Center for New Music: Fred Frith & Sudhu Tewari – Prototypes II [LIVE]
Free (Free)
Fred Frith, new instruments
Sudhu Tewari, new instruments
Join Fred Frith and Sudhu Tewari in a discussion and demonstration of their newly created instruments.
About Prototypes II: "In preparing this exhibition we were continuously confronted with basic questions: Why build a new instrument? What is it supposed to do? How will it be played and in what context? To what extent will it require appropriate techniques, and will the result be consistent? Is that actually what we want?
"Sudhu and I have been playing in our duo, Normal, for many years now, a “group” that plays manually & electronically manipulated instruments that we build ourselves. Not really instruments in the sense of beautifully crafted art objects so much as crude de-constructions patched together using the simplest of means, and requiring only minimal exertion to produce sound. My “planks of wood with strings” were almost all built in the early 1980s, when for a period of a couple of years I abandoned the guitar as my primary vehicle for improvising. I had come to the conclusion that the guitar was not really relevant—as a guitar—to the way I was playing, and was trying to reduce the idea of an “instrument” to its most basic and simple form. I guess you could say that Sudhu and I share a kind of “junk” aesthetic. We deeply admire the stunning craftsmanship of such inventors as Hans Reichel and Oliver DiCicco, but are also aware of the ways in which that very craftsmanship also reduces the gestural vocabulary to one that is more or less dictated by the perfection of the result. If our musical philosophy runs along the lines of “what will happen if I do this, now” then our constructions need to reflect that openness, and desire—not to say delight—for surprise!
"Sudhu is a tinkerer of genius. He plunders garages and junkshops and scours the streets for the sources of his sound world. The smallest spring may turn into a potential orchestra, the bluntest needle into a sharp response. But the thing is, what is really going on is intense listening. As he says: “From my perspective, this project is about making instruments that serve the purpose of making the kinds of music that we make together, or that we might want to make, along with a healthy dash of simply trying things to see if they might result in something amazing that we would never have thought to do.
"The results of these couple of months of reflection and hard work suggest ideas about composition as much as they do about improvisation. The next step will be to take those ideas and run with them wherever they might take us…"
The livestream will take place at 7:30pm Pacific.
This concert is free. Donations to C4NM are encouraged: https://centerfornewmusic.com/donate/