iBod will perform THIS SATURDAY at 3:20 to 3:40 pm, so do not be late! This version of the indiosyncratic Beats of Dejacusse (iBoD) features Lisa Means and me in the first installment of a long term sonic exchange called Playing by Ear. Our set up is simple with Lisa on a Hollow TKD-Hybrid II electric guitar (built by Terry Dineen of Raleigh) which will play through a Behringer Neutron semi-modular synthesizer that I will be navigating into the amplifier. So Lisa provides the melodic tones and rhythmic energy, while I modulate timbre and propagate rhythmic structure.

When I first proposed this set up to Lisa, she said, “I should just give the guitar to you!” I am controlling the sound that comes out of the amplifier, so Lisa wondered what she was contributing. Thus began a dialogue about collaboration, listening, playing, structuring a sonic improvisation, narrative, adaptation, exchange, and standing in our own sonic authority. This dialogue is 25% verbal and 75% listening/playing in the moment.

Another factor in all of this is our different ways of hearing. Lisa experienced a gradual hearing loss through adolescence to adulthood. Hearing aids help bring her sense of hearing out into the world, while much of what Lisa hears is in her mind’s ear. When Lisa listens deeply to the sounds that emanate from her collection of crafted guitars, she hears (and conveys) vast worlds. My own hearing often feels supersonic to me. I hear the clocks ticking, the brown noise of the air purifier upstairs, an airplane passing over the house and the morning trilling of wrens as a musical interplay with rich harmonic textures. Sound surrounds and beckons me. Lisa and I talk in order to understanding how we each are hearing what we are playing together. Sometimes we agree on a theme and go from there. After we play, we talk about what we heard.

Playing by Ear is Lisa channeling the vibration of the present moment via her fingers on electric guitar through the Behringer Neutron synth, which I will patch and tweak in response to what Lisa says. I am constantly listening and tuning in search of “all of the waveforms” with the intention of catching and amplifying patterns of life in the moment. This is easy to do in the SunRa Room, with its lively acoustic enclosure. Here are two snippets from one of our sessions a few weeks ago.

We are both aware that this will be quite different at The Wicked Witch this week. What happens when we take this dialogue into a public space? How will we play with all that we are hearing in that space? We are ready to find out!!