Sergio Sorrentino's magical art

SERGIO SORRENTINO promotes the classical guitar and electric guitar contemporary repertory.

As a composer and improviser his music is based on sonic research and combines elements of contemporary classical music, minimalism, avant-garde, ambient, experimental.

His CD Dream - American Music for Electric Guitar (Mode Records) contains works for electric guitar by John Cage, David Lang, Jack Vees, Elliott Sharp, Alvin Curran (a new piece especially written for this CD), Morton Feldman (world premiere recording on physical CD of "The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar"), Christian Wolff (complete works for solo electric guitar and the world premiere of "Going West"), Larry Polansky, Van Stiefel.

Sergio Sorrentino Guitarist · Guitar Sounds

He plays with Gavin Bryars as a member of the Gavin Bryars Italian Ensemble and in duo with Elliott Sharp and John King. He studied with Francesco Langone, Angelo Gilardino, Mario Dell'Ara, Leo Brouwer, Mark White and composition with Marco Di Bari.

He has worked with Sylvano Bussotti, Azio Corghi, Bruno Canino, Alda Caiello, John Russell, Machinefabriek, Steven Mackey, Andrzej Bauer, Marco Angius, Giorgio Battistelli, Carlo Boccadoro, Mauro Bonifacio, I Solisti Aquilani. He plays in duo with Magnus Andersson and with the vibraphone player Antonio Caggiano. He has debuted many new guitar solo compositions. Alvin Curran, Mark Delpriora, Mauro Montalbetti, Stefano Taglietti, Gavin Bryars, Tom Armstrong have written special pieces just for him.

Tell us about Sylvano Bussoti, tell us a secret

It was a pleasure working with him on his great compositions… he is very kind and really a great composer. For the world premiere recording he gave me the manuscript of Popolaresca a very nice piece for solo guitar. I could tell you his secret… his profound and refined aesthetic sense, both as a composer and as a visual artist.

What have you found new in his work guitar compositions

I have found rare nuances, a unique guitar world,

a sort of well-defined theatrical character,

with original timbres and sounds

What relationship would you find between Morton Feldman and Jimi Hendrix?

Uh…great question! I think they have a common search for the transcendent and for sound experimentation. Even Feldman, like Hendrix, wanted to completely transform the electric guitar's soul and sound.

suoni possibili · White Buffalo Calf Woman Blues

What is the role of the guitar in contemporary music?

Both of them -classical and electric guitar- play a fundamental role in today's music. They make their own particular timbres available to composers and allow the achievement of truly unique sound solutions...

Are there new searches in the contemporary sound field? In what way do they relate to the tradition of sound?

Sound experimentation is part of the deep soul of the guitar. All the new experiments, somehow, have their roots in musical traditions of the past, if only for the primitiveness and archaicity of the guitar sound.
The most interesting experiments refer to the electronic research and to the research on the overtones of the long sustained notes of the guitar...

What is possible in Music?

Everything.

It is a magical art, as it is abstract.

So we can accomplish anything, even our wildest dreams.

How would you define your physical relationship with the guitar?

Carnal.

The sense of touch on the strings is fundamental for me,

as well as feeling its vibrations on my arms,

on my stomach,

on my legs...

What is the most interesting thing about collaborating with someone in your work, be it a composer, interpreter or any type of collaborator?

The most interesting thing is to be able to always learn something.

After finishing my studies, my most useful "master classes" were just being able to learn on the field, directly playing with great musicians and collaborating with great composers.

A composer and a why? A sonorous moment in your life and a why?

Philip Glass, because I love his music and I admire his professional career and his musical and entrepreneurial intuitions.

A sonorous moment…maybe a few years ago during a concert in my hometown.

I was playing in the wonderful convent that I frequented as a child.

I was playing my improvisation on the loop machine.

I felt in paradise, and I played thinking about my father and grandmother who are no longer here with us.

And I felt very deep, inexplicable sensations.

ANTS RECORDS · Elliott Sharp & Sergio Sorrentino - Spillà

Where do you get the strength to continue?

I have a mission: To express myself with my music and to develop the contemporary guitar repertoire…and also… I’m workaholic 🙂

I always need to have more and more projects to work on ... often simultaneously 🙂

Where are you going?

I think I’m going in a new direction. I am writing and recording my compositions and improvisations more and more. But I will also continue to perform the pieces of other composers. I am going to release a new album of original compositions and I will continue my fantastic collaborations with Elliott Sharp, John King and many other great musicians.

Also, I would like to return to play live as soon as possible! I will do it in the summer, as a soloist and in duo with the great double bass player Daniele Roccato.

And I hope soon to be able to do the concerts in New York that were canceled last April due to the lockdown.

WEB PAGE

SPOTIFY

BANDCAMP

Charlie Rauh ~ The Bluebell

NYC based guitarist/composer Charlie Rauh has been invited to be resident composer by such organizations as the Rauschenberg Foundation, Klaustrid Foundation, and the Chen Dance Center. His work as a soloist has been supported by grants from Meet The Composer, The Untitled Artist Group, and The Fractured Atlas Group. Rauh’s approach to solo guitar composition takes inspiration from folk lullabies, plainchant, and the imagery of various poets ranging from the Brontës to Anna Akhmatova. Acoustic Guitar Magazine notes that “Charlie Rauh plays guitar with a quiet intensity, each note and chord ringing with purpose… With these lullabies, Rauh gives a gentle reminder that playing soft and slow can be more impactful than loud and fast.”. He presents us his brand new release in Destiny Records

The Bluebell is the third solo album from guitarist and composer Charlie Rauh, following 2019’s Hiraeth, which garnered enthusiastic response from the press as music with “a quiet intensity, each note and chord ringing with purpose. With these lullabies Rauh gives a gentle reminder that playing soft and slow can be more impactful than loud and fast” (Acoustic Guitar Magazine). The Bluebell continues Rauh’s stylistic hallmark of spacious solo guitar composition, while giving greater depth to this set by taking on the beloved poetry of Emily and Anne Brontë as its creative inspiration. Titled after a small flower familiar to the landscape of the Brontës’ homeland in Northern England, and a subject of both authors’ writing, the songs of The Bluebell emerge as thoughtful, pensive, and reverent interpretations of the poems from which they draw inspiration. Recorded in the home where Rauh spent his youth and his father taught him guitar, the nine miniature songs weave, ring, and decay as they alternate between selections of Emily and Anne’s poems of childhood, growth, persistence, and wonder. As heard on Hiraeth, Rauh’s combination of finger style and flat picked guitar playing evokes echoes of medieval modal movements intertwined with smoky Appalachian melodies that add a unique

As a support musician, Rauh works with a variety of artists across several genres both as a touring sideman and a studio musician and arranger. Recording projects include work with Wilco drummer Ken Coomer, Magnetic Fields producer Charles Newman, and Sparklehorse contributor Alan Weatherhead. Live performances include artists such as Pulitzer nominee Cornelius Eady, Rolling Stones backing vocalist Bernard Fowler, Iranian pop innovator Sepideh, and Finnish indie artist Peppina.

A song inspired by Anna Akhmatova's poem, The Sentence,

featuring Sónia André singing

The solo guitar version can be heard on Hiraeth, Destiny Records 2019

1 As in the story of “The Emperor's Suit”, the global crisis has put the weakest parts of our model of life in tension. The problem of art in general, in a world with an exaggerated technical-economic drift is one of them. What role does it occupy and what role should it occupy, when it is one of the functions that tends to be cut most violently in a process of crisis. Is art fundamental or can we just do without it

 CS Lewis once wrote that “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” The fundamental role that art plays in our existence is rooted in relation. The ache for purpose is intrinsic in the creating of art, and the action of art is one of extension in the most intimate of ways.  Without art, the world would continue.  But it's the invitation to wonder that inspires humanity to reach for greater heights, and that is what art provides.

A lullaby inspired by Anne Brontë’s poem, The Bluebell.

Filmed by Eric Skye

2 Within art, How does music contribute to today's society

Music contributes a universal bond that asks for nothing, and gives everything. To listen to music, and to be nourished by it, requires no prerequisite.  Someone can hear a piece of music and think nothing of it, while the person next to them can have their life changed by the same piece.  Within the context of art, music offers us a glimpse into the eternal.

3 The role of the musician is increasingly difficult. It is a great challenge to dedicate himself exclusively to his work, as he is being pushed out of the economic environment. It is very difficult to be able to be dedicated professionally and exclusively to creation, and the digital world is progressively moving the musician away from being able to live from the commercialization of his products. What panorama awaits us if one of your last sources of income is reduced, those derived from physical presence, concerts

I choose to adapt in every way that I am able to.  With travel and performance (my main income source for over a decade) no longer an option for the foreseeable future, I have pivoted to taking on remote session work from my home studio set up combined with teaching online to bring in my income.  I also try to stay productive as a composer by taking in inspiration from research and interpreting literature that I find inspiring in order to create music that I believe is worth offering to the world.



4 In this troubled time, what motivates you to keep making work for the public

In a way, the creation and release of music is a form of sonar for me.  I do want to share my music, as I am proud of it and hope people will enjoy it, but it's also a way to search for kindreds. When I release new music, there's always an underlying beacon sent out to see who else feels what I feel.  In addition, the hope is that I can offer inspiration and likewise be inspired.  

When I started  to promote The Bluebell, I wound up getting in touch with DM Denton, a brilliant author and Brontë researcher.  We have since been promoting each other's work - with my song composed after Anne Brontë's poem being the backdrop to the trailer for her book, Without The Veil Between, Anne Brontë  A Fine and Subtle Spirit.  There is no finer example than this regarding my motivation.

2020 is the bicentennial of the birth of Anne Brontë.

"This novel portrait gives us Anne. Not Anne, the ‘less gifted’ sister of Charlotte and Emily; nor the Anne who ‘also wrote two novels’, but Anne herself, courageous, committed, daring and fiercely individual: a writer of remarkable insight, prescience and moral courage whose work can still astonish us today." ~ D. Bennison, Bennison Books

5 What would you say are the main concerns within your sound search Those that you persecute, hide, transform, those that remain and excite you, or even hypnotize you.

The central intention that I focus on in my sound is distillation.  I am trying to develop a sound that has only what needs to be there and absolutely nothing else.  Two years ago I transitioned to exclusively playing acoustic guitar for my solo compositions after 20 years of exclusively playing electric.  I had always played electric guitar with ambient effects to create space and atmosphere, but then realized I was straying very far from what I heard in my head, and the sound was not personal or unique to me as an artist.  

Composing on acoustic steel string guitar has opened my ears to true atmosphere - the reverb on my albums now is whatever naturally occurs in the space I choose to record, and 'effects' are whatever sounds naturally occur in the space that the mic pics up.  I only record my solo pieces in remote locations (so far a barn in France, a small cottage on Captiva Island, the dining room in the house I grew up in).   I am fascinated by space in sound.  My hope is that I can learn to be patient and attentive to the minutia of tone, and create microcosmic pieces of music that emerge more is magnifying glasses than megaphones.

 

6 How would you describe the influence of poetry on your music 

I am deeply affected by poetry in that its delivery seeks to be concise, impactful, and memorable.  When I read poets like Anne and Emily Brontë, I immediately feel inspired to respond.  Its almost like having a conversation with them when I compose.  I want to create music that listens as a poem reads - that lingers in the aftermath, and that settles in a sacred place.

A view into The Bluebell - a collaborative project bewteen myself and my two siblings, Nini and Chris. I composed a cycle of solo acoustic guitar lullabies inspired by the poems of Anne and Emily Brontë, and handed off the music to my brother and sister. They in turn combined their original paintings, miniature word responses, and our own messages to eachother to rereceate a personal rendition of an historic and treasured document. Anne and Emily would often write accounts of their lives, minds, and hearts illuminated by sketches, and crosswriting techiniques (writing a letter with both horizontal and vertical lines) in their now famous Diary Papers. For the release of this album, my sister has constructed a limited edition of 30 Diary Paper sets to be made available with the purchase of the digital release album. footage by Christina Rauh Fishburne

7 How would you define your use of the guitar?

I use the guitar as a means to deliver subtlety and delicacy.  I am interested in the small details of overtones, note decay, left hand dynamics, and bare melody.  I love the idea of the guitar being a free standing sound that very much sounds like one guitar alone.  Solo guitar is often marked by finding ways to emulate several voices at once (which is beautiful), but I am not interested in doing that. I use the guitar to attempt a clear, solitary voice.

 

New England Plains Drifter (time lapse painting) - Charlie Rauh & Cameron Mizell 

8 I find in this new work a specific intimate search. Contained forms, songs or ballads or lullabies that would find a classic definition when one is alone, he sings to accompany himself. As I listen to your work, a work that always impressed me comes to my memory Silent Music by Federico Mompou. How do intimacy and distance matter in your work.

