I can't wait to talk about the new
ambient/experimental/free improv trio I'm playing in now. It is with two
women that I met, and who played at the Boise Experimental Music festival, both
music students/graduates. The instrumentation is me on guitar, Gretchen
on Koto (a really cool sounding Japanese instrument - http://home.san.rr.com/koto/instru.htm),
and Jesse on cello. We had our first rehearsal last week and our first
gig is on October 8.
The instrumentation and contrast of the different instruments is really
interesting, and I was wondering if anyone else on the list had played with a
koto player - because I'd like to hear what has been done to leverage some
ideas. I found one reference to such a trio, with Henry Kaiser
(guitar), Miya Masaoka (koto), and Danielle DeGruttola (cello), and the CD is
called Seance by Vex Records...but I can't find the thing for sale
anywere. Any clues? Gretchen lived in Japan for 10 years and
knows a fair amount about the music and instrument. At our first jam
session, I didn't do any looping, because I wanted to just focus on the sound of
my guitar and how it worked with the cello and koto. I used my nylon
string, but surprisingly, both of them requested that I play my jazz electric
next time, because they think the contrast of acoustic instruments with my
electric will be more unique.
Our basic approach for playing is that Gretchen can tune the Koto to any
scale....we start with a traditional Japanese harmonic structure (D Eb G A Bb
D) and play with that...and then after that point, she tunes it to various
modes (mixolydian, lydian, pentatonic, etc), and we play modally over a tonal
center, which is great for me with my jazz background. You can do some
great things with the koto, such as scraping the plectra over the strings,
bending the strings for other tones, etc. The fun one is where she tunes the
koto to the chromatic scale and we play atonally...the three of us end up
sounding like we're playing a 12 tone piece, though there are no rows or
permutations involved.
Next rehearsal I'll be bringing my notebook system and looping. My plan is to
loop some ambient textures of basic melodic motifs based on the tuning of the
koto..and then we'll improvise over that...afterwhich I'll continue
manipulating the loops to evolve with the performance. It should be fun.
I hope to record the Oct. 8 performance.
Kris
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Krispen Hartung / Improvisational Looping Guitar
www.krispenhartung.com / www.myspace.com/krispenhartung
My Tribe: http://people.tribe.net/krispen-hartung
info@krispenhartung.com / 1.208.724.5603
Discography - http://www.krispenhartung.com/catalogue.htm
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