Re: Acoustic sound and looping

[matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias Grob)]

Dave Stagner:
>Not only is there nothing like live, there's nothing like purely
>acoustic.  Amplifiers and speakers (much less processors) do horrible
>things to sound.

Unfortunately, I must agree...

>... to try to set up sound that rises and falls in intensity in a
>regular way, without relying on a beat.  The Tibetans have learned to
>do these things and more with very simple instruments.
>
>And speaking of acoustic looping, a small aside... are there any fans
>of Balinese music here?

I visited Bali in '85 and followed the sound. (Like here hundreds of street
dogs bark all night :-)
What most stroke me of the Gamelan music was these waves. I remember it was
somehow tiring for me, to hear it grow and come down, grow and come down,
100 times in an evening (they don't stop easily!). The sound is very
metallic, quick and light - a way to call higher chakras.
Exteremly nice and independent, self secure and tolerant people, faithfull
and smiling.. Their tradition and religion really works, not only in the
music.
For me even more impressive was a theatre with about 30 male singers around
the "stage", creating the coments to the piece (I did not understand
anything of) using also impressive mouth and body rythms, noises and
screams. Although sitting, they had a choregraphy, moving toards or away
from the actors, shaking heads, showing fear, support and so on. Hard to
imagine, huh?

>(another aside... a few years ago, I found a set of windchimes based
>on a Balinese rather than Western scale.  Most windchimes are tuned to
>a Major 6add9 chord.  The stacked thirds are so syrupy it almost makes
>me ill to hear them for long.  My four-note Balinese chimes are tuned
>on a stack of fifths, GDAE.  Harmonic relationships are dominated by
>fifths and seconds, with NO thirds.  I *love* them!  I often sit on
>the back porch with my acoustic guitar, just playing along and
>reacting to the sound of the chimes)

Beautifull!

Thank you
Matthias