In response to those inquiries regarding the omission of Banaphshu’s name as a contributor here in the last month, we apologize that we delayed in order to enable her to speak for herself.
“It has been touching to read the inquiries as to my whereabouts from even people I have never met and it brings joy to my heart as I remember all the wonderful people I have come across through my work acting as a guide and consultant for first the Embassy and later this Austronesian Outpost.
I pray that many of you will find the opportunity to visit me in my new position as the director at RNC (Radio Nabu Congul) and I want to let you know those doors will be open ones.
With this new position comes access to the facilities that will enable me to pursue my own artistic endeavors and to develop much of the electronic music that has taken a peripheral or back seat since my first musical collaborations. I expect to become more active than ever before, and I am sure that my long time partner, Kraig Grady, will keep you informed of these developments as we remain committed supporters of each others’ work.
It was originally amusing to allow inadvertently our identities to become confused. Often our collaborations were of a magical nature where neither of us cared to remember who did what, so our merging identities were less about deception and more about artistry. For the record, our long and deep connection was of a spiritual, cerebral nature, not a physical one. We had little choice.
The last few years, however, have seen those collaborations become less and less frequent, as we have become more familiar with the territory each provided for the other. We both feel that we will always carry these experiences with us into our musics.
To Kraig and all the supporters of Anaphoria, I thank you with my heart and my soul. May you always be nourished by the gifts of the imaginous spirit!
Banaphshu
24th November 2010
Nabu Congul”
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
"Chopsticks" in the style of Charles Ives
From Richard Grayson's 32nd (final) Annual Occidental College Concert, March 31, 2001. Improvisation on a theme from the audience.
Yearly he would improvise on a theme and style given from the audience.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Hammer Dulcimer at Serial Space (excerpt)
from Serial Space- Sydney July 19.2010. NowNow series. excerpt near end of solo performance performed on Hammer Dulcimer tuned to Meta Mavila- a recurrent sequence that resembles a tuning found among the Chopi of Mozambique.
Flamenco music has always been a music that has quite informed my directions on this instrument
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Why Just Intonation?
A summary~
Why Just Intonation?
1. Just Intonation is based on the harmonics relations one finds in nature and is a natural product of the sounds we hear.
2. Just Intonation represents the most consonant intervals. It likewise can create great dissonances thereby extending the range of tension between the two.
3. Just Intonation is tunable by ear due to its acoustical qualities that are unambiguous in nature. This in turn gives one a palette of limitless emotional depth and flexibility.
4. Just Intonation is a modular system. . It is infinitely expandable in terms of intervals at one disposal. Just intonation scales are also ‘open’ scales. While they can form self-contained consistent structures, they are always capable of being augmented in many different ways. This though does not require having to change or discard the pitches one already has, the array of building blocks are the same.
5. Just Intonation allows perceivable structural possibilities that cannot be realized effectively any other way. While ambiguousness has it place in all the arts , It should be by choice.
6. One can have many different intonation systems and scales yet still have common tones, intervals and even scales common between them that can act as bridges. These easily can exist side by side. In a free world of any pitch at any time one can move from one system to another freely by common tone scales or chords.
7. As Just Intonation produces scales with unequal size intervals, this gives one the possibility of more different size intervals with fewer notes.
For example there are Just Intonation pentatonics that give one more different intervals than 12-tone equal temperament. As another example one particular 7 limit 12 tone scale harmonic known as Centaur will give one 50 different intervals within the octave.
8. Just Intonation allows for the possibility of each key or area of the tuning having its own unique flavor and quality.
Why Just Intonation?
1. Just Intonation is based on the harmonics relations one finds in nature and is a natural product of the sounds we hear.
2. Just Intonation represents the most consonant intervals. It likewise can create great dissonances thereby extending the range of tension between the two.
3. Just Intonation is tunable by ear due to its acoustical qualities that are unambiguous in nature. This in turn gives one a palette of limitless emotional depth and flexibility.
4. Just Intonation is a modular system. . It is infinitely expandable in terms of intervals at one disposal. Just intonation scales are also ‘open’ scales. While they can form self-contained consistent structures, they are always capable of being augmented in many different ways. This though does not require having to change or discard the pitches one already has, the array of building blocks are the same.
