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Friday, February 18, 2011

£ing the keys

6 comments:

  1. "Whew," glad you've gotten out of the "continental/French" mode of writing!!

    --Marty
    The Johnstown Type Writer Conservatory

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  2. Duffy Moon proposed a typosphere-only writing project on his blog, but it kind of puttered out because no one wanted to really take the lead and figure out how to set up a collaboration method for each other to review. I think there were at least a half dozen that were interested...

    I'm still interested, even though I am still working on finishing my latest Nano novel as well as getting together with my local Nano crew to do our own little collaborative project.

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  3. On the subject of typewriters as musical instruments, I mentioned an indie-folk-funk singer named Marian Call in my own blog. Last year, she toured all fifty states, supported only by her fans. On more than one of her songs, she uses an Underwood #3 for rhythm.

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  4. I would love to hear more (later) about the music project. Will he be making a recording of any kind?

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  5. snohomishwriter, I believe I found an account of the piece here:
    http://www.innova.mu/notes/666.htm

    This is wonderful:

    "Asylum, for percussion soloist plus chamber ensemble—a nonet of flute, clarinet, horn, trombone, guitar, violin, viola, cello, and contrabass—is a work that aspires to illustrate psychological disorders in sound. The ensemble is divided into overlapping instrumental subgroups, each explicating a disorder—a bipolar octet, an obsessive-compulsive trio, a narcoleptic quartet, an attention-deficit hyperactivity quintet, a paranoid flutist, a catatonic horn player, an anti-social guitarist, a narcissistic contrabassist, a dependent violist, a Tourette’s octet (who make inappropriate and unexpected outbursts), etc. There are in fact a total of 22 disorders, each with its corresponding instrumentation. ... The piece progresses through five interconnected sections. In each section the percussion soloist—the subject—operates in a unique relationship to his menagerie of internal demons. In some sections he is unable to cope with the factors of his psyche, while at other times he controls them willfully; at times he employs conventional percussion instruments, but at other times performs on unconventional ones (such as an antique manual typewriter); he is often stationary, but occasionally he wanders peripatetically among the ensemble. ... The soloist’s instructions are as follows: Rip the paper (the typed inventory) from the typewriter. Tear it into pieces while walking toward an old, large book sitting on another table. Put the pieces of paper into the book. Slam the book shut. Tape the book shut with duct tape. Drill a hole through the book with an electric drill. Thread a piece of heavy but flexible wire through the hole. Twist the wire so that the book is secure and can hang from the wire. Break some sticks and branches. Affix some of the broken sticks to a heavy brick with rubber bands, snapping the rubber bands noisily." -- Etc.!

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  6. PS: You can hear snippets of "Asylum" on iTunes. Search for "Mark Applebaum Asylum." The typewriter can be heard on "Asylum II. Inventory." I dare you to listen to the whole minute-and-a-half snippet! (There's a typewriter on the album cover, too.)

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