The title, MEISTERN & VERGESSEN: GESCHWISTER, refers to an essay by Jean-Francois Billeter about the book "Zhuangzi" by Zhuang Zhou, beside the "Tao Te Ching" the other basic text of the taoism.
In the context of mastering and forgetting it´s about the learning, the process. "An equanimity takes shape, above or besides the known and learned which arises from the it-goes-without-saying.
The forgetting comes along with the mastership. It sets in when basic forces start to work and consciousness can refrain from piloting the processes like it did before, and forget itself."
The passage about learning opens out into Zhuangzi´s interjection:
"Oh, did I only know somebody who would forget the language so I could talk to him!"
How does this forgotten language sound?
This is a question for the music!
All instruments I dabble on right now are hearable at the same time: melodion, bass flute, portative & bass harmonica.
Beside the evident interest in interferences and its beats etc. MEISTERN & VERGESSEN: GESCHWISTER is about elegance and ruptures, the descent.
In contrast to previous works it stands out that this composition gets along entirely without reverberation and the question remains what´s attractive about it.
Quite often the mix breaks off abruptly.
This could sharpen the attentiveness: you can sink into sound but the consciousness is called up unmistakably again and again.
It´s like stretching an elastic and then let go.
Main focus was the sound: to create, with as few means as possible, a great variety of sounds, not with regard to harmonical or even melodical and rhythmical structures but to sound, tone color, timbre.
And it simply works out best without overlapping reverberations. On the other hand a continuous change was sought between opulent and complicated seeming sounds and those who appear simple, quasi frugal.
One part of the whole is a result of montage - though all tones and chords are played as heard, that is to say I have neither shorten nor extend them and also the chronology I kept -, the other one, that is two tracks of the melodion, has been finally »synchronized«: I taped them by watching the monitor with the previous layers, the rough montage.
For further information and more photos see:
stimmgang.blogspot.com
Dort gibt es auch den Text auf Deutsch.
released December 20, 2017
Stefan Hardt - portative, bass harmonica, flute, melodion & composition
