Gabriel Norland GABRIEL NORLAND was resident sound artist in the studio. He produced sound works and taught DJ skills to a range of young people across the Sutherland area. During his time in Durness he recorded samples of traditional musical instruments (accordion and pipes) and mixed these with contemporary dance rhythms to produce new sounds and music. When coming to work on this project I had one slightly troubling question in my mind, it was this: 'How can I get the kids to engage with issues of heritage?' I knew that the DJing would be popular and that I'd have no problem in encouraging the kids to get involved with the workshops. I was also keen to work on composing soundscape pieces and to make field recordings that could be used on the virtual Mackay website. But I had the feeling that these two things were distinct entities; the DJing, with its instant accessibility for the kids, and my own sound work which would focus on issues of heritage and not be as interesting for them. Perhaps it was wrong to go into this project with such a presumption but as many of the kids told me during my time with them, 'why don't you play some dance music?!'. The kids have enjoyed and benefited from seeing a DJ in action and even more so, to have a go themselves. DJing is an intrinsic part of dance music, hip-hop and r'n'b (basically a big chunk of contemporary music and culture), and learning how to DJ is the most immediate way in which a person can interact with this music and do something creative with it.

The issue of heritage in music is something that interests me a great deal and one that I raised in conversations with some of the kids. Musical heritage is fundamentally human with thousands of stylistic variations. Celtic Folk music is of course an example; it is without doubt a strong part of the Scottish identity and heritage. But if we look beyond what is essentially, a stylistic sound, there is the function of the music, the role that music plays in a community. This function is both social and physical, in other words, to get people together and to make them dance. This has been the case from ancient African drums, to Scottish dances, to Hip-Hop parties in the Bronx. The sound of the music will, I'm sure, always continue to change but its function remains the same; getting together for a jolly good knees up is, quite simply, a heritage inherent to humanity.

Thinking about music and community, and also seeing and being part of the Highland Gathering and the dances that took place, made the thought of the Clearings the more chilling for me. Having grown up in a village myself and experiencing life in a tight-knit community the reality of the effect that the Clearings must have had really came through to me. I believe it is this feeling that I have responded to most strongly with the pieces of music that I have created for the Virtual Mackay website. Shifting like the many skies I have seen over Durness are feelings of nostalgia and moods of introspection, I have also experienced a very heart-felt welcoming here. Another strong influence has of course been the landscape itself and I really feel that the spaciousness of the music I have composed here owes itself to the land, the mountains and the sea.