Thomas Gundermann is one of the few musical improvisers with old german bagpipes.
He is busy in different parts of worldmusic and is well known as a bagpipe soloist
with an outstanding and unique style in improvisation.
"Thomas Gundermann plays the bagpipe with the techniques of the indian shenai and the moroccan Ghaita.
This produces wide ranged and outlined landscapes of pure sound, and this result is not able being put
in any category. Medieval modal scales can also be the musical base like indian ragas or arabic maquams.
The wide swung soloparts of Thomas Gundermann breathe the improvisation gestus of a John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman."
(Schneeball Records)
"As Thomas Gundermann produces a sound with his old german bagpipe, for what a Jimi Hendrix
had to drive his guitarplaying through amplifiers and effect boxes ..."
(Dirk Wagner, Süddeutsche Zeitung)
"Thomas Gundermann bought a Ghaita in Morocco, with which he practiced long nights in a sand dune of the Sahara,
and he bacame a magician, who improvised with old german bagpipes, so, that not only heaven and earth came together,
but also East and West developped
an unseparable narrow connection."
(Barbara Stühlmeyer, Der Klang des Glaubens, Hauptwerke der Kirchenmusik)
"Thomas Gundermann has for many years been at the forefront of avantgarde music with strong hints
towards arabic and indian music. He has made it his speciality to play on a Middle Age bagpipe
which comes from Germany. Just like he has been known from among others the legendary German krautrock-band, Embryo.
Gundermann is often in Morocco, where he has in part recorded with Gnaoua musicians like the late
Maalem Abdellah Gania, but he has logically also been working with horn playing bands like the Hamacha and Aissaoua.
Meaning with sufi bands, who like he take off in long and ornamented melodies of the modal kind.
But where the masters in Morocco use the special circular breathing, Gundermann 'cheats'with
the airbag of the instrument. He also knows a trick, where he fits the indianShenai and the
arabic Ghaita with the airstream of his instrument, and the two different oboes sound very good."
(Torben Holleufer, Gaffa Magazine, Denmark)
"Asked for new targets of the band SCARAZULA, the king of the minstrels answered philosophically:
'We wish for us and also for others, meetings and dialogs with foreign cultures, to establish connections,
which are able to eliminate global frontiers and separations. To live the coming together instead of
fighting to each other, how it is nowadays becoming more and more common in the world.
By playing music together, it is possible to feel the power of love, for what all human beings are longing for.'
Well, it is not necessary to add there more from our side, but You can do it!"
(Interview mit T.G. im Karfunkel Nr.88, 2010 - 25 Jahre SCARAZULA)
Instruments:
1) Old German Bagpipes:
a) Market bagpipes in different tonalitier
b) Dudey Sopran/Alt (german smallpipe)
2) Special flutes: Ney, Gasbah ( arabic Kawala ), Tilinko, Khlui ( Thaiflöte ), chinese traversflute.
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