This new album is very intimate and personal, yes.  The songs on The Bluebell are all written about poems by Emily and Anne Brontë, two of my favorite writers.  They shared a very special bond amongst their other siblings and their family, and their poetry has deeply inspired me for some time.  Intimacy is an essential factor in my music.  I feel in my attempts to express intimate detail though composing, I am able to likewise purely expound emotionally.  For many years I avoided openly calling on emotions to compose, because I never felt that I was capable of genuinely accomplishing it.  But through the inspiration of poetry in my composing, I have found permission to feel.

Already madness, with its wing,

Covers a half of my heart, restless,

Gives me the flaming wine to drink

And draws into the vale of blackness.

I understand that just to it

My victory has to be given,

Hearing the ravings of my fit,

Now fitting to the stranger’s living. 

And nothing of my own past

It’ll let me take with self from here

(No matter in what pleas I thrust

Anna Akhmatova. Requiem 1935-1940

9 Three simple words: Poetry, Painting, Music

Poetry nourishes my thoughts, Painting contextualizes the importance of small details, and music provides a vehicle to act. 

10 How do you see your next step? Where would you place your fears and illusions right now?

I plan on continuing to compose solo guitar music, and adapting to the state of things however I am required to. I feel a spiritual void from not being able to travel, meet new people,  and experience new things (I'm sure most of us do).  All I feel that I can do is to continue, and do so with hope and faith.  

B&W Photos: Alice Teeple

Charlierauh.com/

Captain Beefheart - Poetry Reading (1993)

Captain Beefheart (1941-2010)

Poetry Reading (1993)
Guitars, Wood Guitars (Dec 1977) 

A 1993 poetry reading CD was included in the Stand Up To Be Discontinued exhibition book and later reproduced in the Pearls Before Swine book.

At the time, many found the recording shocking and upsetting. This was the first time Don Van Vliet had been widely heard in public since 1982’s Ice Cream For Crow and the intervening 11 years had clearly not been kind. He sounded far older than his 52 years and rumours of illness seemed to have confirmation.

Les Filles de Illighadad

Les Filles de Illighadad is a Tuareg band founded by Fatou Seidi Ghali in Illighadad, a village in the Sahara Desert in Niger. Ghali, it is claimed, is the first Tuareg woman to play guitar professionally.
Ghali taught herself to play on her brother's guitar; while women did perform music among her people, they didn't play guitar; rather, they played a style of music called tende, centered on a drum made with mortar and pestles, a style that influenced Tuareg guitar playing but isn't generally part of the music played by Tuareg men. Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate tende with guitar playing, "asserting the power of women to innovate using the roots of traditional Tuareg music". Ghali usually plays with her cousin, Alamnou Akrouni.

Ghali and the Filles recorded an album with Christopher Kirkley, for his series "Sahel Sounds". Recordings were made in the open air, and consisted of recordings of Ghali in the daytime, and the Filles playing in the village at night. Following the release of the album, the Filles did a short European tour, and Ghali used her earnings to buy more cattle.Mariama Salah Aswan left the group to begin a family; she was replaced by the second Tuareg woman guitarist, Fatimata Ahmadelher.

Sublime recordings from rural Niger. Two very different sides of Tuareg music - dreamy ishumar acoustic guitar sessions, and the hypnotic polyphonic tende that inspires it. Guitarist Fatou Seidi Ghali and vocalist Alamnou Akrouni lead the troupe, named after the village. Recorded in the open air studio of the desert.

released February 24, 2016

Recorded in Illighadad, Niger 2014
Guitar: Fatou Seidi Ghali
Tende: Talamnou Akrouni, Fatou Seidi Ghali et amis
Production/Art: Christopher Kirkley






Les Filles de Illighadad present their first ever studio album “Eghass Malan.” The female led avant rock group hailing from the village of the same name bring their new genre of Tuareg guitar mixed with traditional rural folk. Versed in tradition, Fatou Seidi Ghali and her band have created contemporary studio versions that are unlike anything ever before recorded, transporting rural nomadic song into the 21st century.

Les Filles are all from Illighadad, a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The village is only accessible via a grueling drive through the open desert and there is little infrastructure, no electricity or running water. But what the nomadic zone lacks in material wealth it makes up for deep and strong identity and tradition. The surrounding countryside support hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries. 

The sound that defines rural Niger is a music known as “tende.” It takes its name from a drum, built from a goat skin stretched across a mortar and pestle. Like the environs, tende music is a testament to wealth in simplicity, with sparse compositions built from a few elements, vocals, handclaps, and percussion. Songs speak of the village, of love, and of praise for ancestors. It is a music form dominated by women.



