New music on a new instrument for you!
Churfürst zu Sachsen, König von Polen Solo Mountain Dulcimer
Originally a song from the north-eastern German Kralsches Geigenspielbuch, I play this tune as a waltz. The interpretation is inspired by the version printed in Neues aus alten Büchern 2, which I highly recommend as a source of central european dance music! “Churfürst” refers to a member of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, whose job it was elect the pope. “König von Polen” refers to him also being the king of Poland.
The dulcimer is my newly finished european walnut + reclaimed cedar + ebony hourglass model of my own design complete with floating bridge, inlaid chromatic fretboard and reversed GCgg tuning. It’s the same size as a regular DAdd dulcimer but with a shorter scale length due to the bridge being further up the instrument.
The recording was made using two C1000S microphones and the internal passive pickup, run through an AKAI EIE Pro.
@isislovecruft I read that as “POSITION LENS” the first time round, which is somehow more poetic? and makes about as much sense
“I take off my glasses & there it is: absolute beauty, surrounded by a sea of lovely analogue blur… and that proximity to something, or more importantly; someone, carries with it an intimacy, the instinct of which is far more important & emotionally valuable than any premeditated intent”
Tim Prebble on lenses and myopia, Lens vs Microphone (& why i love myopia)
the-toast.net has ended. Thanks for a marvellous three years of some of the funniest, most thoughtful writing on the web.
Not a bad view for a European tanzimpro workshop!
Thanks to everyone who came, and to the organisers of Vaka for inviting me. Hope to be back next year!
Words are souls.
They are ourselves, extracted from our bodies, and they live forever.
After death we speak through words. It is the only way — but a potent way. Words live. They are real things in the world, and readers are not a passive audience, they are champions who take these words, our clues and promises, and with them shape the world. It is this, more than anything else, that Ghostwriter illuminates.
Words can touch you — physically alter your body — raise hairs at the nape, hollow the gut, send shivers shoulder to toe — and does this not change our understanding of presence and absence?
I have written these things and you have read them, you have felt my touch, and there is no distance between us at all.
From Abbey Fenbert’s The Pitch Meeting for Ghostwriter. I love The Toast.
This year’s klangrausch earworm: the first part of Altländer 31. I wonder what scandinavian doodle will stick in my head at Vaka next week…
✅ got up early
✅ prepared for camping, musicing and dancing
✅ watered plants
✅ fed pigs
✅ ate breakfast
✅ proofread potential Nature article, including the example phrase “the supernatural soup manifested itself in a bowl”
✅ rolled tyres around
✅ showed mill-mate how to operate the pump
✅ organised more food
can we pleeeasse go to klangrauschtreffen now