We had a great day performing for the Massachusetts Suzuki Festival 2016 at NEC, in Boston, MA. With three shows, we enjoyed seeing old friends – and meeting new friends too! It always feels great to give back to the greater Suzuki community, as they have been such a wonderful part of our musical lives.
The Tatu Mianzi string trio performs “Libertango” at Quincy Market in Boston. Call this a demo of the iPhone 6 Plus, as well: it was shot handheld with no external mics or post-processing by Andy Ihnatko.
We’re always happy when fans send us videos. Here’s a little snippet of Home, by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros.
We did a recent street performers project called ARTISTreet Design with some students from Olin College of Engineering. They were tasked with learning about the lives and needs of street performers then prototyping useful products for them. It was a really fun project. We worked with them several times and they came up with some really useful ideas- instrument storage systems, web and media management ideas, and promotional gadgets.
We had a great school concert today! Here’s a pic of Kate and Allie signing autographs afterwards!
We recently did a residency with our good friends, Liza Barley and Gil Teixeira. They came to the house and stayed for a few days. Together, we made some GREAT art! We each took pictures of objects, shapes, or patterns that we loved from around the house then projected them through our Tatu logo. The cool part was, via Max MSP, the photos were entirely sound activated. As we played as a trio, our instrument attacks triggered our pictures in various letters or in the entire Tatu logo. When one of us played eight notes, that person’s photos moved quicker, if one of us held a long note, that photo held too. WAY cool. Every time we played a piece the visual experience was totally different. Here are some photos of our residency that don’t do it justice at ALL! Stay tuned for a live performance soon!
I’ve been doing lots of writing these days- of songs, but also transcribing tunes we like. Our repertoire has grown tremendously this summer. We’ve solidly added four Scottish fiddle tunes, a Swedish fiddle tune, a Balkan folksong, two jazz tunes, two Gypsy songs, and a handful of bluegrass tunes. As we acquire new rep we are mindful of incorporating improvisation into all, and that comes with understanding of the structure and theory of each tune. Music theory can be a real drag to learn, but it’s fun when it has function and real-time meaning for you.
A great day was had by all…
From Kate:
We’ve been busking at Faneuil Hall. It’s very interesting. You get to know a lot about people. One day a lady made change in our makings. Another day we got pooped on by a bird, eew. Other times people have been dancing on the streets. It’s not exactly about how much money you make, but it’s more how many bills you get, because that represents how many people you’ve touched. It’s way better to get 100 one’s than 5 twenty’s because that way you’ve touched that many more people. Come see us!
