Irish bouzouki – Robert Stikmanz: Recent Episodes
None
It has been a minute since I’ve posted a distracted improvisation. Noodling on the zouk is one of the best ways to think about other things. This morning, with everything just there in place ready though rarely used, I hit record. It’s a quiet moment, not a grand one. Fingertips on Irish bouzouki.Merry happy every day, earthlings!
The post Living room music 01/01/020 appeared first on Robert Stikmanz.
“Moth,” by Sarah Belle Reid, interpreted by Robert Stikmanz, September 2019. Sarah Belle Reid was a featured artist and workshop presenter at the 2017 New Media Art & Sound Summit (NMASS) here in Austin. Instrumentalist, composer, inventor and conceptualist, Sarah was brilliant, warm and epically nice from the moment she arrived. I state that authoritatively because I was staffing the door when she checked in. I also attended her workshop and performances, and spent most of the event outside my volunteer shifts hanging around as audience. Lucky for me that over the course of the festival we had occasion to talk. Some of our talk got me thinking about the kinesthetics of performance. How and how much does the physical act of making music shape musical thinking? Playing a piano, do the motions themselves admit creative possibilities distinct from those of another musician sliding a fingertip and tapping a touchpad? After NMASS, when Sarah sent two documents she had promised, I answered with follow-on from our conversation and a recording of my very, very best (slightly) experimental track. She responded with thoughtful comments about kinesthetics that showed her interest in the subject was neither casual or new. She also invited [...]
The post Graphic Zoukination – Sarah Belle Reid’s “Moth” appeared first on Robert Stikmanz.
On the way to the vein clinic for what I had hoped would be the final follow-up on a series of procedures performed last year on my legs, the mighty Scion once again displayed a suite of warning lights. It did this two weeks ago, and that episode priced out at $2G. The lights came back last week for another touch from finite resources. “More than a nuisance” describes this third occurrence, which set the stage for the surgeon’s determination that, despite having followed every instruction to the letter, I am not restored to perfect health and ready for release back into the wild. In fact, another procedure is required for each leg, at the ankle. They’ll be in touch about scheduling. Scheduling was easier for setting up repair on the Scion. A three hour wait led to a diagnosis of unsated appetite for another chunk of change. Parts will be in Friday morning. Experience has shown that an effective way of processing such a coincidence of sling and arrow is to lay hold of an Irish bouzouki and hammer until either it surrenders or lances the annoyance and the pressure flows away. But that was, as Duchamp had it, [...]
The post Living room music 03-28-017 appeared first on Robert Stikmanz.