Music Banter

This isn’t strictly speaking a music post, but it’s close enough to be of relevance to this blog. Plus, you know, it’s my blog and I say it counts. Oh, the power.

So, anyway, Stonehenge.

I’m talking about the mystic home of the I’m talking about the mystic home of the druids, people. The giant bluestone temple on Salisbury Plain which has stood for thousands of years, and spawned vast acres of discussion, archeological investigation, scholarly speculation and new-age rambling about Crystals and mythological allignments. No-one really knew what it was. Was it a temple? a giant solar calendar? A well-ventilated yet badly-secured barn?

There have been all sorts of suggested uses for the place, too. Some say it was a focus point for sun worship. Others a meeting place for festivals, or perhaps a Lourdes-like destination for pilgrimage. More luridly, it has also been imagined that human sacrifice too place on that altar in the centre.

It’s recently been suggested that the central purpose of Stonehenge was… a music venue?

Apparently so. Rupert Till, an acoustics expert and part-time DJ from the University of Huddersfield, is convinced that the ancient site would have had the ideal acoustics to set up a ‘repetitive trance rhythm.’

Bangin’. Maybe it would have been a bit like this:

Of course, everyone who’s ever been to Glastonbury, Cropredy, or even a particularly rowdy village fete, knows that music is better in the open air. It’s also true that there are a few neo-pagan festivals kicking around the UK, for example Edinburgh’s Beltane Fire, which give a bit of a hint as to how something could have been done. It’s also silly to think that back in the days when people were scratching a living from these lands before the Romans came, people wouldn’t have put a premium on having a good time.

Music is an intrinsic part of our culture- that’s something which it can be all too easy to forget, especially when you hear the latest music industry spiel about how downloading is killing music and eventually, rock and roll will be a thing of the past. Something like this serves as a reminder that music was always with us, and probably always will be.

Still, it’s all speculation. No proof.

I do like to think Stonehenge was a music venue, however. The world seems simply better if that’s true. I also like to think that the music that was played there went a little something like this:

LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL!