#4549, Music For Prepared Instruments

Hear prepared piano, prepared guitar and prepared trumpet from Maurice Louca, prepared Sardinian guitar by Paolo Angeli, and prepared kantele (Finnish folk harp) by Pauliina Syrjälä.

Hear Paolo Angeli’s prepared Sardinian guitar, a creation that he has fitted with extra drone strings, a cello headstock, and is run through an array of pedals. The sounds might be anywhere from strummy, lyre or zither-like, or a plucked guitar,  scrapey-like a bowed cello, or drummy -  struck like hammers on a piano - all coming from one instrument. Hear the title track from Jar’a (la Giara) which suggests wide open spaces, combining underground worlds and the most ancestral Sardinia. 

There’s also music from Cairo-based musician Maurice Louca, who uses custom instruments – a prepared guitar and an Indonesian Serang capable of playing the quarter tones of Arabic maqams. It's from 2021's Saet El-Hazz (The Luck Hour), a collaboration with the “A” Trio, the Lebanese improvisational group featuring Mazen Kerbaj on prepared trumpet, Sharif Sehnaoui on prepared guitar, and Raed Yassin on prepared double bass.

Listen to music for trumpet played in water and prepared piano from avant-garde, trumpeter, composer and bandleader Steph Richards with pianist Joshua White. Conceptualized while breathing for two, Richards plays on the idea that her in utero child was, in a sense, breathing underwater. Then, listen to music for prepared piano and clarinet by Kathleen Tagg and David Krakauer, which aim to evoke the single-string percussion instrument, berimbau.

Then, hear music for prepared kantele, the traditional Finnish table-harp, by Pauliina Syrjälä using a few untraditional methods. She strikes it like a hammered dulcimer and sometimes uses knitting stick [needle] and paintbrush. And more.

Program #4549, Music For Prepared Instruments  (First Aired 10/14/2021)

ARTIST: Steffen Schleiermacher, piano
WORK: John Cage: Daughters of the Lonesome Isle [1:24]
RECORDING: Complete Piano Music Vol. 1
SOURCE: MDG Scene
INFO: Try Amazon, Spotify, or Discogs.com

ARTIST: Steph Richards with Joshua White
WORK: Zephyr [4:05]
RECORDING: Zephyr
SOURCE: Relative Pitch Records
INFO: relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com

ARTIST: Maurice Louca and “A” Trio
WORK: El-Fazza'ah (The Slip and Slide) [6:19]
RECORDING: Saet El-Hazz 
SOURCE: Northern Spy Records
INFO: https://mauricelouca.northern-spy.com/biglink

ARTIST: Ieva Jokubaviciute
WORK: Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Scape [7:43]
RECORDING: Northscapes
SOURCE: Sono Luminus
INFO: sonoluminus.com/store/northscapes | sonoluminuslabel.bandcamp.com

ARTIST: Paolo Angeli
WORK: Jar'a [16:19]
RECORDING: Jar'a
SOURCE: ReR Megacorp 
INFO: angelimanucheproductions.bandcamp.com

ARTIST: David Krakauer and Kathleen Tagg
WORK: Kathleen Tagg: Berimbau [4:35]
RECORDING: Breath & Hammer
SOURCE:  Table Pounding Records
INFO: davidkrakauer.com/krakauer-tagg | krakauertagg.bandcamp.com

ARTIST: Pauliina Syrjälä
WORK: Timotei II [3:46]
RECORDING: Lunkula
SOURCE: Kansanmusiikki-instituutti
INFO: kauppa.kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi