::Japanese gagaku music:: Togi Suenobu (gagaku teacher) experimental avant garde:: early electronic pioneers::Pauline Oliveros::Gyorgi Ligeti::Steve Coleman:: Sophia Gubaidulina:: The Clash::Fred Frith:: Tadao Sawai::acoustics, sounds and behavior of the natural:: plants and insects::all environmental sounds:: Thelonius Monk:: early languages::Chinese one corner paintings::Cecil Taylor:: Dr. L. Subramaniam::
Sounds Like
"Regardless of how anyone attempts to describe Masaoka's artistry, including the artist herself, her work is clearly a phenomenon — ~SF Weekly
"Watching Masaoka shape the air in front of her brings to mind the theremin, an early electronic instrument that one plays by waving one's hands around two antennas. The theremin's eerie, voicelike sound can be heard on the soundtracks of sci-fi classics like Forbidden Planet and Lost in Space, as well as on recordings by Led Zeppelin and Portishead." ~Wired Magazine
"Miya Masaoka in particular stood out....The diminutive kotoist unleashed wondrous strands of progressive gagaku melody, punctuated by odd notes grabbed out of midair from her proximity sensors. Offhand scrapes and buzzes infiltrated, then dominated. But so carefully and artfully were they developed that it was clear a strong sense of compositional intuition was present. Bowed scrapes dissolved into a return of the drones of the film soundtrack. It was a powerful statement that came directly from the soul of the player and made for one of her most compelling performance works to date." ~San Franciso Classical Voice
"Masterful and conceptually restless koto player Miya Masaoka has made it her business to usher the Japanese instrument into contemporary contexts, combining respect for tradition with new musical applications. At REDCAT on Thursday in the first of three varied evenings in the CEAIT Festival — for the CalArts Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology — Masaoka took the "E" of the acronym to heart, experimenting with results both evocative and provocative." ~Los Angeles Times
"Despite (or perhaps because of) her sometimes controversial subject matter and invari-ably ear-bending music, Masaoka has little trouble maintaining a rapt audience. By applying dozens of extended techniques to the koto — like rubbing or beating mallets on the wood, sawing the strings with a violin bow and fixing cymbals between the strings for a percussive “prepared” effect — the artist not only expands the instrument’s range far beyond that of classical Japanese approaches, but also adds to the spectacle of her performance." ~The New York Press
"Masaoka makes her koto sing, bending notes, strumming glistening arpeggios, and generally catapulting herself into the front ranks of the cross-cultural cre-ative music that may well define jazz in the next century." ~San Francisco Bay Guardian
Miya Masaoka, musician, composer, performance artist, has created works for koto, laser interfaces, laptop and video and written scores for ensembles, chamber orchestras and mixed choirs. In her performance pieces she has investigated the sound and movement of insects, as well as the physiological responses of plants, the human brain, and her own body. Within these varied contexts of sound, music and nature, her performance work emphasizes the interactive, live nature of improvisation, and reflects an individual, contemporary expression of Japanese gagaku aural gesturalism.
Masaoka's work has been presented in Japan, Canada, Europe, Eastern Europe and she has toured to India six times. Venues include V2 in Rotterdam, Cybertheater in Brussels, Elektronisch Festival in Groningen, the Cleveland Performance Art Festival, The Electronik Body Festival in Bratislava, Slovakia, Radio Bremen, Germany, Festival of Lights, Hyberadad, India, and the London Musicians Collective.
Since forming and directing the San Francisco Gagaku Society, Masaoka has been creating new ways of thinking about and performing on the Japanese koto. She has developed a virtuosic and innovative approach, including improvisation and expanding the instrument into a virtual space using computer, lasers, live sampling, and real time processing.