5. Just Intonation allows perceivable structural possibilities that cannot be realized effectively any other way. While ambiguousness has it place in all the arts , It should be by choice.
6. One can have many different intonation systems and scales yet still have common tones, intervals and even scales common between them that can act as bridges. These easily can exist side by side. In a free world of any pitch at any time one can move from one system to another freely by common tone scales or chords.
7. As Just Intonation produces scales with unequal size intervals, this gives one the possibility of more different size intervals with fewer notes.
For example there are Just Intonation pentatonics that give one more different intervals than 12-tone equal temperament. As another example one particular 7 limit 12 tone scale harmonic known as Centaur will give one 50 different intervals within the octave.
8. Just Intonation allows for the possibility of each key or area of the tuning having its own unique flavor and quality.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Directions
The Direction has been known for some time. There is little new to add to that.
What else can we be working toward if not total and direct freedom of expression- to convey or release whatever compels us, either personal or trans-personal, or both, by any and every means possible. Our territory is depth and the deeper the better.
In order to do this we have to keep our tools in place whether these be methods, systems, and yes processes. They provide little in themselves and yet often they are indispensable. Kandinsky was wise to point out that such paths quickly can make us its slaves. Such failures is all around us, usually in myopic segregated camps.
These tools are mere means that at their core enable a true fruition, a flow of energy from one moment to another. Can we think or express anything that is not somehow directly related to the previous? A work must preserve this by neither omitting too many steps in-between causing its disruption or stagnating it by the unessential. A focus on a ‘well made plan’ or ‘well made process” too often stop a work in its tracks.
We should liberate the concept of the idea as being based solely in the word, otherwise humans would have no necessity of anything beyond it. The ‘explanation’ of works and the forces behind it often eschew the true spirit that moves toward where it seeks. When words are used it only function might be nothing more than another element of that flow. Hence its methods and processes should be no more restrictive than the work itself. Formulas and common practice just will not do.
It is not that we will not have our “constants”, an element Pound always pointed out as being part of any work, and likewise ourselves as one also would be no different. We might accept our resonance to some and not to others, an aspect of our own antennae. The goal is to have as many open as possible.
An Aside.
It is not that History(ies) is capable of being resurrected but it is immortal as an active part of the fabric in the continuum of our present. More often than not when we find ourselves at an old intersection with the same old things on the corner, we have approached it from new directions than before. This is what is easily mislabled as “influence”.
What else can we be working toward if not total and direct freedom of expression- to convey or release whatever compels us, either personal or trans-personal, or both, by any and every means possible. Our territory is depth and the deeper the better.
In order to do this we have to keep our tools in place whether these be methods, systems, and yes processes. They provide little in themselves and yet often they are indispensable. Kandinsky was wise to point out that such paths quickly can make us its slaves. Such failures is all around us, usually in myopic segregated camps.
These tools are mere means that at their core enable a true fruition, a flow of energy from one moment to another. Can we think or express anything that is not somehow directly related to the previous? A work must preserve this by neither omitting too many steps in-between causing its disruption or stagnating it by the unessential. A focus on a ‘well made plan’ or ‘well made process” too often stop a work in its tracks.
We should liberate the concept of the idea as being based solely in the word, otherwise humans would have no necessity of anything beyond it. The ‘explanation’ of works and the forces behind it often eschew the true spirit that moves toward where it seeks. When words are used it only function might be nothing more than another element of that flow. Hence its methods and processes should be no more restrictive than the work itself. Formulas and common practice just will not do.
It is not that we will not have our “constants”, an element Pound always pointed out as being part of any work, and likewise ourselves as one also would be no different. We might accept our resonance to some and not to others, an aspect of our own antennae. The goal is to have as many open as possible.
An Aside.
It is not that History(ies) is capable of being resurrected but it is immortal as an active part of the fabric in the continuum of our present. More often than not when we find ourselves at an old intersection with the same old things on the corner, we have approached it from new directions than before. This is what is easily mislabled as “influence”.
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