Weird. I was looking at those pictures from my last post, and thought to myself, "I was not alive when those were taken. My family knows and experienced what life was like, and each other, before I was even born. There was a time when I did not exist. And now, here I am."
Is that not weird to anyone else?
??
I mean, not about me, but about you.
Today, you get to hear NY sound. I never take too many pains to get a clear recording. It would be utterly impossible with the equipment that I have (an iPhone). Usually it isn't so very noticeable. But tonight for some reason, maybe because of the nature of the improv, you can really hear all the NYC sounds. I live close to Amsterdam, a pretty busy thoroughfare. You'll hear the rain (man, has it been rainy), the traffic, the wind, people talking on the street (a woman exclaiming, "WHAT?"), my bobbly ceiling fan, and my little kitty cat, Scarlet. She has an ear-piercing meow. And she goes through phases where she meows incessantly for long periods of time. For no reason. That is what NYC sounds like from my apartment.
Here we go, Day 24: https://ia700703.us.archive.org/28/items/Improv9711/9_7_119_56Pm.mp3
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Giacinto Scelsi
A few months back, I rediscovered a composer that I had once heard and loved on an all contemporary music concert. It was Giacinto Scelsi. (1905-1988)
Don't worry if you haven't heard of him. When I mentioned him to many of my musician friends, they had no idea who he was. But you may have heard some of his music if you saw Shutter Island. It was on there with a bunch of other modern greats, including a few of my other favorites, Gyorgy Ligeti and John Cage.
The music puts me into a different world. Meditative, transformative, transcendent. He is best known for writing music based around only one pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics, as paradigmatically exemplified in his revolutionary Quattro Pezzi su una nota sola ["Four Pieces on a single note"] (1959). (I stole that last sentence verbatim from wikipedia. I didn't use quotation marks. I feel like a criminal.)
During his "second period," Scelsi had begun composing through sheer improvisation, which was recorded and then transcribed. Scelsi came to conceive of artistic creation as a means of communicating a higher, transcendent reality to the listener. From this point of view, the artist is considered a mere intermediary. It is for this reason that Scelsi never allowed his image to be shown in connection with his music; he preferred instead to identify himself by a line under a circle, a symbol of Eastern provenance. (How about that. I stole almost all of that, too!)
Have you ever felt saved by a piece of art? Because I have... it was Scelsi's Krishna from Four Illustrations for piano solo. And it's not that I think of Scelsi as god-like, or anything like that. Just sometimes nothing makes sense, and then you trip on a piece of art, and suddenly everything makes sense again. And I don't know why it makes sense... I can't verbalize, or even wrap my brain around what makes sense... it just feels like it makes sense. This is the power of art, folks.
So after I rediscovered Scelsi, I ordered some parts right away. And tonight, I did a little sight-reading of Krishna. And immediately plunged into this very Scelsi inspired improv.
Here we go, Day 23: https://ia600703.us.archive.org/32/items/Improv9611/9_6_118_17Pm.mp3
And my dad JUST sent these pictures to me with a slew of old photographs from the 70's when my mom and dad were visiting Thailand. I wish they would come out a little bigger on the blog. Oh well.
Don't worry if you haven't heard of him. When I mentioned him to many of my musician friends, they had no idea who he was. But you may have heard some of his music if you saw Shutter Island. It was on there with a bunch of other modern greats, including a few of my other favorites, Gyorgy Ligeti and John Cage.
The music puts me into a different world. Meditative, transformative, transcendent. He is best known for writing music based around only one pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics, as paradigmatically exemplified in his revolutionary Quattro Pezzi su una nota sola ["Four Pieces on a single note"] (1959). (I stole that last sentence verbatim from wikipedia. I didn't use quotation marks. I feel like a criminal.)
During his "second period," Scelsi had begun composing through sheer improvisation, which was recorded and then transcribed. Scelsi came to conceive of artistic creation as a means of communicating a higher, transcendent reality to the listener. From this point of view, the artist is considered a mere intermediary. It is for this reason that Scelsi never allowed his image to be shown in connection with his music; he preferred instead to identify himself by a line under a circle, a symbol of Eastern provenance. (How about that. I stole almost all of that, too!)
Have you ever felt saved by a piece of art? Because I have... it was Scelsi's Krishna from Four Illustrations for piano solo. And it's not that I think of Scelsi as god-like, or anything like that. Just sometimes nothing makes sense, and then you trip on a piece of art, and suddenly everything makes sense again. And I don't know why it makes sense... I can't verbalize, or even wrap my brain around what makes sense... it just feels like it makes sense. This is the power of art, folks.
So after I rediscovered Scelsi, I ordered some parts right away. And tonight, I did a little sight-reading of Krishna. And immediately plunged into this very Scelsi inspired improv.
