Hmong Qeej

thanks to Taylan Susam for finding the first of these. The following i found of great interest

INSTRUMENTS

Not all instruments are equal in their flexibility. Compare what can do with a piano and finger cymbals. I have a wonderful recording of a solo of the latter by Madjid Khaladj. Here on Tombak

Human beings will always be able to make music out of just about anything.
The relationship with instruments and people works both ways -each dictates what the other will do. Often time a defective one will result in an artist exploring just that defect. Keith Jarretts busted electric piano key on Miles LIVE/EVIL became the whole focus of the song as Jarrett first circles around it then drones on it. I have seen Chris Abrahams do the similar things on a “bad’ piano with finding some unique chord/timbre only available there at that moment.
Still such an instrument offers much choice in variation in sound.
While it is wonderful to see so many new instruments one would hope we can recognize the ones that offer more than one sound or timbre, one that allow the artist somewhere to go and discover beyond the immediate. It needn’t be complex as even set of bowls tuned by water gets one a broad range of expression. Often we might see an individual who no longer uses an instrument in ANY conventional way and I remember Jim French questioning why they just make an instrument that does that to start with and then venture from there. It is a good question.
What we need are instruments we can continue to explore on, not hem us in to a sound or two. Conventional ones have their own history and shouldn't be avoided. In fact how far can we get beyond variations of these great models?

SCALE

It seems that in any form of communal music, scale and/or scales offer more advantages than disadvantages. I was reminded of this at the first rehearsal of a shadow play. Terumi responded how forgiving the scale on the instruments was, as if one could not hit a ‘wrong note’ yet assisted with what one wanted to do. Such was the hopeful goal when picking it years ago for use with this medium. It had to have a range of expression. So the overused generic harmonic series would not work. ( I don't think i could stand another piece on the harmonic series, especially on C)
One possibility is scale where all intervals are basically the same dissonant/consonant factor to each other. Otherwise one is working with tendencies require special handling either to resolve or avoid resolution. This allows any note to be used with any other and harmony often resulting from a combination of melodic impulses and/or doubling. Such scales are common to Africa and Indonesia, places where communal music is might be the most developed. Perhaps a good pathway is not to go outside of the great knowledge contained within these musics, but to proceed deeper within how it is put together. On the other hand if this is where we are going, the atomization of ‘sounds for themselves’ seem the foreign to where we want to get to, or is offering little in itself out of hand.
Another aspect of scale is the ‘orientation’ it provides. While this can be done by other parameters, A scale can provide an already mapping of terrain that is 'not' being included in what is being heard at the moment. We needn’t go back to 5 and 7 tone scales even though that is an area I don’t think has been exhausted. Even Coltrane returned to such material on more than one occasion. One can take scale also as a point of departure that can be expanded upon yet remain as dynamic.
One more aspect of scale though is in can creating an environmental ambiance by it very nature of its materials. By its own internal interaction with itself certain scales will carry further than others in distance. Others can be compared with placing of stones is a brook. One can create patterns of waves that are a delight to the eye. The same can be done with sound waves. [ one can add one more and it all falls apart into turbulence. One reason why I shy from combine tunings, especially 12 ET with my own. It undermines the very nature of my tuning to interact with the environment. While I do think it is possible to combine certain scales (not all) , we know too little about this at this time, the physics is already highly complex with even singular tunings and we are far from exhausting those possibilities.]

Problems of Intent and Conceptual art/music

This originally was written as a response to a blog entry here
http://audibleaffinities.blogspot.com/2009/04/social-music-with-brandon-labelle.html
but since my comment would not post, i expanded upon it here. In the last paragraph he poses some good questions. i get stuck before i get to those.

To depend on intent or even conception appears problematic in that one must assume the transition from a mesocosm, say an intermediary realm of visionary imagination from which the conception appears, into the corporeal is possible without any transformation. The implication is then that they are completely alike in syntax for this to be possible. I find this doubtful even if we find them inseparable. Change occurs and these type of changes also deserve reflection. Stockhausen, who to many represent the non reflective creative spirit run loose appears to not be so. If one reads his comments about his 'from the 7 days' works, one observes that he did not shy away from reflecting that the 'results' were often different than the 'intent' of the piece. In fact he quite celebrating what he in turn learned by how these ideas manifested. Concept requires an understanding of what happens when it is enacted. Otherwise we risk degenerating into an idealistic dictatorship of 'spirit over matter' not far from the realm of religion.

The relationship between concept and realization seems best when a marriage of the two. Each adding to the mix and mutually reflecting upon their own interaction. Hence one small step toward an 'inner commune'

Charles Olson film-Polis is This

I could have embedded all these but i thought it best just to provide a link to the source. A wonderful documentary on Olson that deserves more attention.
http://www.polisisthis.com/watch-now.html
While much has been said about his relation and influence on musical improvisation. I think his work has implication for Intuitive music in general. Not to mention looking at the possibilities of musical passages as being related by their 'energy' as opposed to ' technical systems' that often fail to be comprehensible. It surely leads us back to a phenomenological experience of it.

Beuys and Soleri (with a latter entrance of Partch)

Entrance to Arcosanti (in progress)

While I am sure both would object, there are some striking similarities between the first two above. Both of their visions are advancements in holism. Both have been labeled incorrectly “Utopian”, for neither present answers, only a process that at most seems to be a ‘first step’ that then require reflection before proceeding. Space is both their medium of utmost importance being the medium for social change.

Both place much importance of desirability over objectivity that is a marked differentiation to the work of Duchamp and Cage. These latter individuals can be looked upon as those who expanded the concept of “framing” and how that affects and defines their medium. This framing is so powerful, they illustrated that anarchy (in the form of randomness) could indeed be objectively encompassed within it .
At the time, there were those who objected to this anarchy and randomness being more a symptom of capitalism; its nature of having no goal and it lack of taking responsibility for the course it takes. This global economic meltdown might for us cause us to reflect on the process of the economic anarchy that has caused it. It is too shaky of ground to come to a conclusion on this alone.

Not only Beuys or Soleri, but many artists of which Harry Partch would quite rightfully
fit are/were more concerned with ‘working on what had been spoiled”. There is a recognition that the unsorted product of an underdeveloped or damaged might not be automatically of artistic worth. Intuition, real or simulated, likewise cannot be any guarantee and this is plausibly a more realistic criticism.

Instead a space for the myriad of forces that exist within the individual, what James Hillman refers to as the ‘Inner Commune’, is the space Beuys and Soleri, and Partch wish to celebrate and develop toward its fullness. All this work about space, and in the end, it is all directed toward inward.

Beuys- Grond

two dreams

best to read March 21 before 22,2009
http://annandaledreamgazetteonline.blogspot.com/