Sunday, August 31, 2008

12 August 2008, #2. "Narcissus" - 6m13s

I took another literal approach to start this piece (inspired by Caravaggio's "Narcissus"). The positions of the first four notes in the right hand are reflections of the corresponding notes in the left hand (I'll leave it to you to determine which note is the axis of reflection). In fact, the first fifteen notes are all reflections. (They are not chromatic reflections, but rather remain diatonic.) Having found and established a feel and motivic ideas for this piece, I could then leave the rigid rule behind and flesh it out. I do return to the reflection motif often (though not always about the original axis).

I am pleased with how delicate the piece begins, and I like that it becomes very traditional sounding. As I move away from that, it gets a little sloppy, unfortunately, but I'm able to pull it together and wrap it up nicely.

Click on the painting to open up a larger version in another window.




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Recorded on August 12th, 2008, at Magic Closet Studios, in Portland, OR.

Notes on "Wheat Field Under Threatening Skies"

A few notes about my musical interpretation of Vincent Van Gogh's painting, "Wheat Field Under Threatening Skies," (posted last week here):

- This was my first attempt of the day, and I started in a literal fashion — the opening chord, an upward glissando, represents the path that runs up the middle of the field. All of the repeated figures of half- and whole-step relationships are the crows, which look on the canvas much like musical ornaments.

- I have recently been taken with playing more chords out of root position; that is to say, leaving the root of the chord off (e.g. an F major triad with an A in the bass). You might notice a preponderance of these types of chords in many of the recordings from this session. When they are not part of a conventional cadence, they can sound ungrounded, but calmingly so.

- I was more aware than ever during this session of the length of my improvs. More often than not, the first piece of a session has stretched to over ten minutes, but I was consciously trying to be more succinct, and not continually quest for new ideas. I'm sure this has to do with the fact that my inspiration was concrete and limited. It certainly worked.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

problem solved...

Sorry, everybody – I had a freak glitch on my server, and, for a day, none of the recordings were available! Now, though, everything's back, so listen away!

– Chris

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

12 August 2008, #1. "Wheat Fields Under Threatening Skies" - 5m50s

Click on the painting to open up a larger version in another window.



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Recorded on August 12th, 2008, at Magic Closet Studios, in Portland, OR.

Monday, August 11, 2008

11 June 2008, #6. "The California Zephyr" - 4m26s




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Recorded on June 11th, 2008, at Magic Closet Studios, in Portland, OR.

Monday, August 4, 2008

11 June 2008, #5. "The Empire Builder" - 5m20s

The second in this three-part series of non-paintings. I named them after the fact because I thought they had a similar touch, a shared something...

(On this one, the touch ran out at around the 4:40 mark and the piece fell apart, but I liked the rest of it, so I kept it. Please forgive the ragged ending.)




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Recorded on June 11th, 2008, at Magic Closet Studios, in Portland, OR.

Server back up!

Back to business...

Server troubles.

I must apologize sincerely for the disappearance of my improvs. There is some sort of problem with the server that hosts my website, and until it is cleared up, my recordings are not accessible. I am contacting the appropriate people and I dearly hope that whatever it is will be resolved quickly. Until then, I have nothing to offer you. If you need to listen to something, and you have not yet listened to any Keith Jarrett, I'd like to direct you to his Köln Concert, ten minutes of which can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzqMJWlKMsY