Month: August 2014

Photography

Metalwork in the shipyard

Posted on by rudiseitz

Here are a few of my recent images from the East Boston Shipyard.  The first is something of a mystery shot:

Rudi Seitz - Untitled Shipyard Image 1

The second is also a geometric abstraction, but it reveals something more of the context where first image was captured:

Rudi Seitz - Untitled Shipyard Image 2

I go to the shipyard to look around and take pictures almost every week.  With its active warehouses and constantly changing piles of metalwork and nautical equipment, the place would seem to be a goldmine for my type of photography, and yet — for whatever reason — I rarely walk away with a keeper; the challenge keeps me coming back.

I’m not sure where the metal pieces in these images are headed, but last time I spoke to a worker in the shipyard about some similar components, they were being fabricated for use in a bridge in Connecticut.  Here are some shavings that can often be found in pails at the shipyard alongside the finished metal pieces — this image reminds me of a spice tray:

Rudi Seitz - Untitled Shipyard Image 3

 

 

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Music, Voice

Alap Practice

Posted on by rudiseitz

Here are a few clips of my recent practice of Hindustani-style vocal alap. They are works in progress. First is the pre-dawn Rag Lalit:

 

To Western ears Lalit may be one of the more “exotic” sounding ragas and you might think it is therefore one of the most difficult to sing. There are definite technical challenges here (in particular getting an accurate intonation of komal dha in the middle octave when it is approached from tivra ma) but overall I find the mood of the rag so enveloping that I don’t need to work too hard to maintain its distinctive character — the experience of singing it is trance-like and not particularly cerebral.

Second is the early-morning Rag Ahir Bhairav:

 

My teacher considers Ahir Bhairav to be an “open” raga without many formal restrictions (therefore lending itself to experimentation) but I have found it quite challenging to express, because its character seems to depend on a proper balancing of the darkness from komal re with the brightness from the Ga-ma-Pa-Dha region. Without continuous attention to integrating those bright and dark elements, the alap can come out sounding like something of a hodgepodge. For me at least, there’s more active “work” required to hold things together here.

Third is the evening Rag Desh:

 

In contrast to Lalit and Ahir Bhairav where the alap may proceed by “visiting” and bringing focus to individual notes of the raga in succession, Desh calls for a phrase-based approach where the alap consists of the repetition and elaboration of a melodic signature.

 

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