PRICE:
$15.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
EARR Plays A Snare Is A Bell
FORMAT
2CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
SR 339CD SR 339CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
6/5/2012

"'A Snare Is A Bell' (formerly released as a single-sided vinyl on Ultra Eczema in 2008) is a solo piece for snare drum, voice and the room in which it is played. Inspired by some close encounters I had with African shamanic/trance musicians and my personal experiences with meditation and music, it also relates to a known-to-many-of-us acoustical wonder of sitting on the toilet and picking up the tone of that little room (often by accident while coughing or talking out loud to oneself) and enjoying singing that tone and letting the toilet become filled with an enormous resonance. So, the roll on the snare drum is my practice. My daily exercise and meditation. Also, it is simple: I'm playing a roll on a snare drum, which has been done many times and a long time before me. Like baking cookies with a simple recipe, right out of grandma's cookbook. This basic aspect has the pleasurable result of freeing me from the idea of needing to be special. Or in other words, the fascination of this work, for me, does not lie in its unique composition or incredible virtuosity to play a roll, but in how what I hear, when doing this roll, touches me, changes me, guides me, every time again. ('A Snare Is A Bell' is only available on the CD version, as extra bonus). EARR Plays A Snare Is A Bell, is a revisitation of the roll and its overtones by an ensemble of musicians with very different musical backgrounds. The choice of musicians is above all a heart thing. I love hearing and seeing what they play. I like their recipes and the special cookies they bake. And I like sitting down and watching the stars with them. So It started again with my snare drum and voice in a room, and we all listened and added voices and sounds to what we were hearing. As if we were all fishes in a stream. Sometimes just swimming, sometimes wanting to show ourselves, wanting to be heard, making sounds and noises, adding to that stream, sometimes just floating, breathing, hanging in there. And sometimes we heard not only single sounds but many sounds together and sometimes we heard a song. And we started to think about where all these sounds, songs and noises were coming from. And where they were going to ? Your instrument is this place and your snare drum really brings to life the surroundings like the bow enlivens the violin or a reed needs the mouthpiece of a clarinet. As a result, I've been very sensitive towards experiencing musical time and space." --(Olivier Messiaen's highly-appreciated organ player, Louis Thiry on "A Snare Is A Bell")