[NetBehaviour] Memory, Earworms

Alan Sondheim sondheim at panix.com
Fri May 13 14:49:05 CET 2022


Memory, Earworms

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

  This is a bit like the same thing. This is a bit like the
idea of earworms. Something which reminiscence which remains
redundantremaine's redolent which appears which doesn't
disappear. In this case it's the same thing with the writing.
I have to remember what came before and what's going in
afterwards. It's the only way the writing can succeed.
Otherwise it's useless gone forgotten.

  I was playing an instrument called a sunshine San the
sunshine SANSHIN. And I happened to hit on the sequence of
several notes. They sent a kind of resonance a reverberation
through my body. A kind of thrill. I think the reason for this
was that I had used the same sequence of notes in another
piece, perhaps a performance. It seems it must have been for
some kind of performance. It might have been something that
was recorded on video or even on film . It was something like
that I'm not quite sure what period.

  In any case here's the thing that sequence of notes stayed
with me and started bringing back half buried memories. They
affected my entire body. I wonder whether there was something
that I was using perhaps already back in the 1960s when I was
working on it or rhetorical. Or perhaps just a little bit
later on when ESP began taking some of my other materials.
Beyond that period in any case it's the sequence that has
stayed with me although I'd forgotten it completely . But it
came back almost as a haunting. Or a scepter. It came back as
it goes something that reminds me that it that it had been
there all the time period.

  I was still playing the sunshine SANSHIN. It's an instrument
similar to the shami send it's been similar to the shopping
center but it's from okinawa. I play with my hands. It's
difficult for me because of the fact that there are no threats
and it has a long thin neck and I was playing up the neck. You
can hear it going slightly out of tone. The notes going either
flatter sharp. I'm always amazed when I can get it right. But
the melody that sequence of notes comes through. I think it
was in relationship to a narrative that I was doing . I don't
remember what the narrative was or what the medium was. Video
film or film video. Perhaps just music sound song. But I think
not.

  For me it's exciting to remember the sequence. It won't mean
anything to you but to me it has an eerie resonance. It has a
resonance that seems to open up half memories going back maybe
just 10 years maybe going back 50 maybe going back 70. I'm
really not sure when this began or when descended. I'm not
sure what instrument I might have played it on at 1st period
and most likely was a guitar. Most likely was a guitar but it
doesn't sound like guitar music to me. It doesn't sound like
that kind of a rift. Instead it sounds like something I don't
know something Asian something that might have been played in
okinawa. The real show islands. I think that's what it was so
I think it might have been Something else entirely. I'm not
sure what I. I think it might have been something that goes
all the way back 30 or 40 years ago or even longer maybe 50 or
60 years ago or maybe just yesterday. Whatever it was those
notes conjure up a whole landscape for me but I can't place it
really I can almost place it but I really can't. It's a kind
of I'm not sure what to call it almost supernatural a
supernatural occurrence for me. Something rattle and something
opening up a vista or a world where a world that's just half
formed.

  There's more to say about this but I'm not quite sure where
to take it whether to go a little bit into the future or
farther into the past or just occupy the present as if I were
sitting in a music studio recording this period the last is
the most unsatisfactory. I don't think it was that at all I
think it was a different kind of memory I'm just not sure what
and might have even been a memory from some other world or
some other time period it might have been a memory from
someone else's past. All I remember is at sequence and that it
meant something strong to me And took my breath away. It
really did take my breath away. As if the whole world had
opened up once and for all. As if it had opened up once and
for all.




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