An important supporting character in Water: Generation Mars, Book Three, is from Spain and plays the Galacian gaita, a type of bagpipe. Why, I can’t remember. I was probably listening to a Putomayo playlist or something while working on that book, heard some gaita music, and liked it enough to want to use it.
If the only bagpipes you’ve heard are Scottish, the gaita will surprise you. This type of bagpipe predates those we associate with the British Isles. They have a light and airy tone, and the musical style is typically much more upbeat and dance oriented. Yes, you read that right: bagpipes you can dance to.
Excerpt:
As if on cue, bagpipe music began to twitter from the speakers. Keiron cocked his head. His dad had sometimes played bagpipe music, but Keiron always found it heavy and somber, bleak even: music for marching slowly off to war or lamenting something sad. This wasn’t that. It wasn’t like any bagpipe music Keiron had heard before. The melody bubbled like water. Some kind of drum played a fast beat that was complex but danceable. A high stringed instrument played counterpoint to the pipes.
-- from Food: Generation Mars, Book Four
Playing the gaita suited the character and provided a narrative motif in Water that I wanted to revisit in Food. I won’t say more about this, for fear of spoilers for two books. But I think “Fonsagrada”, by Susana Seivane, is a perfect piece to end on, for the book and for this series of posts.
Food: Generation Mars, Book Four is available at https://www.amazon.com/Food-Generation-Mars-Book-Four/dp/1733731083