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This is a piece for toy piano and glassharp that never got on my New Albion cd Song + Distance. It was recorded back in 2000 in Oakland by Myles Boisen. I am playing glass harp with my left hand and toy piano with my right. (There is no overdubbing.)

The timing of finding this facebook group is auspicious in that I just had a rehearsal with toy pianist Phyllis Chen for our concert together in two weeks. April 11 @ Barbés, 7pm.

Here’s a video of my present keyboard collection (toy pianos, analog synths, small keyboards).

Last year John was nice enough to ask me to contribute something to this installment. After wracking my brain for a while, I decide to write an essay called Why Glass?. I attempt to answer the question of why I have devoted myself to glass as the prime physical material in my acoustic work, as well as the main sound source for much of my electronic work.

Here is an excerpt from my essay:

As we all know, glass does indeed break. That in itself is part of its charm and part of the adventure. It’s also one reason glass is particularly well suited to improvised and otherwise aleatoric music. It does break, but you cannot count on it doing so (unless a hammer is used, of course). The few times I have tried to break things on cue, they have stubbornly refused to do so. That is why after all this time I am still always surprised when something does break. The material seems to have a mind of its own. One of the benefits of using glass in the less regulated kinds of music is that when one instrument does break, there are then two or more new instruments. Instrumental mitosis! All the way until the smallest shards are used for glass maracas.

This volume also contains wonderful writings by Derek Bailey, Paul Dresher, Shelley Hirsch, James Fei, and many others. Hopefully you can find it in your local bookstore. If not, go here, or here.

But there is still plenty to see/hear here. Please click around  to the various pages and to my previous posts. There are plenty of audio files, pictures, and some video of which to avail yourself.

I’ll be back blogging eventually. Thanks for checking in.

Merce with my glass instruments, May 2008

He will be missed.

I did have a great time in Kosovo, though. If you’d like to see photos go here.

Once I get this Art of Memory show up and running, I’ll have more time.

Recorded four days ago:

Katie Down : glass, strings, and wind.
Miguel Frasconi : glass and small instruments.
Jeffrey Lependorf : shakuhachi and global flutes.

Getting ready for our residency in Kosovo next week.

There is a short phrase at the very end that sounds like an electronic filter sweep. It took me a while to figure out what it was (since there were no electronics in the band). I realized it was a very brief duet by me and “altered-sax” player John Oswald . Enjoy.