[NetBehaviour] 1.6 shakuhachi

[Alan Sondheim]

1.6 shakuhachi

http://www.alansondheim.org/61.mp3
http://www.alansondheim.org/61.jpg

(so tired I can hardly think straight, too much stress, forgive)
this is a hardwood, not bamboo shakuhachi; I purchased it from
Perry Yung in order to have something resistant enough to take on
a car trip across the country and back in the summer; we use
humidifiers in cases and in the car, itself, as well as screens;
we take instruments and equipment out of the car whenever we stop
and so forth. I am so tired I can hardly sleep. I played the 6.1
this evening, working on embouchure, but trying to extend my
peculiar musicality as far as possible. I used reverberation to
suture the notes together. I keep trying to play things I've
never heard, to extend myself and my listeners, if there are any.
I realized tonight hardly anyone listens to the music I/we do; we
don't sell records, tapes, cds, although companies have issued
them; whatever relevance my music has (and it's based heavily on
theory, everything from splatter semiotics to reverse reverb to
somatic ghosting to performance art to the dialog between body
and materialities, and so forth), it's largely unaligned to any
tradition, it's lost almost as soon as it's produced, and so
forth and so on. jazz musicians aren't interested in it at all.
in any case, yes, this works for me, it's like a portal to a
trip, to an extension where for some reason 2nd octaves are and
12ths are difficult for me on any woodwind (I actually think, at
this point, that has to do with the structure of my mouth) - so
it's necessary to create circumlocutions, to continue doing
anything. my work is always based on failure and then pushing in
a contrary sense through that, if it's possible; that's up to
others to decide, enjoy.