First of all, I love the erhu. If I am ever given the opportunity to learn how to play it, I will absolutely take it.
I chose this video because it exemplifies a lot of the things that we've talked about as a class, and it connects with the performance by Dr. Edberg and George Wolfe on Wednesday. Like that performance, this is an improvised duet between a wind instrument and a string instrument that may not commonly play duets together. Although the drone element is not as prominent in this example, there are several good examples of simple ostinatos and call and response techniques.
Overall, I think that this is an interesting performance, and I thought that it would be cool to share it with you guys.
I love how the choice of instruments because trombone and erhu can both play quarter tones, giving them a less mechanical voice than something like a piano. It's also interesting how the trombone and urhu create similar textures through different ways (tremolo vs. that trombone embouchure thing, for example)
ReplyDeleteThis was certainly odd, but interesting. The pairing of these two instruments was certainly not what anyone would normally expect. Despite that, they collaborated well and made it work.
ReplyDeleteThis improvisation feels a lot like east and west coming together. Like Stephen said you have two instruments that can play quarter tones, and the music begins with them playing similar themes. However the two couldn't sound any more different. The Erhu is an instrument i'm not familiar with, and it's interesting to see what this musician can do with his Erhu.
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