Sponsored by
Blow me! There's cornets in the cow shed
A SEARCH for a new trumpet brought Andy Middleton to rural North Yorkshire and the discovery of a world-renowned virtuoso.
Listen to the soundtrack of the latest James Bond movie Quantum of Solace and you'll hear some sizzling high notes on a trumpet. The performer is Derek Watkins and his instrument was made by Richard Smith.
The pair of them are a unique duo whose combined talents are concentrated within a former cowshed in North Yorkshire. How did I discover this? Let's go back to the beginning.
When the famous manufacturer of brass instruments Boosey and Hawkes closed its doors to production in 2003, it seemed the Last Post had been sounded for a British industry in decline.
Needing to buy a new trumpet, I went shopping in York. "Richard Smith of Smith Watkins", whispered the man reverently in the music shop. "He's your man. He lives just a few miles away in Sheriff Hutton". The thought that someone so near was actually making trumpets was music to my ears.
The approach to the workshop is via a stone track and through the thick mud of a farmyard. Richard's home is in the lee of the Howardian Hills and he turns out to be a zinc-haired man with a wry smile and slate blue eyes. "Welcome to Smith Watkins. Would you care to see inside the workshop?"
The mild-mannered 63 year-old wears a navy serge overall (the obligatory ballpoint pen tucked neatly into his top pocket), jeans and comfortable loafers. Here is a man who looks as if he could have been restoring a Norton Commando motorcycle or tinkering with a miniature steam train in his garden shed.
There's no hint that this is Dr Smith, a world authority on acoustics, let alone a pioneer in the design of sophisticated brass instruments for global export.
Cow shed
Richard opens the door of the former cow shed. Inside this lovingly restored stone building ("It was a real mess when I moved in") are work benches piled high with lathes, widgets, half-finished trumpets and paraphernalia of all kinds. Vintage enamelled signs adorn the whitewashed walls; antique brass weighing scales and a First World War helmet balance precariously on oak beams. In the far corner, hanging like silver pheasants from hooks on a woodworm-riddled byre, is a row of immaculate cornets ready for despatching to eager players from to
Sydenham to Sydney
Richard explains the detail of his operation. "This stretches the brass over the template here to make the bore on the lead pipe (as in 'leed pipe']. It has to be absolutely precise to create the exact bore profile." He adds with disarming nonchalance, "A neighbouring farmer knocked it up for me. Come to my office."
And with that we leave the apparent disorder of the workshop and crunch across the gravel of his courtyard to the apparent disorder of his office.
Instrument cases, box files and pressure charts in garish colours spill over the desks and cascade onto the floor. A complete set of ceremonial fanfare trumpets - Smith Watkins is the only supplier of such instruments to the armed forces - gleam on one wall. A stack of shelves support a tangle of wires linking oscilloscopes, laptops, amplifiers, a pulse generator and coils of brass tubing fitted with electrical pick-ups.
"This machine sends a wave of energy down the tube", he enthuses, pointing at the pulse generator and tracking with his hand the imagined energy wave passing through the brass pipe. "By adjusting the pitch, we can measure the resonance across the entire frequency range. It's simple, but it works", he adds.
To some this might seem a touch Heath Robinson. But it's in the great tradition of English back-room inventors and does the job as effectively and rigorously as any experimentation in a climate-controlled super laboratory.
Unconventional, maybe; eccentric, perhaps; but then few scientists in their field can claim to have charted new territories of knowledge like Richard Smith.
He's an Honorary Fellow of the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Edinburgh and has published his research in many influential scientific journals. He has also pioneered the use of interchangeable lead pipes - enabling the same trumpet to be played for classical concerts and jazz, hip hop and other musical genres.
"I've always been fascinated with the acoustics of brass instruments," he says. "I began as an apprentice at Marconi – a great start as it helped me to develop my skills in working metals. But things didn't work out so I left to do teacher training in York.
"After three years in the classroom I took a masters degree in acoustics at Southampton University and then a PhD, applying quantum mechanics to the resonances of brass instruments and the changing pitches of notes."
He knits his fingers as he attempts to explain to a lay person just what the terms 'quantum mechanics' and 'brass instruments' are doing in the same sentence. Imparting knowledge is clearly a missison of his.
Kitchen table
Before starting his own company he worked for 12 years as chief designer and technical manager for Boosey and Hawkes. Here he designed trombones for Don Lusher and a famous Sovereign trumpet for John Wallace, the then principal trumpet player at the London Symphony Orchestra.
Richard's Sovereign cornet range is still a favourite amongst brass and military bands. He also designed an instrument for the legendary session trumpeter Derek Watkins, and the alliance with Derek has lasted to this day. Indeed, Derek is the Watkins in Smith Watkins.
Richard is the theorist, Derek is the practitioner, frequently travelling up from London to test Richard's latest designs.
It was in 1984 in his semi in Southgate, North London, that Richard first started designing and building his own trumpets. "I began making them on my kitchen table. Then I progressed to a shed at the bottom of the garden. Then there were two sheds. And all the while my house was slowly filling up with trumpet parts."
In 2004 he formed a limited company and moved with his wife – a professor at York University - to his present home where he converted the cow shed and began production on a larger scale, building around 100 instruments a year.
Working with others is something Richard clearly relishes. He regularly lectures at universities and has teamed up with some eminent scientists over the years. He is presently collaborating with a theoretical physicist on and has also criss-crossed Europe, the United States and Japan testing instruments with top professional symphonic and session players. As we spoke he was about to jet off to deliver a plenary lecture in Utah and launch his latest instrument in Florida.
Is he attempting to create the perfect trumpet? "There's no such thing", he says. "Just the perfect trumpet for a specific player. That's why we build instruments for the individual. Every instrument here is hand made, and musicians come from as far as the States to be 'fitted'.
"We look at their style of playing and their requirements, and we give them an instrument to make them the best player they can be."
The only question that foxed him was later over a cup of tea in his kitchen. How did he see the company developing, what was his business goal? The knitted fingers came into play again together as he stares at a spot on the oak table.
"That's a good question." (Pause.) "I'm nearing retirement age, not that I'll ever retire. And we're going for a Queen's Award for Innovation, which we hope to achieve next year." (Pause.) "I suppose my mission is to impart knowledge, to encourage students and players to learn from my work. That's all."
And this was the point. Richard Smith is a man very much in demand. Smith Watkins is a flourishing business with a staff of five which, even in the teeth of the credit crunch, boasts a six month waiting list from around the world.
Yet it is not a business in a conventional sense. It has no commercial objectives, no five-year plan, no corporate growth strategy. It seems to be a business by default, a by-product of Richard's fascination with acoustics and his endless urge to explore the frontiers of his subject.
www.smithwatkins.com
Email to a friend
Print this page- Leeds lose Ward to Palace: Is there anyone they can afford now?
- Sheffield Wednesday leaving it late to hijack Leeds United over Ward
- As Snodgrass dithers over Leeds, Warnock throws a lifeline
- Ball is in Leeds United’s court over contract - Snodgrass
- Police turning blind eye to Asian voter fraud, says MP
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