Masaoka has been developing koto interfaces with midi controllers since the 1980's originally with Tom Zimmerman, co-inventor of the Body Glove. Since then, she has she has worked at STEIM, Amsterdam, CNMAT, and with Donald Swearingen to build interfaces with the computer and koto, at times using pedals, light sensors, motion sensors and ultrasound. With the koto connected directly to her laptop, she records her playing live, and processes the samples in real time. This new koto is able to respond dynamically and interactively in a variety of musical environments, and improvise with the processed sounds.
Asian instruments. Its evolution reflects the continuum of change through the epochs of Japanese history, and includes ritual, sacred and secular folk and court forms. The full name, kami no nori koto, means literally, "Oracle of the gods" and was used in Shinto practices that continue in modern Japan. It is made of the rather soft kiri wood, and is over six feet long. The length of the vibrating part of the strings is determined by the placement of the moveable bridges (ji), each string having one bridge. Different placement of the ji produce different tunings. There are some 200 scales in Japanese music. The strings are plucked with ivory plectra (tsume) of varying shape. Miya Masaoka performs on the 17, 21 and 25 string koto. Her 25 string koto was made for her by Takashi Nakaji, and she is one of the few performers on this instrument.
In addition to studying traditional koto with Seiko Shimaoka, Masaoka has studied with teachers of Chikushi, Sawai and Ikuta schools. The koto is one of the instruments in the gagaku orchestra, and Masaoka formed the San Francisco Gagaku Society in 1990 under the leadership of Suenobu Togi, an organization that was dedicated to studying, performing and preserving gagaku. Togi Sensei traces his family lineage in the gagaku tradition more than 1200 years to China. He was educated at the Japanese Imperial Court Music School where he studied Japanese court music and dance since boyhood. Members of the esteemed Togi family were the first Imperial Court musicians in history to teach gagaku to non-Imperial Court Japanese civilians, to non-Japanese and also to women, all prohibited from learning gagaku.
I encourage you to support the campaign to incorporate a comprehensive study of racism into the American academic system, and make it a prerequisite for graduation; by writing your local and state representatives, the dept. of education in your state, and also by writing to the Attorney General at the US Justice Department, and President Barack Obama expressing your endorsement of this endeavor.
free released for your look+listening as DVD+CD / .iso files / mov+mp3. DOWNLOAD -> www.myspace.com/ryutakwbt
DVD/mov is including two "table-top guitar" solo, two duo performance,
some kinetic studies and some more. 104.min Stereo. duo with Celebrante in Una Casa Buenos Aires,
Ryusaku "Rutang" Ikezawa in YahiroHIGHTI, Tokyo.
CD/mp3 is including a recording of acoustic resophonic guitar solo. It is a contemporary local blues that has sewwt tone. 21.min Monoral.
Catch the auditory hallucinations and modulations caused by chain of movement and interference without no computer in this works. it is magical and beautiful. hope to enjoy, sincerely.
"If we as a nation are ever going to achieve that status of true greatness, then we must be courageous enough to deal with matters pertaining to race and racism, without seeking the artificial cloak of denial as some sort of safe haven."
KEVIN BLECHDOM - NEW ALBUM !!! OUT NOW !!!! OMG !!!
GENTLEMANIA!! GENTLEMANIA!! GENTLEMANIA!! GENTLEMANIA!!
An acoustic album chock full of palpitating love songs.
Kevin Blechdom plays piano and sings.
Available NOW on Sonig and on iTunes.
www.itunes.com/kevinblechdom/gentlemania
Stet Lab takes place this Tuesday, 10 February, upstairs @ The Roundy, Cork, Ireland. The event will feature the awe-inspiring virtuoso saxophonist Paul Dunmall. [Details…] The Lab will also feature appearances by visiting performers, drummer Mark Sanders and guitarist Jamie Smith, and Stet Lab (ir)regulars including Andrea Bonino, Han-earl Park, Paul Dowling, Neil O’Loghlen, Owen Sutton, Veronica Tadman and Kevin Terry.
Dunmall, Park, Sanders and Smith will also be performing at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, UCC, Cork on Wednesday, 11 February at 1:10 pm as part of the UCC Concert Series.
