Monday, November 28, 2011

Broccoli or Romanesco?


Yes, Del Sol did in fact recently get compared to broccoli.

"For a lot of people, seeing them for the first time is like discovering they like broccoli"

Got us to thinking. First, if we were going to be an vegetable with questionable reputation - would it in fact be broccoli? Or kale (as Mark Capelle secretly shared with us as what he thought he compared us to), or carrots, or beets, or say, romanesco. Romanesco - a cross between a broccoli and cauliflower with that same mixture of taste that is - seriously - one of the coolest looking vegetables out there. Hooray for fractal vegetation. Or, as some may say, Martian food. How are we in fact like romanesco? Most people don't even KNOW what it is and probably haven't heard about it. Once they see it, they are shocked and amazed at how wonderful and mysterious it is. Once they taste it, they are in love. Much better and way cooler than broccoli. What's your vote?


Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Toyos - Live Music is Important!

For many years now, a staple in Del Sol's musical diet has Gabriela Lena Frank's "Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout." The piece, as Gabriela describes, has 6 movements, each inspired by either a different instrument or a different story from her mother's country of Peru. The first movement is entitled "Toyos" - the toyos are the largest in the panpipe family.

What strikes me is how different imagining what something sounds like or feels like versus how what the experience is like in person! While working on the piece, we constantly experiment for getting the "breathiness" of the panpipe in the viola sound and the right kind of "spit" in the pizzicato of the three remaining instruments. In our heads we "knew" roughly how the instrument worked and what sounds we were going for. But the first time that we actually heard live musicians playing toyos - everything changed and became so much clearer. We returned to rehearsal excited and inspired, with a whole new sound world in our ears and then we came up with new ways to replicate those sounds.

I can imagine it is the same feeling of listening to music only ever on CD or the computer, and for the first time walking into a hall and hearing music it in person. There is never any replication of the sound waves that rock your ear drums and your body: truly it's the beauty and mystery of live music.

We are really excited to be collaborating currently with Gabriela and a local Andean ensemble "Chaskinakuy." Gabriela is exploring how she can innovate by combining the sounds of the two ensembles, and the process is entirely interesting, fun, and challenging. For us, to experience up close and personal, the actual instruments - it really changes everything.

Enjoy this video of the toyos - but be sure to check out the collaboration "Incan Insights" - in several installments over the next year in San Francisco Bay Area.