I traded back for the cobza today, and it sounds great! I’m using
techniques from pipa and oud. by the way, there are a lot of
traditional cobza solos and ensemble-playing on YouTube now; when
I started with the instrument, there was almost nothing.
cob0 is a straight recording. my cobza has ten metal strings tuned
with pegs; towards the very end, you can hear one of the courses
has gone out of tune. I’ve learned to avoid them; I finish on the
other three. (here, the cobza’s tuning is eee’ aa dd gg; the 2nd
a went out, so I ended up on eee’ dd and gg. note that the tuning
is 3 4ths; it’s not actually tuned to eee’ etc. pitch.)
cob1 is recorded with highly altered echo and post-production
with high hiss-elimination. I had to play slowly, in order that
the harmonic ‘bell-tones’ come through.
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(mono)
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(mono)
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(mono)
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(mono)
Chris Funkhauser, flute
Chris Diasparra, baritone
Azure Carter, voice and songs
Alan Sondheim, saz, oud, pipa
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(mono)
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(stereo)
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I imagine the voices of angels singing precisely like this.
Their voices expand and fill multiverses, lifeless and alive, alike.
Their beauty is uncanny and every note encircles worlds upon worlds.
As long as I surprise myself with unknown communicants, I continue.
Angels, you have given me life for a night of beauty and mystery.
Angels, we have given you our love, the terrible love of all things
alive, as well.
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passing, those who have passed, they have turned back,
they have turned around, they have this harmony, this one time,
these many times, they have, for those who have passed and
this one time, they have turned
passage, for neither a break nor a moment’s rest have they,
they have continued, they have thought until their bones were
broken, until their minds among them, disappearing, no longer
this one melody, breathless, this one time, they have turned
and turned, the pipa rising among the buddhas, we have heard
there are engines in the empty air, in the air distraught,
they furiously pass, they furiously play themselves, appearing,
among them, among one or none of them, nothing of them, until
there were, no longer, of them or among them, they have risen,
they are rising, they shall have risen, they will have risen,
among the engines in the empty air, there are engines in the empty air
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left over from day1 performance; somehow the sound was
transformed into something unworldly and beautiful http://www.alansondheim.org/dawning.mp4
left over from the performance materials, here for the color
it’s the central gate that fascinates me, holds me
it’s the same light over the Matterhorn I do believe
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oud, double-course strings played individually: i worked this out
originally for cobza; here it creates bell-like tones resonant
with the poetics of the origin of the world. i hallucinated korea,
playing the figures of goddesses and dragons from the great tomb.
i hallucinated figures making their way slowly across the stretch
of strings, roads of limited durations. i hallucinated them
literally, my eyes closed, head pressed against the belly of the
instrument, its vibrations my very own, the singular music of
historical memory occasioned by the figures; it was their memory,
not mine, they communicated through the murmur of the wood. for
this is a strange oud, almost drum-like in the warped surface of
the top, which speaks among us, uncontrollable. blind i played,
my hearing opened to the circuitry of particles announcing the
end of history, but what an end, of the yi dynasty, emerging from
the future anterior of this memory, accountancy. the figures are
there, enmeshed in narrative, but obdurate, hardened beyond all
belief, among stories and enunciation: in other words, they remain
present, surely watching me, half-ghost, out of the corner of
their eyes. incomprehensible silence, they remain in that eternity
i can only dream of; in my dreaming i play the surface and depths
of the oud, i pass the playing on, i am transfigured, i am within
the circuit where they remain, until i leave the world.
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i have no idea after the fact, what to make of this.
it’s everywhere rough. it tries to bring everything in fast.
it’s zen. there’s no doubt. it’s oud after shakuhachi.
oud chases shakuhachi down. it’s ugly. it’s empty.
id disappears. it is emptiness of gravitational horizons.
and it is the extension of bandwidths of virtual particles.
it gathers speed and collapses for no reason at all.
it challenges reason and causality and origin.
it is the refuse of a universe paradoxically emptied of time.
we note this from our position before we disappear.
like disappearance we take this sound with us.
this sound is already disappeared before generation tantra.
of completion tantra this sound is oblivious.
of the world there is this sound and there is this old man.
there is this old man mad about painting. i am that man.
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- just received this, shallow bowl, nice rounded sound, lots
of cracks. think this was originally inexpensive (poorly made
sound hole filigree for example), but the spruce top has aged
beautifully, so the sound is good and the action isn’t
terrible. when i listened to the recording, i could hear my
nails, my breathing (upper and lower chest, wheezing, tense
from allergic reactions), moving the instrument around, etc.
- and thought – this is the sound of the flesh – using hiss
reduction – keeping only the hiss – i sought to bring this
out – this labor – fully – finding the sound fantastically
transformed, something else of the wonder of the world
seeping through, o courage! to contain this and re-present
this as the Sign -
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this is our set after Judy (Wadih and Amanda) Sunday nite
Chris had the baritone break after pipa. it made pipa weird.
I played viola with Wadih but viola wasn’t audible on the track.
Then oud with Wadih and Amanda and that worked better.
More later, this is all I could put up at the moment.
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electric guitar
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oud
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pipa
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