Category: Fidibus

This April 2022 Tonalibus update begins with a thought on (im)perfection. Then it announces the May 1 global release of a new Tonalibus single entitled “Humpbacks breach the surface”. Further, it highlights the completion of playlist Tonalibus E and the recent living room concert in Liebefeld. Finally, this update concludes with the announcement of the blog post comment option and an inspiring quote on harmony.

(Im)Perfection — or what matters

“Abandon the idea of being good and just try!” — Charlie Mackesy

It’s not perfection or the lack thereof that counts, but what flows through, what one brings along and passes on. No expression is perfect as such. Though some are closer than others. What matters are the images coming through. That a story comes alive. That one may realize aspects of harmony, how ever flawed their expressions may be. This is what matters. Ever, there is ample need to improve and strive for more clarity in expression. After all, consciousness and life move forward continually. And every one’s invited to come along. Many fight it. Others crawl along on their bellies through the dust. While some enjoy riding the crest of the wave or flying above.

Upcoming single — Humpbacks breach the surface

On May 1, 2022 this piece will become available as new Tonalibus single by Ulrico (artist) on global music platforms like Spotify, Deezer, YouTube Music, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon, etc.

“Humpbacks breach the surface” — a dreamscape (below) was conceived as an antidote to the global churn of these days.

April 2022 Tonalibus playlist and album update

Soon, a new playlist Tonalibus F will start to come about. By now, with 12 pieces and 72 minutes of music, Tonalibus E appears complete after only a few months. It is to be a part of the upcoming double album release Tonalibus D & E in early summer. This includes among other new pieces recorded in Spring 2022 also the piano piece “Wake and ready for a new day” and “Slackline dance” — straight ahead (below).

April 2 living room concert in Bern Liebefeld

Three musicians each presented their talents and contributions to a most receptive audience of almost thirty: Daniela Künzli with gentle protest songs from around the world. Lukas Frutiger with free improvisations including cover songs. Ulrico with anchored harmony in sound, blues, meditation, heart and soul, including “Slackline dance” (above) and “Guggisbärg” (live video excerpt below).

Spiritualibus blog and post comments

The Spiritualibus blog has been revised to allow for you to leave comments in response to new blog posts (below each, also below this one). Thus, please feel free to use this new capability. I’d love to hear from you. Some of the comments will become visible to all.

“A shelf of certainty” — April Tonalibus update conclusion

On harmonic purity, the experience of harmony, of tuning into harmonics or primary overtones:

“… it is ultimately a state of resonance — a kind of shelf of certainty — more than it is a sharpening or flattening of pitch that you will come to recognize as the experience of being in tune. It is more a sympathy than a measurement of distance, a quality rather than a quantity. … Blend into the ‘fundamental sound’ almost to the point of disappearing entirely, with no worries about coming back.”

— Harmonic Experience, W. A. Mathieu, pp. 28-29

This February-March 2022 Tonalibus update announces the global release of the album Tonalibus Cooperation A. First though, it highlights Tonalibus playlists with new personal sound samples. Thus, the playlist Tonalibus D is now complete. In addition, playlist Tonalibus E experienced a very decisive beginning. Then there is a recap of the February 10 cooperation concert in Basel. Finally, this update concludes with inspiring quotes on harmony and a corresponding comment.

A completed and a new playlist in the Fidibus shop

Completion of playlist Tonalibus D

This playlist High Mountains on fire, light, and sound is now complete with 12 pieces covering 72 minutes of original music. “Courage it takes” and “無為 Wu wei – contemplation” came about from the preparations for the cooperation concert in Basel on February 10, “Blessings may be” and “Guggisbärg-Melodie” from live concert recordings.

Beginning of new playlist Tonalibus E

This rapidly growing playlist Freedom of sound and harmony so far includes already 6 pieces offering 33 minutes of new music. This includes a rhythmic and a calm LydReach sound sample, “Happy birthday, Robin Hood! (for K.)”, “Thundering liberty and freedom”, “Bagisacro blues — let’s dance!”, and “Tagicrosago — W. A. Mathieu’s dark horse” that is offered as sample below.

The here mentioned new titles are available also under Sounds, individually and as loops. The recordings concluding playlist Tonalibus D as well as the two new LydReach samples are under Winter 2021-2022. While further recordings from playlist Tonalibus E are under Spring 2022. And the early 2022 cooperation sound samples mentioned below are under Cooperation 2020-2021.

Release of the album Tonalibus Cooperation A

Christina Braun, voice, & Ulrico, instruments

As announced in a previous blog post, Cooperation A – the album was released on global music platforms on February 22. Details about it you find under Cooperation A — Album in the Fidibus shop. It presents spontaneous improvisations as in playlist Cooperation A, including the new “Starry Sky” and “Heart in Misty Forest”. A sound sample is offered below.

February 10 cooperation concert — recap

In the Happy Garden –
sound & song

Cooperation concert
with Ulrico and
Marcel Haag
QuBa, Basel
February 10, 2022

Concert recap blog post

More concerts in various cooperation configurations are currently being planned. A private living room concert with Ulrico is scheduled for April 2 in Liebefeld, a suburb of Bern.

February-March 2022 Tonalibus update — harmony quotes

“By singing a tone in tune, you tune your room and your family and your neighborhood. It is not otherworldly that this is so. You place the energy of your sound into this world, and this world’s energy does not die; instead, it transforms. And whatever it transforms into carries with it forever the history of your good intentions.”

Harmonic territory, “even if it proves impossible to describe, it is nevertheless your territory and is eminently possible to explore. A true musician knows the inner ground.
Singing is the royal road to this inner land. Once inside, you become the mapmaker. You name the canyons and ranges, the hidden valleys, the underground rivers, the unnameable. The most amazing thing is that your map seems to be more or less identical to mine. (*) That’s why music connects individuals, communities, cultures, maybe someday a global population: We are more the same than different. And yet, vive la différence. Without it, music, like evolution, would be long gone.”

“Treat the naming systems … as if they were true. But we must remember that they are not quite true. It is crucial to understand the limitations of the names we use. The half truth of a construct in the mind can actually close our ears to the truth of a sound in the air. Incomplete or false constructs may lead us away from the subtlety we seek. … From now on we will have been forewarned, and prepared for imminent wobbles and collapses. We will understand and adjust.”

“It is powerful, upon hearing the music of strangers…, to recognize the common threads that connect the harmonic resonances of various peoples. This is not personal authority but the collective power of being human. Whether or not you were musically trained, you would sense the power of the harmonic resonances. But when you yourself can make such sounds, you realize the way in which you are this power.”

“Pure tones can learn to be alive inside your body.”

— Harmonic Experience, W. A. Mathieu, pp. 90, 94, 101, 129, and 131

February-March 2022 Tonalibus update — conclusion

(*) — Indeed, W. A. Mathieu’s harmonic mapping appears largely identical in essence to the one of Tonalibus. Although he gives much more weight to and nests also the fifth harmonic or overtone (the major third) besides the third one (the fifth or quint) as basis for his fundamental harmonic mapping. Tonalibus, on the other hand, sticks more closely to the pure Pythagorean approach, i.e., the quint cycle, and gives more weight to the natural sequence of harmonics or overtones. Still, it is most evident that views of harmony are rooted in commonality. As Mathieu put it above: “We are more the same than different. And yet, vive la différence.” After all, there is always so much, much more to explore and experience in harmony, life, and love. 🙂

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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