The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

would shed something

http://lounge.espdisk.com/archives/1175 (best)
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/woodshed3.mp3

woodshedding the erhu, learning to play double stops in mid-air,
what the hell, the bow can bend that way, difficult to keep the
parallel fifths but then the fingers take off independently
working the strings, the bow's shuddering, it's all there, several
notes at once, but who the hell cares, whatever it is, it's like
masturbation, taking control of the erhu body as my own, but what
comes afterwards a kind of anger and disgust at myself, no one
else is present or cares that the harmonic sequences are going all
over the place out of sync, there are also echoes of echoes, it's
all in the bow, fierce switching between strings, and i think that
all that's between me and death are thirty or so little pills, but
that's not a good enough reason to do this or a good enough reason
to listen to it for that matter, all these post-culture-revolution
strings turned to metal and loudness, i don't want to hear metal,
silk or gut or nylon would be fine, something bringing out
different overtones than the usual ringing series, i'll carry this
reverberation to my death, mixed with my tinnitus, maybe i'm deaf
to whatever the hell is going on, you need a good bit of rosin all
throughout the bow for this stuff, even on the wood, gives you
free-range musics, whatever's going on i work my bones into it,
that's out of the running with prosthetics, machines can do it
better without feeling the pressure of the strings, calculating it
maybe, but i'm working myself into a fury, the back of my mind
filled with muddy scenarios of homelessness, instruments smashed
into the mud, health ruined, the world at war, don't let me listen
to your bloody scratching back and forth like your skin's tearing
off, it's not music anyway, what the fuck, i don't know anything
about music but i know what i like