Musical Therapy

22 11 2009

Ophelia Steve Layton (feat. Paul Muller, Lee Noyes, Steve Moyes, J.C. Combs)

She Noticed the Color of Her Eyes - JC Combs, Joseph Benzola, Lee Noyes, Benjamin Smith

I would like to share two works from this week’s ImprovFriday session, exact opposites and I have realized they work as therapy, especially if listened to back to back. Heaven and Hell. Lets start with Hell. The first is “She Noticed the Color of Her Eyes.” The exact moment in time where a woman fell in love. Its a big mash of Joseph Benzola, Lee Noyes, and Benjamin Smith with serious tweaking on my part and employing the addition of found sounds. I combined all three of Joe’s works he submitted to IF and at one point spaced two side by side. I tweaked the volume level to lower and rise and switched the sound direction to pan. I also added the effect “a cold house – reverb” . For Lee’s percussion improv, I added “formant frenzy” from the echo chamber. For Ben’s electronic organ impro, I tweaked the volume as well but here’s the catch, I added the sweeping phaser “red pill/blue.”

Once you listened to that, its time to shake off any anxiety or tension with Steve Layton’s “Ophelia.” A mash of Paul Muller, Lee Noyes, Steve Moyes, and myself — Steve says “crazy, but quietly and sweetly so.”

I hope the therapy worked.  For more, head over here.   ImprovFriday


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Flip flopped again (trials & tribulations)

31 10 2009

Seeing that I have a horrible preamp (I’m pretty sure its made out of toy parts) I realized that a pair of nice NT5s won’t sound very good until I spend quite a bit more on a preamp. So I canceled the order.

As you may know, I’ve been moving toward the direction of “sound art” for the last several months. So the question really is, what’s more important, recording my piano or sounds of the world? The latter.

sony-pcm-d50-pop

However, I did spend an additional hundred dollars on this unit because it has a solid reputation as one of the quieter field recorders with pretty good built-in microphones. We will see just how well it records the Acrosonic.


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ImprovFriday is growing up!

30 10 2009

blank-ad_brick-wall copy11ahh, isn’t she so cute?  The event ImprovFriday is really flourishing with its own public network. I want to encourage users to use the network features beyond the fun event, especially the blogs to promote themselves and share thoughts, ideas, etc.

So far users have been taking advantage of the photo section to make an art walk.

There are also some pretty nice videos there as well.

And lastly, what makes the place tick, the members.


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Some things technically don’t make sense

28 10 2009

It has been almost two months in my quest for a microphone to both capture a decent recording of my Baldwin Acrysonic and to use for field recordings.  The research has led me to this thought:  If I only had five thousand to kill on a matched pair of microphones?

I’d be curious to know if there is really that much more involved in manufacturing a higher quality microphone that would change the price tag so drastically.  Maybe so, but in any case I’ve decided to go with a matched pair of Rode NT5s.

255009rode

I was going for a pair of large condenser microphones to capture a fuller medium range, with the piano in mind.  I ordered a pair of Marshal V87s on Ebay.  The seller had a 99 percent rating, so I found it strange that the microphones weren’t delivered at the two-and-a-half-week mark.  I canceled the order and maybe it was a good thing.  Over the last couple weeks I have been thinking more and more about capturing my own field recordings.  I think using other people’s sounds is a must, so sites like Freesound.org have my utmost respect.  But I have a strong feeling that getting out there in the field, imagining the way the recording will work in the piece as I record, is going to be a great experience.

The next step…. what mini-digital recorder?  Ahrrggg!!


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ImprovFriday Site Launch – CD, etc.

3 10 2009

A little history.  I founded ImprovFriday back in March.  It was a boring Friday.  I was improvising and thought, I like this improvisation and I want to post it to Twitter.  But I had no reason to.  I thought, if I announce its ImprovFriday, that reason would be sufficient.  The first reply was from Twitkarl.  He replied “improvfriday?”  Soon after David Toub posted the first improvisation and the rest is history.

Look at the right side here for every blog post of every week’s IF program with audio links.  It has steadily grown and with the help of social networks like Facebook and Twitter it has been pretty successful.  I would like to thank everyone on the collaboration CD that is in the works and give a nod to David Toub, the first participant. David has has given great feedback regarding ImprovFriday as well. I would lastly like to thank Dennis Bathory-Kitsz for pushing me to get rid of a feature which was making the event difficult to participate in, which was the use of blip.fm/ (no offense blip!).

But alas, we finally reached a point where we need our own site and I’m happy to announce ImprovFriday.  Its not going to be a NNM part 2, but it is going to be a place where I hope people show up to post nice music.


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Only this, and nothing more

6 09 2009

raven_fwsSomeone tipped me on to P22 text-based composition.  I found it pretty fun to experiment with.  I noticed the more I typed in gibberish like “adslfks” the better chance the music would sound pleasing to my ears.  This is probably because the generator is designed to sound “chancy” and by typing random letters I’m performing a function of chance.

After numerous experiments I decided to punch some classic literature into the generator.  I download the MIDI file and touched it up on my end.  Here is the end result.

The Raven (audio link)- By Edgar Allan Poe as Realized by JC Combs and P22 TBS

The score for your perusal


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This is what’s going on

1 09 2009

It came in through the bathroom window or backdoor, unlike the infamous Beatles tune (another Scanner Darkly reference).

By the way, I’ve been noticing I spend too much time on social networking sites and not enough time blogging.  I think I need to budget my blogging time more efficiently.   Since I haven’t been blogging as much, you probably don’t know what I’ve been up to besides “ImprovFriday.”  This is how the mashup works out thus far:

I’ve been looking toward the electroaccoustic, accousmatic, soundscape direction and fellow Seattle composer/improviser/field technician and Stranger classical/jazz columnist,  Christopher Delaurenti, has been kind enough to answer quite a few questions.  He also steered me in the direction of composer/pianist/improviser/instructor, Gust Burns, whom I ended up studying piano with for a month.   The main thing I learned from the lessons was that I was on the right track.  That’s not exactly the correct wording; maybe not alone is better.  Doing your own thing outside the big scene can sometimes make you wonder if you are off in outer space or here on Earth.  Perhaps both Gust and I are off in outer space.

2009-08-28 12.27.17

After this period of research, I decided to move forward focusing on traditional instrument and non-traditional instrument, the two working in tandem.  I’ve purchased a little Baldwin Acrosonic (another thanks to Christopher Delaurenti for the suggestion) and a used matched pair of Oktavas MK-012 from the highly esteemed composer Dennis Bathory-Kitsz .

2009-08-28 13.18.09The non-traditional instrument works will consist of sample-based music.  Although this area has been explored in the past, there is still much to be discovered.   This “field” of music is what I consider the future of amaranth music.

wavebig


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#improvfriday Part Vier

17 03 2009

A couple updates.

1. Notice the name change week to week. I was set with Online Improv Friday (OIF) until I learned what a “hashmark” is.

Hashmark – A Twitter slogan or description of whatever is being referenced starting out with the # sign. Confused me for the longest time, but now I understand. So you type #improvfriday when you post anything relevant to improvisation friday, that way people like David Toub who will be out of town this week can catch up when they come back by typing in #improvfriday to the Twitter search bar.

2. Seems that blip.fm (remember the dot in there) is working quite well so far. You guys will probably come up with additional ideas I’m sure (Jeff mentioned something about looping into NNM player).

3. Ren B. had the idea that chatting at NNMs chat during improv friday will be a good way to hang out while we participate listening or playing. Twitterers get a little annoyed if you hijack the site too much. But the more blip.fm submissions to Twitter the better, that is certain.

4. Like the title, you can improv any time of the day. However, I will replay all improvisations from the day (unless or until there are too many plays to collect) when I sign in for the final leg of the event at 6 PM PST. We definitely could use more participants throughout the day.

5. Jeff Harrington’s impro “Vientro del Monstruo” is our official anthem for the final leg-recap of the event. Here is the list, once again, of NNM members on Twitter and composers who participate. http://twitter.com/jayuhfree – Jeff Harrington http://twitter.com/DaveSeidel – Dave Seidel http://twitter.com/pbailey – Paul Bailey http://twitter.com/jkervinen – Jukka-Pekka Kervinen http://twitter.com/dbtoub – David Toub http://twitter.com/JamesCombs JC Combs http://twitter.com/twitkarl7777 Anonymous http://twitter.com/shoodBworkin – Johnny & Faith http://twitter.com/rgolightly – Randy Gibson http://twitter.com/holokinesis – Renato Borges http://twitter.com/paulhertz – Paul Hertz


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Refining the Concept

8 03 2009

Online Improvisation Friday

Regarding improvisation night on Friday, I’ve decided to leave Twitter out of the title.  The fact that we do this on Twitter is insignificant.  In the future there will be many more Twitters and Facebooks with new inventions that will allow for greater participation and immersion.  3D and holographic imaging is becoming a reality.  NVIDIA just announced a 3D video card with glasses.  And not many people know that most games are prepared and set up for this.  In other words, its not the game or the environment that creates the 3D, its just the video card and glasses.  Jeff Harrington mentioned we could use Adobe to coordinate live audio.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not proposing we all turn into hermits, but if you’re saving your money and staying in on Friday, you will have the opportunity of performing and getting heard.  What’s not to love about that?


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Online Improvisation Friday

7 03 2009

With the success of last night’s Improvisation Night, it has been brought to my attention by Jeff Harrington (who has greatly helped out with the concept) that we need to release the limitation of the Twitter Improvisation “Night” and turn it into an all day event.  This is because the improvisers are spread across the globe.  So, I’ll be hosting the event at 6 pm PST, but anyone is free to host earlier and, just like any event, there can be multiple hosts (or no host at all, anarchy!).  This is a party.

Why Improvisation Friday?

To give the global classical community a place to perform, listen, and socialize.  This isn’t the 1840s anymore.  There is no Paris scene.  This also isn’t New York City, 1960.  This is 2009 and everyone is invited to this party.


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