To Do List: Submit Work to Madison Museum of Contemporary Art Triennial

Preparing for the Improv 2020’s

Words and Images by Joanna Dane (except where noted)

Sounds by Joanna Dane, Tad Neuhaus, and Matt Turner
Sound editing by Tad Neuhaus

Mrs. Watson’s Bango

A collection of banjo songs and fragments Tad and I made spontaneously on my porch during the summer of 2013.

The Diddley Bow Album: Until the Glass Breaks

Tad was hosting a diddley bow making workshop at The Wisdom of Wombats Pop-Up Gallery so we thought why not make an album to give away at the workshop.  But we only had a few days.  So we spent one evening playing around with the diddley bow until we broke the glass bottle that held the single string and Tad edited it into The Diddley Bow Album.

Old Shakuhachi Woman*

When listening back to our first improvisation with the shakuhachi (Japanese flute), I heard the soul of an old woman.  And so we improvised with the intention of channeling the voice of this old woman.  And listening back, I heard the story of her life. 

*exhibited as an interactive art and sound piece, Trout Museum Members Biennial 2015

Tiny Songs

During that year if we didn’t improvise more than five new tiny songs in an evening, we were disappointed.  I brought in lyrics I wrote during the week.  Tad played.  I sang.  We captured over a hundred songs in their infancy, many one minute long, still full of wonder and curiosity.  92 are on the album, about half of which are published in the Tiny Songs Chapbook accompanied by drawings from the blog A Terminal Case of Whimsy.

Houdini**

We wanted to make something for a Houdini themed exhibit.  So Tad bought some chains and I checked out some books from the Appleton Public Library, taking notes in the form of lyrics.  And then we improvised. Soon, we realized we could make an entire biography.  So we did some more research and filled in a few gaps and got lost tromping around by the Fox River looking for the historic Houdini plague.

**exhibited as an interactive art and sound piece “Escape from Death”, Feather and Bone Gallery, Mile of Music 2015