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2001-12-29
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2001-12-31
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Setting up the computer involves a lot of furniture moving, especially since the place I live in have the relatively modern 3 prong plug only in one room. That's quite annoying for someone with multiple computers like me. Unfortunately, the computer isn't networked, yet, so it will be a lot of disk swapping for now.
The koto show by Ryuko Mizutani is good. Not perfect though. Here is the breakdown of the show.
Yume:
Unfortunately, the accordion music plays too loud. Although the koto can compensate somewhat, Junka Oba's voice is drowned in it. She really need to speak louder, especially since her voice isn't amplified. The presentation is nicely arranged, with a tour around the stage, but the voice just isn't there. It's not too good in that accordion music style is mismatched with koto's music style. I'm sure the two can come together well, but I don't think this one has coherence. The accordion style is long and drawn, while the koto style is fast paced. Again, while the two styles can come together well, the tempo was off, especially in the beginning.
Unebiyama:
Interesting. Definitely under ecletic category. The incantation is unexpected, and is confusing at first. Again, a microphone and a pair of good speaker here would have helped immensely. Weak ending. Nice instrument. It's great that an instrument is made just for this performance.
Kohru:
This one is pretty good. The koto is a wonderful companion to the singing. Yvon Bonenfant has a surprisingly wonderful singing voice. He does it right, and has very strong voice that can be heard across the hall. Good texture as well. I enjoyed this one. Structure wise it's quite cohesive. The harmonics are there as well.
sinous, supple:
This song is written by Chris Miller, special for this performance. I'm rather disappointed with it, though. The Javanese musical instrument is quite nice with koto, but the song doesn't have good structure. Texture-wise, it's a mixed bag. Too many competing texture involved. The song feels amateurish as a result. It feels like the author tries to put in as many techniques as possible, resulting in disjointed structure. Extremely weak ending. Rhythm isn't too well arranged either.
The World as I Found It:
This is a performance piece by Junko Oba. It suffers from the forementioned lack of voice strength. The whole performance becomes meaningless as a result. A great pity. The performance is otherwise well choreographed. I really like the circular lines and tempo involved. I may be missing something, but I don't find the koto piece well integrated with the performance. This one also has weak ending.
Jokei Sansha:
Wonderful performance by Ryuko Mizutani. The piece has lively rhythm and varied techniques. Too varied for my taste, but excellent as a showcase piece. I can't help but feel that the koto was out of tune for the first part. It may very well be that I just missed something. Still, I can't shake the feeling that the koto was mistuned. The second and third part play very well, and in tune. I noticed she tested the strings before playing the second and third part.
There was a nice girl sitting in front of me. She has long hair, wore denim cleats, and has white plastic watch on her left hand. She didn't say anything, but she did look at me a couple times. Unfortunately, I was too busy analyzing the performance. Now that I got home and write this piece, I think that it's possible that she may have wanted to get my attention. Of course, it's too late, now. If you want to talk to me, though, I'm approachable, but do wave at me or otherwise catch my attention. Otherwise, I'm usually busy working, thinking about things to put in my journal or other opinion piece.
Going back from koto performance, I attended a spring daffodil party. Music is there, and ones I like a lot. The performers were quite skilled. I was impressed by the bag pipes music. I own a Celtic CD music, and those are the songs I heard. I thought they were playing my CD! It's actually real bag pipes music. Very nice. The other songs are nice, too. Accordion, cymbal, and string instrument that looks like a small guitar.
As for the movie, Trainspotting, it wasn't very good. Drugs, sex, violence, and toilet humor.
I'm going to see Wayang Kulit performance on May 12. I hope it's as good as the last one.
Harry M. Hardjono
ramstrong@earthlink.net
© 2001-2003 Harry M. Hardjono