A jackhammer has started up just outside my window. Like some kind of urban musac it seeks to provide a backround beat to the morning activities. On reflection, I have long thought that the sound of the jackhammer is much underrated. People are happy to listen to bagpipes and piano organs, and leap about to Chinese cymbals, yet they run scared of the ubiquitous pulsating progenitor of creative destruction, el hammer de jack!
The extraordinary thing about the sound of the hammer is
that it contains a complex mix of insistent clinking alto and grumbling
rhythmic base, an achievement that demands respect. It resonates profoundly in the centre of your
being as it reverberates through the floor, and says HELLO! as it rings in your ears. As a pneumatic apparatus
it functions well in the wind section, and as a beat generator it is also happy
in percussion, adding mutifunctionality to its list of technical feats.
With the trumpet, the player can moderate the sound by placing a cap over the end of the instrument. The singular thing about the hammer is that it is the audience that adjusts the sound, by placing caps over their ears. This both subdues the higher notes and moderates the base. The hammerer of course wears these at all times, to get a cleaner sound, as well as to prevent industrial deafness.
The jackhammer also has therapeutic potential. As it crumbles the rock that it is played on its powerful sound waves can loosen knotted muscles, defrag and reboot the cerebral cortex, and leave you generally living in the moment. You could think of it as a kinder form of electric shock treatment. For that matter the hammer may be the ideal music therapy for hardened criminals doing time. While it would not exactly provide the solace of the 12 bar blues, it could provide a distraction from troubles, and double nicely as a rock breaker.
As I was getting into the delirious stages of the session, another hammer had joined the party. I noticed that it threw out more grumble and less tin than my erstwhile soloist, but together they achieved the desired wall-of-sound effect, a wall, however, that had the sense that it was closing in. Well the two of them took to jamming and duelling, asking questions and answering them, sounding an industrial age version of a Mongolian throat chant: guttural, glottal, and gravel tone to boot. Enjoying the mesmerizing effect of this never ending rhythm, I found myself throwing some clicks away. And as the crescendo was building I really got into the mood and began slam dancing around the room, throwing myself bodily into a wall or two.
I don´t know, I must have had a good time because when I woke up in the hospital I had a yearning for road works.
