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Hi All, I've been working as a musician under Steven Earnhart on this workshop presentation of Haruki Murakami's International best seller - Wind Up Bird Chronicles. I'm playing live over original music by John Davis. I started with a lot for shakuhachi but everything was sounding too Japanese for the director. The book is about Modern Japan. Now I'm only using muraiki, percussions and electric guitar.
Asia Society, Park Ave at 70th St. NYC
Aug 28 - Thurs 2pm and 7pm, Aug 29 - Fri 11:30 am Free.
See you there, Perry
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Murakami is great and this sounds like a really interesting project. Too bad I'll miss it.
Best of luck, Perry.
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Wind Up Bird Chronicles is my bedside book now. Very sad to miss it, it's a long way from Paris to New York...
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This book was my constant companion during my trip down under this year. I love the blurring of reality in Murakami. It is always about the journey not the end result. Anyone ever played shakuhachi down a well???
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Hi all, A big thanks to those who came out!
For those interested, here's a shot of my gear for this show.
And a shot from the "pit". This is right before the last performance. Some actors are warming up while others are checking their props.
It was quite an honor to be involved in such an incredible and exciting workshop. I found the process to be very similar to making an instrument. At first, the notes are tentative, the actors not sure exactly how to interpret their lines. But once the fine tuning was done and the director stepped away, each actor found an expressive and committed voice. The entire piece resonated as one.
As I previous mentioned, the director thought the shakuhachi sounded to traditional. After a while, I found a way to blend Muraiki and other wind sounds into the music without evoking old Japan. I also found the perfect flute for the sounds, a simple 2.7 EARTH model shakuhachi. I just happen to test it as it was sitting in front of me before I ran out the door during one rehearsal. The flute had a huge resonant wind tone so it worked perfectly.
Namaste, Perry
Last edited by Yungflutes (2008-08-30 23:03:19)
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