be present in the show's score as well. And that's why there's the fiddle
3:47
and that's why there's the bower on, and that's why there's the whistles and the pipes and the flutes
3:54
It's to try and reflect what really is in Newfoundland communal music, shall we say
4:02
what really is present there and what takes place in the pubs and in people's kitchens
4:07
And so it's always around. And the Come From Away's got to see some of that when they were stuck in Gander
4:18
And so that becomes part of the show too. So there we go. I've showed you a few of the instruments that I play in Come From Away
4:27
I hope that was interesting. Please do come down and see the show
4:32
It's a good show. We like it
#Broadway & Musical Theater
#Vocals & Show Tunes