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drsných tanců od Dana Senna An audiobook of 29 Fayfer Harp improvisations. |
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The Third Book of Rugged Dances (2024) is collection of improvisations recorded at Shy Anne Studio in Tacoma, WA, on May 15, 2001. The instrument performed, a Fayfer Harp, was invented ci. 1990 in Muncie, IN while an Associate Professor of Music at Ball State University. Before this recording I had traveled for years across Northern Europe, the USA, even New Zealand, with the Fayfer and other nonlinear, sculptural instruments of mine while not giving much thought to being a “free improviser.” This, perhaps, was because these instruments were designed to be opague and thus an obstacle to group improvisations with traditional instruments designed to be transparent. These functioned more as "scores" as they strictly, obstinately limited the sonic landscape available to a performer. You cannot play Dixie on a Fayfer Harp unless it first agrees—anthropomorphisms unavoidable. Traditional instruments, again, are designed to be transparent. One resisting this is considered poor, broken, inefficient or opaque. Cage's prepared pianos altered this perception some while remaining accessible from an ivory panel. A good aunt and uncle of mine, living in the hills of southeastern Minnesota, owned an upright piano positioned in their living room. It was not playable and kept to project a cultured milieu. Inventing the Fayfer Harp, I began with a decorative pewter leaf with beautiful overtones when tapped or bowed. The leaf was suspened on 8 pound nylon lines in a four post frame built from PVC pipe. Two lines threaded the leaf at four points via threaded piezo mics that amplified and roughly tuned the instrument. A 3 foot threaded steel rod pierced the middle of the pewter resonator and was further attached to a 2 pound weight beneath the instrument., A flared piece of brass screwed to the top, also a found object. The instrument was played by inserting a finger into this flared brass (prevented muting) while vibrating the rod, and other parts of the Fayfer, with a violin bow. The PVC posts also included thin pine dowels that could also be pulled or struck in performance. The Fayfer, like other sculptural instruments of mine, were influenced by my work in raku pottery, an ancient Japanese art form that purposefully uses difficult-to-control materials and procedures to inhibit control of a medium. This effectively harneseses the ego as it dares the performer to trivialize instrument. My studies in raku, beginning in 1971, dramatically shifted my aesthetics in music and art eventually finding kinship with the work of John Cage and the fluxes movement. To appreciate this work these roots and concepts must be understood. These recordings were made in a day, not unlike the tradition of a raku firing where prepared pots are quickly, ritually fired in a flimsy, unstable kiln—where the success rate is not high. Not all the sonic artifacts from this May 15th session are presented here either. These 29 tracks have survived not only the original sonic firing but 23 years of dusty storage. Over the years, bits and pieces of these works have been used in third generation improvs, fixed electronic works, video accompaniment, etc. But for recent experiences here in Prague, these files may have been lost or tossed. As such they have been recovered, and now more than ever, explain my current discomfort with a freakishly narcissistic society where mirroring parades as invention. The rhythms are rugged. The pitches found and untempered by a resistant artifice. They are spontaneous audio traces by a western trained musician, me, moving awkwardly through a terrain of obstacles resistant to control. A planned bout resulting in a dislocated will. An altered aesthetic impacting an ever shifting view of what is beautiful. A renewed cognition of the ugliness of kitsch as it clownishly seeks a feigned control. An aesthetic that represses virtuosity and self importance while lifting and exposing the same. |
Chapter One - Plicks 02__ 03__ 04__ 05__ 06__ 07__ 08__ 09__ Chapter Three - Pumps 20__ 21__
A weakness of mine is that after improvising as such, where I have not
consciously considered political or emotional meaning, is that the
finished work takes on metaphorphic connections. This is
natural. Removed from the
moment, the struggle, one is reminded of things. A work thus takes on symbolisms as the performer begins the
transition to listener/patron status. And yet, after all my whining of
kitsch in art, I often find it impossible to keep from retrofitting a
meaningful metaphor. "This may assist some in listening", I rationalize, but I fear it is
destructive rabbit hole and quite hypocritical. I could just as easily call a track "#14"
instead of pegging an image that had no conscious apparent weight at conception. I apologize for this. In The Third Book of
Rugged Dances, with some effort, I have restrained myself.
With this in mind, and many years after performing and recording these tracks, I now hear the drama, even the trauma, of my life at that time. As a daily writer of words, my hand written journals now scanned and easily accessible, I returned to the day and week these files were generated to find a brief note “improvising today” surrounded by pages of domestic concerns. Again, this is an example of the contradiction of art meant only to be trace of the task at hand, one bereft of emotion as performances are indelibly attached to process and everything else. Art that targets audiences with righteous angst will always override method, materials and will, ironically, limiting its power and breadth. And yet, in 2024, to speak this truth to colleagues and students was to be booed off the stage. Oh well, I am exaggerating. To follow another course, like that of Cage, however, is to beg for social and personal isolation. Emotional art demands a narrow interpretation and in variation has had noble practitioners, as exemplified in Vaclav Havel’s necessarily covertly political plays. As pure art such work runs a risk of falling from the attic shelf in time, recovery unlikely. The sound files here may be performed as stand alone files (alone) or as part of a mixed stereo improvisation as I have done for many years in the studio and in concert. Head phones or a larger sound system are absolutely necessary. Google Chrome offers easy amplitude controls. The tracks may be accompanied by song or speech, may accompany dance, instruments or brushing one’s teeth. In any case, they are artifacts that parallel the aesthetic of raku. DS 031524 Prague See The First Book of Rugged Dances, or The Second Book of Rugged Dances. |
Chapter Two - Bows 11___ 12___ 13___ 14___ 15___ 16___ 17___ 18___ 19___ Chapter
Four - Buzzes
22___
23___ 24___ 25___ 26___ 27___ 28___ 29___ Fayfer
Harp in 1992+
 Commerce Street Studio,
Tacoma, WA.
Dan Senn (Prague-Watertown) is an intermedia artist working in music composition and production, kinetic sound sculpture, experimental and documentary film. He has been a professor of music and art in the United States and Australia and travels internationally as a lecturer, performer and installation artist. He lives in Prague where he directs the Echofluxx festivals, and Watertown, Wisconsin, the USA, with his partner-collaborator, Caroline Senn. Dan's work moves freely between expressive extremes and languages depending upon the aesthetic joust at hand. Dan is cofounder of Roulette Intermedium in New York City, Cascadia Composers of Portland Oregon, and the Echofluxx media festivals in Prague. (read more). |