a blog on sound and silence by Michael Andrew Doherty
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
…
Sound of the shakuhachi
Recedes into the pine forest
A damp bed of needles and moss
Dragonflies meet in midair
…
Lost Pond (Shakuhachi) by madoherty
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Monday, July 19th, 2010
With silence I will go…
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Thursday, July 8th, 2010
…
Wind. Birds. Flies…
Sound so rich,
Shakuhachi can wait
…
Field Recording: 2010-06-24 1130AM Lost Pond, Mueller State Park, Colorado by madoherty
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Thursday, July 8th, 2010
…
Been forgetting myself
in the shakuhachi
more and more
…
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Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
It’s been a couple weeks since the production of Hwang’s Sound of a Voice that I played shakuhachi in closed. I miss begin around the actors, dancers, and crew, but I have found that what I miss most is the experience (the sound culture) of sitting back stage, listening, meditating between pieces that I played, and in particular the pregnant silence between lines in the actors dialogue. The sound from the production left such an indelible mark in my mind. I never saw the production of course, which is part of my reliance on my aural experience of the play, but given that frame, the production had a unique and memorable character. The sound culture of the environment was one where my shakuhachi definitely had a home in- not the same as playing in the living room! The flute made sense in the context of the play, fashioned after a Japanese fable, it could move and live freely in the environment, and had listeners every night (although one night there were only 9 in the audience). The sounds of the shakuhachi wedded with the actors voices within the environment.
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Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Sad news. The well-respected shakuhachi player and teacher, Yokoyama Katsuya, has passed away. He left an incredible legacy on the shakuhachi world, foundational in the spread of the instruments influence to the western world. Yokoyama was taught by his father Yokoyama Ranpo, Fukuda Rando, and Watazumido. Yokoyama’s students are many, and their resounding influence has been great as well. My sensei, and the players whose sound I have most wanted to learn from are those in the lineage of Yokoyama sensei.
“Yokoyama will be remembered as one of the greatest for sure… and I think all of us shakuhachi players will have him in the heart always.” – Kiku Day, shakuhachi player, teacher and ethnomusicologist
Tags: Yokoyama | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
I think that it started with a poem that I wrote in Catholic school (Holy Family) in the 5th(?) grade for a contest, my sense of listening and its connection to what in Japan/Zen would be called mu (nothingness) or ku (emptiness) (or as I read Bataille: “imminent immensity”, and to which some call “sacred”). We were to pick a title (I think), or a theme, and write a piece. I had chosen “Come Follow Me” as my theme and title. Up to this point I had had no particular religious inclination or feeling. The Catholic rituals every Sunday and holidays (including my birthday) were a routine hour long test of my understanding. I remember thinking at one point that the priest must have been Jesus, or G.o.d. because of the reverence that everyone showed him.
I remember really wanting to put my guts into this poem – or as much of that as a fifth-grader could. I do not remember the specific feeling that I got a hold of, or how well it translated into the poem. I remember that it was the sense of quietness that I felt as an expanse that I tried to express in the poem…
“It’s a feeling in your heart, a voice in your soul that says, Come follow me”
I do remember not putting any particular face on this force… and I think the personification of there being a leader was inherent in the theme I had chosen but not in this feeling I had in my person / experience. I, coincidentally, won some big prize and had to read the poem in front of other parents and students at some Archdiocese event for all the winners.
In composing the poem I remember listening in order to ascertain what could be meant by the theme I had chosen. I listening intently to myself. I Listened within, to reach without- to reach what might be calling to me to follow them/it. This might be the first instance of my practice of listening. It was the first instance of fusing art with quietude.
Tags: aesthetics, art, mu/ku | Posted in Sound & Silence | No Comments »
Friday, March 26th, 2010
A couple of years ago I started a project of composing short sound haiku for shakuhachi. Each shakuhachi haiku is constructed as the traditional word variety with the 5 – 7 – 5 on (or syllabic events in the english versions) structure, but for me this translates into, for lack of a better term, volitional events (sound or silence). These can be notes / pitches, changes, as well as silences. IF a particular riff has a large amount of “muster”, such as a muraiki, I might count that as two instead of one “event”. Each “line” of poetry is a breath in my haiku.
One day I will have enough of these to put together a recording.
I like the fact that each phrase of the haiku are framed by silence.
| Posted in Music Composition, Shakuhachi | No Comments »
Monday, March 1st, 2010
Been brewing thoughts concerning an issue that Feldman had worked with. I am not certain if he had settled the issue or not. He, as I, had been approaching music much from the standpoint of a Modernist, hearing a music that has not been tempered a manifestation. A few years ago I had begun writing pieces that had no specific instruments attached, “Composition for One Voice”, for example. Further, when performed my direction to the instrumentalist is to be as plain as possible, no vibrato, and at the end of the note, please do just drop off suddenly, without any loss of volume. Instrumentalists were not pleased. It robbed their instrument’s sound. Feldman went further to say that even the sound, “color” (I read “timbre”), of the instrument was a treason to his intent.
So it is. This situation has not been helped by my tendency to be drawn to sounds (particularly woodwinds) that bleed of tradition, culture, and feeling… duduk, shakuhachi, the ney). What is more, the shakuhachi has become the overwhelming musical voice in my house and will not, at present, lay down its rich Japanese voice… I am just learning to allow those sounds to live.
There is this dichotomy that currently does not have a solution, if there is one. I assume that one will win out, and right now that scales are tipping to favor the richness of being a shakuhachi player, and away from neo-modern composition.
| Posted in Music Composition | No Comments »
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