Uyghur, Homage, Insufficient http://www.alansondheim.org/forUyghur1.jpg https://youtu.be/VQZXL2G1VvE Uyghur, Homage, Insufficient https://youtu.be/BEU1Ppc0V2w preparation for the above http://www.alansondheim.org/forUyghur2.jpg The instrument I'm playing is a Uyghur dutar, two strings which I've tuned in unison. The condition of the Uyghur in China is terrible; people are forcibly taken to detention camps; what happens within them seems to be on the order of the old Soviet re-education combined with murderous brutality. The number of people detained may be over a million. Among others, Uyghur musicians have disappeared and are feared dead. I set here in the states and contemplate this. I know we all do. I know we all think about this. I know we all care. I improvised in honor and despair. i was thinking of a particular video in which a famous musician talks about being alive. That is no guarantee that he is still alive. I was thinking of his expression and his face, his mien, while I played. I made a short video of the setup which I'm also putting up. The music I play is taut; my hands say more or less in the same position up the neck. I realize everything I do here is useless, presumptuous. Every instrument we own has a history. This dutar is from a shop in Kensington Market, Toronto. It's medium-sized but small in relation to the others I saw. Music for me is a different form of expression in which the body curls around itself in affect. A metaphor might be the Klein bottle. The music I play repeats itself. I can hear my own project through it. It does nothing else. It is a form of thinking, a form of thought. It cannot help the Uyghur, it cannot help anything. My own awareness. What I do here is play and try not to be pretentious. A form of obeisance. It is never enough to say we should love. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