Collective and communal, tende is tradition for all the young girls of the nomad camps, played during celebrations and to pass the time during the late nights of the rainy season. In the past years, certain genres of Tuareg music have become popular in the West. International acts of “desert blues” like Tinariwen, Bombino, and Mdou Moctar have become synonymous with the name “Tuareg.” But guitar music is a recent creation. In the 1970s young Tuareg men living in exile in Libya and Algeria discovered the guitar. Lacking any female vocalists to perform tende, they began to play the guitar to mimic this sound, replacing water drums with plastic jerrycans and substituting a guitar drone for the vocal call and response.



The exiled eventually traveled home and brought the guitar music with them. In time, this new guitar sound came to eclipse the tende, especially in the urban centers. If tende is a music that has always been sung by woman, the Tuareg guitar was its gendered counterpart, and Tuareg guitar music is a male dominated scene. Fatou Seidi Ghali, lead vocalist and performer of Les Filles is one of only a few Tuareg female guitarists in Niger. Sneaking away with her older brother's guitar, she taught herself to play.



While Fatou's role as the first female Tuareg guitarist is groundbreaking, it is just as interesting for her musical direction. In a place where gender norms have created two divergent musics, Fatou and Les Filles are reasserting the role of tende in Tuareg guitar. In lieu of the djembe or the drum kit, so popular in contemporary Tuareg rock bands, Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate the traditional drum and the pounding calabash, half buried in water. The forgotten inspiration of Tuareg guitar, they are reclaiming its importance in the genre and reclaiming the music of tende.



Hypnotic guitar riffs, driving rhythm, and polyphonic resonant vocals combine to create an organic sound that is timeless and ancient, bridging ancient tradition and modern worlds. With songs of love, celebrating the village, and praise for the desert and its people, Les Filles create a repertoire of ancient songs, village tende favorites, and new classics.
 

 

released October 28, 2017

Produced by Christopher Kirkley
Co-Produced by Les Filles de Illighadad, Mathieu Petolla, Bear Machine
Engineered / Recorded by Bear Machine: Björn Sonnenberg & Jan Niklas Jansen at Bear Cave Studios, Cologne
Residency support Week-End Fest
Mixed by Jason Powers
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk
Artwork by Christopher Kirkley
Photo by Mathieu Petolla

Also Check

ABBA CARGANDO, TOUAREG GUITAR

JOIN US IN FACEBOOK 

Rudra Veena: Jyoti Hegde

Jyoti Hegde (Sanskrit: ज्योती हेग्डे, IPA: [dʑjoːtɪ ɦeːɡɖeː]) is a Rudra Veena and Sitar artist from Khandarbani Gharana. She has pursued music since age 12 and completed her Masters in Music from Karnatak University of Dharwad. Vidhushi Jyoti Hegde is the first and only woman player of Rudra Veena in the world. She is a Grade-A artist of Rudra Veena and Sitar with the All India Radio and regularly sought after for concerts. 



Jyoti's Education in music began at the age of 16 under the guidance of Pandit Late Bindu Madhav Pathak. A marathon study of 15 years in Rudraveena and Sitar increased her thirst for excellence and she underwenttraining in Dhruapad style with Pandit Indhudhar Nirodi. She has taken guidance in Rudraveena by the renowned Rudraveena master Ustad Asad Ali Khan of New Delhi and Ustad Bahauddin Dagar of Mumbai. Guru-Shishya Parampar is manifest in her perfection as a musician and her attitude of homage to the art she has mastered.



Jyoti Hegde has performed on various stages all over India and being a rare lady artist who can play both Sitar and Rudraveena. Rudraveena is world heritage instrument protected and promoted by the UNESCO. The Rudra Veena or the Been is considered the great grandfather of all stringed instruments in the Indian subcontinent.



Awards Jyoti Hegde has won various awards for her performance which include the Naada Nidhi award, Kala Chetana and Dhrupadmani. She has also won various competitions across India like Karavali Utsav, AIR competition etc. Presently now sought after internationally she has performances taking her to various corners of the world.



Vidhushi Jyoti Hegde is one of the first women player of the Rudraveena in the world. She is unique because she has mastered the two instruments which are totally different. When the audience listen Rudraveena, they experience to the treasure of the depth of the Nada-Nidhi or Ocean, and as they listen to the Sitar, they are immersed in the glow of attractive melody.

