banff ave shamisen

Recent related activities related to this project is the beginning of the shamisen street performances. Thanks to Katelyn Clark for taking some video today. I’ll post up a short bit from today.

I know that playing shamisen on the streets of banff may seem, on the surface, to be a far way away from riding horses across the prairies. But it’s not. Not really. It’s all about nomadic living, non industrial explorations etc etc. In this case trying to honour the Goze of ancient Japan. And besides, I think that I might just get the horse travel performance thing off the ground with this instrument. I have a feeling about this. I’m going to continue with this street playing through the winter with a thought to putting together a short finished video piece near the end of march.

I also had a wonderful and moving mention in Patrick Edwards blog. To glue the calfskin to my new shamisen, I used a glue called Old Brown Glue, a hide based glue, that Patrick developed.
I thought that I’d email him to let him know what I was using his glue for (and it worked great) and he asked o few more questions and then posted about my work and play on his blog. You can read it here –http://www.wpatrickedwards.blogspot.ca/2013/01/...

Please pass this around on facebook and email to people you think might be interested in supporting my project.
Thanks a Million!
Cath