Gong Orchestra!

[ateolf]

The big show was last night and it did end up being a big show! Earlier in the day, Mary Beth helped me practice by quizzing me on the hand signals Tatsuya Nakatani uses. So I had it drilled a bit before I headed up in the afternoon. Alright, so I get there and everyone starts picking a gong. I wanted a bigger one (though not the biggest) but I ended up with the biggest one and apparently the most difficult one to play ("Earth" as they're all named after planets/moons). And so what is the very first thing I immediately do as I start trying to play the damned thing? I fucking broke his bow (these are bows that he makes himself). So yeah, fucking horrible start and I'm feeling pretty awful and am like, is he just going to kick me off this thing? But he scrambled to figure it out and had one extra that he uses for his own set (as he bows two gongs at the same time) and swapped a few around. Then I didn't break anymore the rest of the day so it was all uphill! So we have the three hour training workshop before the show and everyone starts off, most people being barely able to make any sound. And after a little bit you're like "are we even going to be able to do this?" but then you start slowly picking up on the technique. At first my hand was just horribly sore but it turns out I was unknowingly just gripping the bow so fucking tight and then when he says it shouldn't be so tight not only does my hand stop hurting but it gets easier to bow. The biggest revelation in getting sound vs no sound was that with the big gongs have to bow really slowly (especially starting off). The biggest chunk of the time was spent just learning how to bow the gongs. That was over an hour, just that. Then we got into the mallet stuff (much easier) then tying everything in with hand signals and practicing a few of the passages we ended up doing in the show. But by the end of it, it was actually sounding like a real thing. Then Eric (Goner put the thing on) brought us some Little Italy pizza and that was good. Hung out with some of the other people (a few old friends were there like Jacques and Jill and met a few new people). Then before it started I ran back home to pick up Mary Beth.

So then the show! It started off with Yintang who did harp through electronics and her stuff was pretty great. She did some singing (non-verbal) that went through some delay effects. It was all really nice ambient stuff. Then Tatsuya Nakatani did a solo percussion set and it was amazing as always, though I'm trying to not get too nervous before we go on. Then yeah, did the orchestra thing. Hard to know how it sounded in the audience 'cuz I was in the back right by a big curtain so didn't get to feel all the crazy vibrations and reverberations around the room. Apparently it got pretty loud and crazy at parts. People seemed into it. Oh yeah, and there were a LOT of people that showed up. I know Goner brought people out. But they were having to bring out milk crates and stuff for people to sit on 'cuz the chairs that were originally set up for it did not last at all. So that was cool. Afterwards I stuck around to help pack up all his gear (yeah, he travels around with a gong orchestra all packed up neatly into a van). And before I left I picked up some cd merch: Nakatani Tatsuya + Kawabata Makoto: Reverse Fault, Tatsuya Nakatani / Rob Magill: Valley Movements, Tatsuya Nakatani/Rob Magill/Sean Riddle: Live @ Bart's Books, November 19th, 2021, and a little set of the following four: Tatsuya Nakatani/Shawn Hansen/Michael Stover/Jeff Harshbarger: Kansas City Ship, Tatsuya Nakatani/ Kyle Moti: Quicksand, Tatsuya Nakatani/Donald Miller/Rob Cambre/Emmalee Sutton: Moisant Stock Yards, and Tatsuya Nakatani/Kris Tiner: Dagny. Now it's back to the ol' workin'!