Meet the Samalan
Special engagement for musicians to encounter and explore the Samalan at Tom Nunn’s workshop/venue the Nunnery in SF’s Mission District. Bow it, stroke it, lie inside it and give instrument inventor Alan Tower your feedback. This is a FREE and friendly social engagement for the Bay Area instrument inventing and extended technique community. Free-improv may occur….
Sat April 2, 1-3 PM
The Nunnery
3016 25th st, SF
FREE
The Samalan is both an instrument and an environment. It is an elemental force of nature unlike anything people have experienced before. Some will be invited inside the chamber for a fully immersive sonic experience. Along with it being fun it can alter one’s sense of self, time and silence.
**********************************************************************************************
Alan Tower:
After 12 albums and decades of composing and performing musical compositions I began to recognize an inherent gulf between performer and audience. To bridge this gap I decided to redesign and invent acoustic instruments that act as three dimensional immersive environments for connecting a player more directly to others. While there is a certain musicality involved, this approach relies more on sound as a physical presence than on the elements of melody, harmony or rhythm, which can send a person’s mind off into known musical territory. Instead the result is a gentle yet compelling disruption of normal mental activity, often altering one’s sense of self, time, and silence in the process. I want to better understand these effects for people, and to track psychological openings and other changes over time. The focus is unisensory rather than multisensory, calling for the blocking of a receiver’s visual stimuli, for example, to facilitate a potentially deeper experience. Vibration is how all matter comes into form, and sound is how we first perceive the world in the womb, so there is something primal or originating at work here. I am interested in facilitating new pathways for human potential through this ancient, powerful and underused medium.
***********************************************************************************
The Nunnery is the research laboratory and instrument inventing workshop of the legendary Tom Nunn, which he opens to the public once a month for free-improv and extended technique performances. Now entering its third season, the Nunnery hosts local talent like ROVA saxophonist Bruce Ackley, Other Minds artist Cheryl Leonard, electronic pioneer Tim Perkis and avant vocal powerhouse Amy X Neuberg. Events are by donation and light food and drink is served. The series is curated by musician/filmmaker David Michalak.
Cost: FREE