A few different things I have been reading recently have come together in some vague and half-baked ideas on performance issues.
Tag: theory
Modes
In discussion with Siobhán Armstrong the other day, she challenged me to set out my ideas on how we can use modes to categorise or understand the old Gaelic harp music. Here is the scheme that I think I have been gradually bringing together for a while.
The Harmony of the World
Some years ago, I got the CD of Willie Ruff’s ‘realisation for the ear’ of the planetary tones from Kepler’s Harmonices Mundi of 1619. Just recently I noticed that his web page has been updated with a very interesting Youtube interview where he discusses this project. Well worth a listen: Continue reading The Harmony of the World
why
I have not been playing the harp because I have been working on the virtual ANS instead. For my very first experiment (which I put here the other day) I did everything on-screen , sampling the sound of the harp and distorting it rather crudely into a drone and some chime-like sounds.
But one of the things that attracted me to this instrument in the first place was the idea of tactile, hands-on shaping of the sonorities. Continue reading why