In a motherly manner she considers the two diverse instruments as her two daughters, who need equal attention, love and affection. A steady and rigorous practice towards perfect performance is not the only side in this Vidhushi; she loves experimentation and has organized Jugalbandi and Pancha Sitar programs by her students. Her renown has attracted deciples from India and Abroad. She is also a prolific writer, publishing articles on Rudraveena.

As she starts playing on the lower octaves of the Ragas, the melodious shower of music entices the audience and she gradually, phase by phase, takes them into a trance as the notes lead them, to 'Nada-Samadhi'. It is an experience that is impossible to verbalize. She becomes an enchantress as she takes the audience into confidence with a promise of some great secret and becomes one with the raga and the audience. The audience become spell bound. According to her students, they have a Kaleidoscopic experience, when she guides them.



Rudra Veena or the Been, the essence of Nada Yoga

Mythology has it that the Rudra veena was created by Shiva or Rudra. His inspiration was the image of his wife Parvati in deep sleep her hands folded over her chest. This image inspired him to create the Rudra Veena also known as the Been. The Veena was also thus called Parvati veena but it is usually confused by the south indian veena. The Rudra Veena is primarily a large plucked string instrument used in Hindustani Dhrupad music, one of major types of veena played in Indian classical music.



It has a long tubular body with a length ranging between 54 and 62 inches made of wood or bamboo. Two large-sized, round resonators, made of dried and hollowed gourds, are attached under the tube. Twenty-four brass-fitted raised wooden frets are fixed on the tube with the help of wax. There are 4 main strings and 3 chikari strings completes the physical description of this ancient instrument.

History has it that in the ancient times before the present form was evolved the Veena was made out of animal guts for strings, two gourds and a bamboo tube. Called the Ektantri with one string, later the dvitantri as more strings were added. It was used in the ancient accompaniment of the chanting of the Samveda. The present form came in to its fullness around the 16th century as the Been entered the royal courts of India under the patronage of the kings who were the primary preservers and supporters of the musical lineages of this art.




The Rudra veena is said to be the only instrument that is used for the deeper study of Nad Yoga. Used by ascetic musicians and yogis to attune the mind to still vibrations, it is known to induce deeply transcendental states in an evolved listener or musician. Sound is said to be of two types. According to ancient scriptures there are two types of sound – Aahat and Aanhat "struck" and "unstruck".



The "struck sound" is called so because it is always caused by physical impact when a vibration of air is produced. It is any sound that we hear in nature or man-made sounds, musical and non-musical. The "unstruck sound" is not produced by any physical impact. It is the vibration of the ether, the eternal sound of the Universe, ever present and unchanging. This type of sound can be heard from within by self-realized enlightened persons after many years of meditation and spiritual discipline. The Rudra Veena, though belonging to the "struck" kind of sound, actually represents the "unstruck" eternal vibration of the Universe thus awakening the hearts.



What is interesting to note is that the story of the origin of the veena is itself symbolic. Shiva represents the supreme consciousness; Parvati is representative of the act of creation life itself. The Veena touches upon the stillness of the supreme God consciousness it stirs the depth of one’s spiritual being and attunes us with the eternal form of our self. It is this slow moving intricate subtle development of its music that is the reason that in todays fast paced world people are more used to the entertainment provided by the virtuoso silver finger movement of sitar but the fact remains that the Rudra veena is the mother of all stringed instruments of the indian subcontinent. Each has taken an element from it and developed it further.




Traditionally the Been was played in the traditional pose of the VAJRA Asana. The breathing technique of the player impacting the sound quality. Today there are several techniques of holding the instrument but the essence lies in the traditional pose, if its connection to Yoga is to be understood. The human form sitting in the vajra asana with both the arms extended out left towards the upper part of the veena and the right held close to the bottom gourd can be easily seen to form the swastika sign.



A swastika is symbolic of movement or Gati. Movement can be forward or backwards. In meditation the movement is backwards towards the source of Truth. In life it is forward towards action and Karma. Ancient symbols are to be understood more as symbolic of spiritual significance and not religious. The gourds are placed perfectly in this human Swastika body. The centre of The viberations arising out of the gourds meet exactly at the Marma bindu at the heart centre via the tube that connects the Gourds. This constant hitting at the centre by the viberations arising out of the strumming and pulling the strings laterally are what make it not just an instrument but a YANTRA.



Its an instrument that is worn and not just held on the body. The body of the musician and the instrument act as one. Thus making it extremely difficult to master and requires deep training and years of patience. Over the past few years the Been is gaining ground slowly and there is hope that it will grow due to increased interest in the national and international audience.

Jyoti Facebook


JOIN US IN FACEBOOK

Tone Wood Stradivari brown

Stradivari brown

The old 16e century Italian masters applied a slightly tinted oil- resin layer on top of an oil varnish filler layer. Red pigment vermilion was used to give the instrument a warm red look. Due to the ultra violet light the wood gets darker when it ages.

The color changes to more dark brown over the years. The red pigments once used will fade away over the years. What stays is what we see now on most Italian Masters.

 

The pictures shows my Jesse van Ruller model with the bare wood all stained with a modern color pigment.

 

About 10 layers of nitrocellulose lacquer are used to give a smooth finish. This guitar will darken a bit more the comming few centuries.

www.elferinkguitars.com
Tone Wood by Frans Elferink
Frans Elferink 13 Questions

Tone Wood The Nyquist stability criterion

The Nyquist stability criterion

If you want a long sustain you should have very little coupling from the string to the sound box. We can achieve that by making the breakover angle from your string over your bridge almost flat. Almost no force component will drive the top this way. If the string doesn’t have to deliver labor it will oscillate longer. Another method is using a very heavy bridge which causes all the string energy to reflect back from the bridge instead of driving the top plate. 

 

With these techniques you will get more sustain but it will cost you acoustic power (your guitar will not be acoustic loud). Carlos Santana has both, endless powerful sustain. He uses his Mesa Boogie amplifier to feedback acoustic energy into the string. Harry Nyquist came up with the stability criterion in 1932 which is used in control theory and predict if a system is stable. Without Harry it would be impossible that we ever could put our feet on the moon. The criterion is simple: the string energy is converted by a pickup into an electric signal, the electric signal is amplified and converted by the speaker into an acoustic audio signal. Only a small part of that acoustic audio signal will get the guitar in motion and causes the string to vibrate again which in turn is getting converted to an electrical signal by the pickup. 

The criterion says that:
When all the attenuation (conversion from string motion in electric signal, conversion from electric signal to speaker cone movement, the losses of the sound field from your amplifier to the location of your guitar) equals the amplification of your Mesa Boogie amplifier. The system is on the edge of stability.

 

If the attenuation is stronger the system is stable (the sustained tone fades away). If the amplification is stronger than the attenuation the system is instable and the system “explodes” (the sustain tone gets louder and louder).
 

Every note Carlos hits with endless sustain was exactly on the edge of instability. How did Carlos managed to do that for almost every note while he probably never had heard of Nyquist? Certainly don’t try to do this with a hollow body super 400. The brass plate under the bridge of his Yamaha 2000 guitar will also contribute. Every pronounced resonance, whatever it is the wooden body of your guitar (making it form a lot of layers different wood will help to cut pronounced resonances), pickup or the speaker of your amplifier, is not good for producing an even Santana sustaining guitar.

www.elferinkguitars.com
Tone Wood by Frans Elferink
Frans Elferink 13 Questions

Tone Wood Le Grande Arche

Le Grande Arche

Most steel string guitars use about 12 braces for the top and 4 heavy braces for the back. These braces are absolutely necessary to give the thin top and back enough strength to withstand the 700N force from the strings. 

 

 Yamaha Guitar - Examples of bracing

Archtops only use 2 braces for the top and no braces at all for the back. From the 700N string tension only about 150N will be converted to down pressure on the Archtop Bridge. The way the string force acts on an archtop top is completely different from the way they act on steel string top. Two braces, a little arch of about ¾” (19mm) and a thickness of the top of ¼”(6mm) is enough to deal with the down pressure of 150N on the bridge. 

 

Archtops are inspired on the violin family, the sound post is skipped but the whole concept is pretty much the same. A good example of natural evaluation. I always have my doubt about the arched top on the . It doesn’t give any structural advantage, it makes it much more expensive to produce and maybe most important “it looks so dammed good!” The picture shows the back of my Avant-garde top model archtop. Glossy, shiny and arched.

www.elferinkguitars.com
Tone Wood by Frans Elferink
Frans Elferink 13 Questions

Morton Felman remembered by Tom Johnson

Artwork: Central Asian (mainly Uzbekistan) rug patterns

Remembrance
by Tom Johnson


I studied privately with Morton Feldman in his apartment in New York City, before he was to take the University post in Buffalo. During the period 1967-69 I would often visit him, whenever I had some new scores and enough money to pay for a lesson. It was a valuable experience for me, and 20 years later I still have a folder where I used to file notes of things Feldman told me. When I heard of his death, I dug out the folder, which I had not looked at for some years, and found a renewed significance in the words of my teacher, who now can no longer speak for himself. The majority of the notes I had made had to do with specific things in my own early compositional efforts, but I also found a number of quotations that are of general interest which I wanted to share, particularly since very little of what Feldman talked about during this period has been published. May these fragments help to preserve the memory of one of those extremely rare cases of a man who truly knew how to think for himself.

