source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 11:13:49 -0700 Subject: Sonic Arts Concert From: John Chalmers I want to say a few words about the concert last Thursday at the Sonic Arts Gallery in San Diego. The concert opened with a duet for 'cello and synthesizer in 15-tet by Brian McLaren and Jonathan Glasier. Brian played a chordal accompaniment to Glasiers melodies. The second piece was for synths in Ensoniq's "Arabic 1" tuning. What is this tuning? Nobody seems to know exactly. but whateve it is, it sounded great. The third selection was an ambitious tuned percussion study employing Erv Wilson's aluminum bar "Hebdomekontany" array (the 4)8 [1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15] degenerate 70-any with extra notes added to bring the number back up to 70 pitches per octave. I believe this is the instrument shown at the Hollywood Bowl Museum show several years ago and formerly housed at John Gibbon's Bell Garden, now sadly burnt down. It has been remounted by Glasier recently. Accompanying the hebdomekontany were the Quadulator (Wesley's new tuned tongue instrument), which I have mentioned elsewhere, cymbals and synth. A visiting musician from Sedona, AZ named Leonardo collaborated on the construction of the Q and played the cymbals in this piece. Bill Wesley was featured in the next set. The first was a a virtuoso performance on the "Rhythm Machine," a large array of infrasonically tuned, weighted metal tongues which rattle against fixed posts. This instrument has a wonderful clattering, chattering, rattling sound in Bill's hands. It is tuned in 4ths and octaves, but most of the pitches are unaudiblly low and generate sounds by striking posts. It was accompanied by Brian on synth and Glasier on a hand beaten drum. Bill next performed on his "Nail Violin," an set of large and small nails sticking out a resonator box. It is played by stroking the nail heads with rosin-coated fingers. The sound is somewhat reminiscent of the glass harmonica and ranged from flute-like tones to rather breathy and raspy, string-like timbres. Glasier accompanied Bill on a synth in 19-tet, using a variety of other timbres. The next piece was 17-tet duet for guitar and synthesizer, the latter ably played by Elizabeth Glasier. I may be wrong, but I think this is her first appearance in SAG concerts. Wesley returned to perform on his "Array Guitar," nine strings stretched over a board with high frets metal frets. It is played by "hammering on," like the Stick, but the loose strings and high frets allow for wide pitch bending. The sound might be likened to "blues sitar." BIll also played his "Array Slide," an out-sized slide guitar type of instrument and demonstrated one of his multioctave polyphonic Kalimbas (Mbiras). The final piece was the premier of Brian's "Microconcerto for Megalyra and Synthesizer," in 19-tet. The solo passages were played live by Brian on Ivor Darreg's Megalyra (another slide guitar type of instrument) while a computer and synth provided the orchestra. I found the orchestral parts remininiscent of some of Brian's earlier 19-tone music, but he says there was no conscious quotation. It is a very nice piece which I am looking forward to hearing again soon on tape. Ralph David Hill was in the audience. Some of you may recall his tapes on Just Intonation that are distributed by the JIN. He lives in San Diego now and has just gotten new and more powerful hardware for synthesis. --John Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 21:59 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id MAA25031; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:59:11 -0700 Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:59:11 -0700 Message-Id: <03960610195430/0005695065PK1EM@MCIMAIL.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu