OK, so I’ve insensitively labelled it tree-trunk music and technically that’s not right. The txalaparta is a percussion instrument usually played by 2 people and which consists of 2 parallel planks of wood of up to 2 metres in length. Each musician strikes the planks with two thick sticks. The end product is something rudimentary, intriguing and very Basque.
I’m told that its origins take us back to the cider house. The same board that was used to press the apples was then played to call the neighbours and music would continue as the cider was drunk.
1992Donosti (San Sebastian)
“Stop talking in Spanish Urko, this is an English class!”
“Ha ha! ...we no talking in Spanish, we talking in Euskera”.
To be honest, at that stage I couldn’t even tell the difference. Young Urko had just come back from his trikitixa class. As far as I could make out the trikitixa was a small accordian. Found it curious that a 12-year old boy should want to learn to play the accordian but he wasn’t the only one. Several kids were being instructed by a young music tutor named Kepa.
More about Kepa later.
The point is that in the early 90s a revival of traditional instruments was underway and dozens of kids were their swapping gameboys for trikitixas.
The txalaparta was part of that revival.
So what’s all this got to do with the Zegama-Aitkorri Mendi Maratoia?
Well, every film must have a soundtrack. For a short film on fell running Glaconman chose the atmospheric music of Phillip Cobb. For Zegama-Aitzkorri I’d open up with a bit of tree trunk music wafting across the village square to accompany the pre-race rituals. The txalaparta, an instrument as minimalist as the sport itself, will start off at a slow, clip clop canter and build up to a crescendo of cow bells.
