Interview Date: 6th August, 2024
C: Clara Cheung, G: Gum Cheng, D: David O’Hagan
| I: | G: | How important is it for you to keep or preserve heritage, like traditional Irish whistle? Is it very important for you? I'm not sure, would you try to improve or make something, an improvement for that kind of instrument, or would you try to do something, improvised? |
| D: | Yeah. I mean, the sort of new projects I'm working on, I've been working with the Sheffield University on developing a new whistle head, which has some kind of quite interesting ideas in it, based upon aerodynamics and so, yeah, yeah. Very much trying to push - use, you know, the late cutting edge, latest research and also manufacturing ability that we have now, so the 3d printing, for example, I've been using the 3d printing to be able to test many different designs. So, yeah, absolutely trying, trying to try to to keep what's important about the heritage of musical instruments, but, but bringing in the kind of fruits of modern science and technology that we have and, yeah, and in terms of heritage, I think obviously the heritage of the instrument and all instruments is very important. And as well as that, for me, being in Sheffield, the heritage of, you know, the modern technology and the skills that came out of Sheffield, which, I mean, Sheffield was really the heart of the whole industrial revolution, which transformed the whole world and so, and I guess that's what, that's why everyone seems to want to come to England. It’s this little, tiny place. It's, you know, good and bad elements, of course, the British Empire and the industrial revolution, but it has transformed the whole world and continues to do so. And then, you know, there's, I mean, stainless steel was invented in Sheffield. This incredible - there was an incredible amount of skill and knowledge that came out of that industrial revolution. And it's still in Sheffield to a certain extent. Unfortunately, it, just now, really a lot of the old, the older, really skilled makers, are kind of retiring or dying in the nicest possible way, because … and a lot of that knowledge isn't getting passed on to people. And I don't really mean the sort of the knowledge of modern manufacturing. I don't mean that, but a lot of the skills in Sheffield were really in people's hands. Because, you know, we didn't always have the computer controlled CNC milling machines and the computer CAD software, this is all relatively recent. And, you know, a lot of the people that are kind of, you know, not, not with us anymore, they had, they actually, they made incredible things just through genuine engineering skill and knowledge and understanding. I mean, this lathe, the computer, wasn't near this lathe, so everything, every part of this lathe, was made from, you know, people's engineering skills and and this so, yeah,it's very important to remember that heritage, and I think it's sort of in the atmosphere of Sheffield, in a way, it's still there, and it doesn't seem to have, it has transformed, in some ways, like you have the Advanced Manufacturing Park in the university, which has a lot of top companies and technology there. You know, Sheffield still is kind of … a lot of it is getting lost, but then there is something sort of new coming out as well. Yeah. |
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