
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990                   TAG: 9006120250
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LEXINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

BONES-PLAYING A DYING ART FORM

The hands of Dr. Frederick Edmunds aren't young anymore. Folds of wrinkles move over the joints. Spots and shadings sprinkle across the backs. They've saved lives, these hands. And they've brought lives into the world.

Now they're clicking out a rhythm as old as the work they've performed through the years. The doctor plays the bones.

Edmunds, a retired gynecologist, recently completed a book and accompanying videotape that teach step-by-step how to play the bones.

Interrupting himself with occasional bursts of rhythm from the wooden bones in his hands, Edmunds said that bones may be the oldest musical instrument known to man.

Early man might have placed broad, flat bones between his fingers, beating out a staccato rhythm. Experiments with honing and carving led him to refine the bones until complex rhythm patterns accompanied chanting and singing.

Through history, playing the bones has survived - sometimes with great popularity, about 100 to 150 years ago in the United States, and sometimes barely scraping by, as now when the music form is considered antiquated.

"I searched for years all across the country for other bones players, and essentially, there are almost no others. Bones-playing in the United States is extremely rare and has been since the Civil War," Edmunds said.

Edmunds picked up his first pair of bones in 1935. The 15-year-old Charleston, W.Va., native was vacationing in North Carolina. A New York salesman came through with bones. Edmunds recalls he bought a pair for each hand, and busily clicked the summer away.

In the Army, Edmunds brought out his bones on long marches, clacking out a lively marching rhythm, much to the delight of his fellow marchers and commanding officers. "We all stayed in perfect step," he said.

Edmunds hopes to breathe new life into what may be a dying art. "My hope is to bring bones strongly into the age of popular music," he said.

When Edmunds started exploring the rhythmic intricacy of bones-playing in the 1930s, he mostly clicked out jazz and Dixieland rhythms. These were relatively simple rhythm patterns.

But as popular music has changed through the years, Edmunds has updated his bones playing.

"I mostly play to rock and country rock now," he said. "A lot of country music has a sort of rock rhythm with the instruments, even through the vocalists might be saying something different."

The rhythm patterns of Edmunds' bones carry a peaceful quality.

"I love it. I love to listen to the natural rhythm in music and I love to accompany anything," he said.

In fact, Edmunds' enthusiasm for his music form led to the name for his teaching book. "What you can do with the bones is unlimited. That's why I call the book `Bones Unlimited.' "

Edmunds' book includes a special musical notation he devised to teach the rhythm patterns. The book progresses logically from the simplest rhythms to the more complex compound rhythms at different speeds. The accompanying video provides the sounds the pupil needs to imitate. The set even includes a set of handmade wooden bones.

Edmunds said he hopes to get his book and video into music stores across the country.

by CNB