Yoel Gonzalez en

Yoel Gonzalez Portilla

Universe

I imagine that most of you hear this quaint sound for the first time today. It is produced (with a little help from the musician) by the Hang, one of the youngest percussion instruments in the world.
Hang was invented by Swiss craftsmen only twenty years ago, and they arranged for its very delicate (if not very complicated) production. Hang was thus born together with the 21st century, but it seems to belong to the bygone centuries, to the millennia-long history of music and sound. The sound that skilled hands can extract from the Hang is a unique, deep, soulful whisper or hum. It is likened to the sounds of the outer space… which might be true.

A couple of words as to what the Hang can do.
Each instrument has its own keynote, each can be used to play an unorthodox scale. What’s more important, each has its own mode. It’s thus insufficient and even incorrect to say “the Hang in С minor.” What matters is the pitch of each particular Hang. There’re a few dozen of them: for instance, the classical Celtic minor, or HiJazz, or pentatonic — AkeBono, Asian Tunes.

Every pitch is unique, and so is every Hang. Formally speaking, you can’t, when you play it, violate the harmony. Yet it’s a challenge, and a challenge for a Master, to come up with the right rhythm, evocative of various types of the world’s music.

I was first introduced to the instrument two years ago. It was a serendipitous affair. Or rather, it was a chain of incidents and coincidences. Before my absolutely marvelous trip to Lake Baikal, the manufacturer of the Orion, Iskander Khozin, gave me an instrument that was very similar to the Hang in its pitch and sound production properties, Orion Celtic D Minor. It set me on my way to the Hang…

One of the tunes from the album you’re about to hear was composed there, at Lake Baikal. On my return to St. Petersburg, I took part in a house concert, and Pasha Aeon, an outstanding local manufacturer of musical instruments, gave me a royal gift, F Minor Integral, my first Hang. That night in autumn I was to perform together with Anton Nazarko, but, for some reason, he was unable to join us. All of a sudden, I found myself playing an entirely new role, that of a Hang performer…

Why do I go into all these details? In the case of any other instrument, they might have seemed redundant. Yet I feel that the rather unusual story of my introduction to the Hang is in keeping with the mystical sound of this quaint instrument.

The Lake Baikal Cycle in five parts, Acceptance, Baikal, The Storm, Buryatia and The Road Home is an ode to the exuberant nature and to the place of unbelievable strength. The pitch of Celtic D Minor is the personification of incredible energy and power.

Yet harmony is multifaceted: the same Hang, Celtic D Minor, is used in my other work, Danza. It evokes my attitude to Cuba, my native land, the place that has shaped me as a musician. Cuban music is a meretricious mix of rhythms, concepts, emotions from various countries. Danza is my ode to Cube…

…I draw my inspiration from travel, it’s the source of my creativity, my new works. The next composition is dedicated to Morocco, Marrakesh and Jemaa el-Fnaa Square, and bears the same name. Vigorous vitality, quaint mixture of odors, tastes, sounds, persons – that’s what the place is famous for. Mystics and musicians, hippies and wealthy tourists, snake-charmers and beggars – all come together in this Southern, warm, somewhat crazy Arab world. The harmony of D Minor HiJazz hang reflects it all.

The other compositions, Algorythm / Mother Africa an Philorhythmics Infinita, are performed on the F Minor Integral Hang. Philorhythmics, a word I’ve invented, encompasses boundless philosophy of rhythm, its soul. It is also my declaration of love to the mysterious and resplendent Africa, another place of strength that mixes sense and sensibility in its rhythms.

This same Hang sounds in the last piece, Arkadia, honoring the ancient city. Here again, mystique comes to the forefront, the mystique of time, compressed by the sounds of the hang.

Yoel Gonzalez Portilla

Video report

"The master of rhythm is the master of time. The master of time is the master of space. The master of rhythm, time, space is the master of life."

Yoel Gonzalez

Yoel Gonzalez Portilla

Video album

Yoel Gonzalez Production