To hear on Sunday 12 and 19 May 2013, 2pm - 9pm:
"Stockholm Serenity"
special ohrenhoch mix
(Premiere?
by Herman Müntzing
with exhibition of the graphic scores
Curator: Knut Remond
Herman Müntzing on 'Stockholm Serenity - special ohrenhoch mix':
In spring 2009, living a life as a musician right in the middle of a hectic and busy modern life, I found myself drawn to something different. Something that almost stands still, something liberated from the ideas about musical expression, form and structure, which I felt existed all around me. I was a part of it, always wanting to explore new techniques and sounds, often in a state of high energy, where good technique and a way of playing where you really manifest yourself as a skilled musician, was desirable. Slowly I went in to a new path. A path leading to simplicity, non-expression, stillness and serenity. I was interested in finding the limit for how little I can play, how slow, how non-virtuosic, but still be able to perceive it as - not necessary art, but… meaningful. Following this path also led me into experience the sounds I was producing as graphic symbols; small unpretentious figures that in some way inspired me to keep on travelling on the path of serenity. Doing these drawing, these “graphic scores” inspired my playing, and my playing inspired me to do more drawings.
For this piece, I have reduced my instrumentation to just the flexichord, a metal stick, an e-bow, and my hands, fingers and nails. The piece was released as a mini CD. For Ohrenhoch, however, I have made a special mix of the same piece.
Herman Müntzing Baskemölla January 2013
Herman Müntzing
Musician, composer
Attended the Royal Academy of Music in the late eighties and has since graduation transformed from a straight jazz/rock bass player into a broadminded sound artist, working mainly in the fields of improvised and experimental music. Since the late nineties, his life as a musician includes different Swedish and international groups and projects with concerts and tours mainly in Europe.?
As an educator he is giving lectures/workshops in many different situations, oftenstriving for a new approach to the boundaries between sound, noise and music.“Creative sound research”, “graphic notation” and “building experimental musical instruments” is example of workshops he has led several times. He also teachimprovisation on a regular basis at the Academy of Music in Malmö.?
The interest in expanding the common thoughts about the qualifications for a “real” musical instrument, made him search for new sounds in the everyday surroundings, exploring casual objects and their own unique sound qualities. Eventually this research made him create the “flexichord”, a 12-stringed experimental musical instrument made out of strings and pickups from two electric guitars attached to a horizontal solid piece of wood. Performing the flexichord invites him to prepare and play the instrument with different materials and objects like rubber, stones, glass, metal, sawblades etc. Combining this with electronics and sampling shows the essence in his aesthetics