Texts: Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket In California” and
Shakespeare, Sonnets 126 and 128. One of the interesting things about the laser harp is how quickly it can be triggered, making one note follow another more rapidly than on a traditional instrument. This shows up in all the files from this session.
Sonnet 126, with laser harp on percussion set:
Ginsberg, slow and reflective, two-voice chorus, plus a surreal laser harp sound set:
Sonnet 128, with laser harp as harp:
Sonnet 126
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st
Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow’st;
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
Her audit, though delay’d, answer’d must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.
Sonnet 128
How oft when thou, my music, music play’st
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickl’d, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless’d than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
Recorded June 5, 2010, at the Marylander, 3501 Saint Paul St., Apt #503
Collaborators: Stephen Edwards (laser harp) Dara Weinberg (vox, dir), Gavin Whitt (vox)
||8ve: the parallel octave chorus 