Swollen: solo sarangi with octave halver
http://lounge.espdisk.com/archives/1080 (best)
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/swollen.mp3
I just love this piece! It carries the depth
that I want from bowed instruments; using
octave halving gives me the doubling of the
instrumentation. I was thinking of shakuhachi
playing and enlightenment throughout. And I
was thinking how absolutely great this would
have sounded at SXSW! Please for Sakyamuni's
sake ENJOY!
Audition
so today I went to my favorite pawnshop and found a dirty
messed-up electric guitar with the name 'Audition' on it,
with four strings, two of the geared tuners broken, pretty
much rusted tailpiece, one knob missing, one that wouldn't
turn, a broken and useless nut. so for $20 I got the thing
plus a four-string nut, tuned the four strings like a pipa
- ADEa - cleaned the instrument, got the knobs to work,
used wire to cut out as much of the hum as possible (the
pickups aren't hum-bucking) and have had a grand old time
with the instrument, which it turns out sells from $400-
$500 in good condition, from 1965 made by Teisco in Japan.
I love the oddly dirty sound and can use it when I'm with
sax players; anyway here are three pieces:
http://lounge.espdisk.com/archives/1081 (best)
- but see the following descriptions -
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/audition1.mp3
- this is a blues improvisation - the first music
I learned was the blues - not so much the commercial
stuff - fairly slow here -
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/audition2.mp3
- more experimental work taking advantage of the
pipa tuning (which I used for all of these) -
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/audition3.mp3
- just a minor scale improvisation but I like its
energy -
enjoy, they're not long - alan -