Cooperation A – the album

The new Tonalibus album Cooperation A is now available online globally! On Spotify, YouTube Music, Deezer, Apple Music / iTunes, and on many more music platforms. It features fourteen spontaneous improvisations by Christina Braun, voice, and Ulrico on various instruments. These pieces span close to one and a quarter hours of diverse original world music. Detailed information you find under Cooperation A — Album in the Fidibus Shop.

Cooperation A – the album

In the Happy Garden – sound & song

At the concert In the Happy Garden – sound & song in Basel on February 10, exotic sound worlds, with gongs, cymbals, fujara, vichitra veena, and other instruments played by Ulrico, met the prolific poetic songwriting with classical guitar accompaniment by Marcel Haag. They both love and live for their music and harmony, although their approaches to music are quite different. Marcel revels in poetic song texts, melodies, and intricate combinations of diverse harmonies in exact successions. Ulrico, on the other hand, relishes the continual flow of harmony by deeply attuning to and exploring fundamental sounds and harmonics, akin to sound mantras and meditative music. (This context further appears in the blog post Imperfect perfection).

(Through February 13, 2022, the captured live stream video of this concert was very briefly made available for viewing online. That was on Marcel’s Facebook page Marcel Haag Music, though with limited sound and image quality.)

In the Happy Garden – sound & song — the program

The 75-minute concert program included the following fifteen mostly short pieces:

Brief intro: «Gong Medley» – gongs (Ulrico)

«I bin es Lied» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel) with singing saw (Ulrico)

«Öffne die Tür» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

«Courage it takes / Es braucht Mut / Le courage qu’il faut / Il coraggio che ci vuole» – voice & 8-string guitar (Ulrico)

«Fahne vom Thurgau» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel) with alto fujara (Ulrico)

«Wolfesfährten» – strings, voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

«無為 Wu wei – soundscape» – Nepali & Tibetan tingsha cymbals, crotales, sound bowls, gongs, bass fujara, singing saw (Ulrico)

«Im glücklichen Garten» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel) with bass (Ulrico)

«Gartentag» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

 «Blessings may be» – vichitra veena (Ulrico)

 «Es soll Blumen geben» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

 «Ein Liebeslied» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel) with selje flute (Ulrico)

 «Guggisbärg-Melodie» – 8-string guitar (Ulrico)

 «Du Baum» – voice & classical guitar (Marcel)

 Close: «Sound/rhythm scape» – gongs & crotales (Ulrico) & voice (Marcel)

The cooperation concert venue in action

In the Happy Garden – sound & song
Ulrico and Marcel — February 2022 — Basel, Switzerland — photo by Karin Gsöllpointner

January 2022 Tonalibus update

This January 2022 Tonalibus update highlights an upcoming cooperation concert in Basel. Then it touches on playlist expansions in the Fidibus shop. And it announces the recent release of two new Tonalibus singles on global music platforms. It concludes with inspiring quotes and a sweet image.

Tonalibus cooperation concert in Basel, Switzerland

January 2022 Tonalibus update

In the Happy Garden — sound & song

February 10, 19:30, QuBa, Bachlettenstr. 12, Basel — with Marcel Haag, an avid troubadour song writer, and Ulrico.

In this concert, exotic sound worlds — from gongs, bells, fujara, vichitra veena, and other instruments — meet poetic songwriting in German, Thurgau dialect and English, accompanied by classical guitar. The two solo artists Ulrico and Marcel explore new ways of sounding together in uplifting songs and soundscapes.

New and expanded free playlists in the Fidibus shop

New playlist Tonalibus Cooperation A

This all new playlist features a selection of twelve spontaneous improvisations with Christina Braun, voice, and Ulrico on various instruments. These unique musical cooperation creations span more than an hour with recordings from the past year and a half.

Playlists: Tonalibus D

Expanding playlist Tonalibus D

By now, this still expanding playlist High Mountains on Fire, Light, and Sound has grown to eight pieces. So far, they explore the far reaches, the simplicity, and also inversion contrasts of harmony. The latest one of them received its own blog post, चैतन्य Chaitanya. While the second most recent piece, Blue Courage (below), is a blues in a regular diatonic tonality.

Dorian mode blues medley — 8-string guitar, singing saw, tingsha cymbals, crotales, gongs, and voice — January 2022 — 5:08 — as loop on a separate tab

New Tonalibus singles released on global music platforms

The following two singles were released in mid January on all the global music platforms also used for the album Tonalibus A, B, & C. They include Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, and many more.

From the Future to the Present and Back

This piece is part of the collection Tonalibus D. Initially it swings into what later turns out to be an inverted harmonic contrast; and it gently resolves some far reaches of harmony into unity beyond duality.

From G# TetraNa with touches of its F# Upcor inversion progressing to C# Ionian (diatonic major) and back, connecting the far ends and melting contrasts into a unified whole — 8-string guitar — December 2021 — 9:45 — as loop on a separate tab

ॐ मणिपद्मे हूँ Auṃ maṇi padme hūṃ — Blues

This spiritual blues is one of the most popular pieces of the album Tonalibus A, B, & C. Thus it now became available also as a single.

PentaMix / PentaDor (Egyptian scale) — triple 7-string guitar and voice — 8:28 — as loop on a separate tab

January 2022 Tonalibus update quotes and a crystal kiss

“Do not partake in the evil of another. If you are quiet and calm, your calmness and quietness will make a greater effect on the other than his anger — so that true resistance is the practice of contentment.” — p. 32
“[This] is love. The love that makes all things beautiful. Yes, and breathes divinity into the very dust you tread. With love shall life roll on gloriously throughout eternity, like the voice of great music that has the power to hold the hearer’s heart poised on eagle’s wings far above the earthly world.”
— p. 40, Stranger by the River, Paul Twitchell

“If you see many here, they are in reality only a few . . . if any.”
منطق الطیر, Manṭiq-uṭ-Ṭayr or The Colloquy of the Birds, Farid Ud-Din Attar

January 2022 Tonalibus update
Mystical ice crystal beings stretching their necks for a sweet kiss — December 2021 — Grächwil, Switzerland