Tom Johnson, September 1987

The traditional sense of proportion is a hang-up. The usual Mozartean concept of how long an idea lasts becomes too predictable. Some of the composers who talk the most about avoiding predictability are the ones most victimized by this predictable traditional sense of proportion.



The extremely fast psychological time in Stockhausen's music, for example, is a result of electronic music. Working with dead sound creates this tendency to keep speeding up. Simple sustained sound is not effective the way it is in instrumental music.




The lower register is gravity. If you omit it and use only higher registers, there's no gravity. The music remains suspended and ethereal. Verdi knew about that.



Those elaborate rules that Christian Wolff used in his game-like scores form an aura of concentration around the sound. The players are not able to devote their full attention to sound production, and ironically they achieve a kind of sound sound as opposed to musical sound. But it is music, of course, and a completely unique kind of music. The sounds that result are less artificial than in other kinds of music.



Most music is metaphor, but Wolff is not. I am not metaphor either. Parable, maybe. Cage is sermon.



Timbre and range are the same problem, and both are more important than pitches. When one knows exactly the sound he wants, there are only a few notes in any instrument that will suffice. Choosing actual pitches then becomes almost like editing, filling in detail, finishing things off. Isn't it curious that in the classical period the selection of range and timbre, i.e., orchestration, was the secondary finishing-off thing. Just the opposite.



Music can imply the infinite if enough things depart from the norm far enough. Strange "abnormal" events can lead to the feeling that anything can happen, and you have a music with no boundaries.



The reason I don't like theater pieces is that one usually has to sacrifice some of the musical for the sake of the theatrical. I wrote a solo trumpet piece where the player talked, removed valves, talked through the horn, and did other actions, but theater is not my medium, and I've dropped this piece from the catalog. It works for Cage, though, as in his "Music Walk," where there are instruments all over the stage and David Tudor moved all around playing continually. That is the finest kind of integration of music and theatrics.



One of the fallacies of our chance music in the '50s is that we sometimes failed to realize the difference between the experience of performing and the experience of listening.



You have to find a place for everything. Every idea needs to find its place in time, its context, its environment, a world in which it can exist. Sometimes you can write something that doesn't seem to exist in any particular place. That is better. But much harder.



All we composers really have to work with is time and sound - and sometimes I'm not even sure about sound.

MORE in PREPARED GUITAR

A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste By Ezra Pound (July 9, 2016)

La Monte Young Compositions 1960 (June 17, 2016)

Conversation with David Tudor (June 10, 2016)

SOUND: CONFRONTING THE SILENCE by Toru Takemitsu (June 02, 2016)

Gardener of Time by Toru Takemitsu (May 31, 2016)
Le Picadilly by Erik Satie (1866-1925) by Ya-Ling Chen (May 25, 2016)

Poeme Electronique by Edgar Varese (May, 10, 2016)

Pierre Schaeffer Interview by Tim Hodgkinson FIRST PART (April 21, 2016)

Pierre Schaeffer Interview by Tim Hodgkinson SECOND PART (May 04, 2016) 

Erratum musical by Marcel Duchamp, 1913 (April 20, 2016)

The Music of Marcel Duchamp (April 13, 2016)

 The Liberation of Sound by Edgard Varese (March 11, 2016)

Sound Aesthetics Iannis Xenakis Films (January 14, 2016)

Morton Feldman and Iannis Xenakis - In conversation (January 8, 2016)

Sound Aesthetics: Xenakis (January 7, 2016)

Sound Aesthetics Christian Wolff on Feldman (October 23, 2015)

Pinhas Deleuze Sound language (January 21, 2016)

John Cage and David Tudor - Music in the Technological Age (September 15, 2015)

John Cage and Morton Feldman In Conversation (September 8, 2015)

4'33'' Cage for guitar by Revoc (July 10, 2015)

John Cage: An Autobiographical Statement (May 22, 2015)

Angle(s) VI John Cage (April 30, 2015)

Morton Feldman (March 16, 2015)

Morton Feldman and painting (October 3, 2014)