Here we go, Day 23: https://ia600703.us.archive.org/32/items/Improv9611/9_6_118_17Pm.mp3
And my dad JUST sent these pictures to me with a slew of old photographs from the 70's when my mom and dad were visiting Thailand. I wish they would come out a little bigger on the blog. Oh well.
My brother, Aaron.
Hanging out the laundry.
Aaron making sure that kitty is still alive.
My sister, Joy, harassing kitty.
It's hard for me to tell who these people are, but I'm sure I'm related to them... and it's a cool picture.
Again, not sure who these girls are, but they are in my great aunt, Patra's, fabric store.
This is either my grandmother, or my great aunt holding Joy. Mom, can you clarify?
I think this is my grandfather. It's hard for me to tell, because I've only met him once, and he was much older when I met him than in this picture. But it looks like him!
Monday, September 5, 2011
green.
Several weeks ago, I was up in Vermont teaching at a music workshop that my friend, Akiko, and I launched last summer. In the last week or so before Lyra began (that's the name of the workshop), we took on a new student who happened to have autism. His verbal communication skills were not very strong, but it was obvious that music is the way that this young man is able to communicate best with the rest of the world.
One of Jacob's traits is synesthesia. I didn't know what this was before I spoke with Jacob's mom about it, but it is a pretty fascinating phenomenon, shared by some of the major classical composers (Messaien, Scriabin, et al). Basically, whenever Jacob hears a pitch, he also sees a color. So when I played a G on the piano and asked what color it was, he said green, in a very matter of fact way. The guy could not be fooled. Every tone registered the same specific color each time he heard them, and was consistently so. I thought the color might change if I played a G with a different dynamic, but nope. When I asked Jacob what color that was with a very soft G, he looked at me like, "Uh, c'mon lady. I just told you, it's green." Interestingly enough, a soft G is dark green, and a loud G is a bright green.
Anyway, I decided that today I would play something very green. It sounds a little more purple to me, but that's okay... I'm not gifted with synesthesia.
Here we go, Day 22: https://ia600705.us.archive.org/2/items/Improv9511/9_5_116_41Pm.mp3
Here's a photo of Jacob working with Jesse (my inspiration for the improv project) at Lyra. Cool pic, no?
One of Jacob's traits is synesthesia. I didn't know what this was before I spoke with Jacob's mom about it, but it is a pretty fascinating phenomenon, shared by some of the major classical composers (Messaien, Scriabin, et al). Basically, whenever Jacob hears a pitch, he also sees a color. So when I played a G on the piano and asked what color it was, he said green, in a very matter of fact way. The guy could not be fooled. Every tone registered the same specific color each time he heard them, and was consistently so. I thought the color might change if I played a G with a different dynamic, but nope. When I asked Jacob what color that was with a very soft G, he looked at me like, "Uh, c'mon lady. I just told you, it's green." Interestingly enough, a soft G is dark green, and a loud G is a bright green.
Anyway, I decided that today I would play something very green. It sounds a little more purple to me, but that's okay... I'm not gifted with synesthesia.
Here we go, Day 22: https://ia600705.us.archive.org/2/items/Improv9511/9_5_116_41Pm.mp3
Here's a photo of Jacob working with Jesse (my inspiration for the improv project) at Lyra. Cool pic, no?
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Water buckets have so many uses.
Gonna make this quick tonight.
Enjoying the last bits of summer.
Here we go, Day 21: https://ia801005.us.archive.org/31/items/Improv9411/9_4_114_18Pm.mp3
And a picture for you.
Enjoying the last bits of summer.
Here we go, Day 21: https://ia801005.us.archive.org/31/items/Improv9411/9_4_114_18Pm.mp3
And a picture for you.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Through the page.
I realized today as I played a bit of Chopin that even after such a short time of improvising, my classical playing has been changing.
I'm not the best of multi-taskers... in fact, I'm pretty bad at it. It translates into my music. Something I've always struggled with has been to hear consecutive lines polyphonically over a long period of time while I play. Of course, I've gotten better at it over the years through a lot of musical training, but still, not my strong suit. So as I've been improvising, I've been trying now and then to play multiple lines in canon, usually failing. I don't think I posted any of those. ;) But it's given me a real appreciation for the layering of lines when I am able to play them, and thus when I play through classical stuff, my ears grab that stuff a lot more easily.
I'm also breathing differently. A handful of years ago, when I started getting into flamenco, I began to understand how important it is to listen to improvised music. Especially to interpret composers that use folk music as a basis for their pieces, like Bartok, Dvorak, or even Chopin. It made me realize that I have to access the music from the standpoint of someone who is sitting down at an instrument, making sounds that they like, and then somehow having to translate that onto the page. I think when we're students, we try to play what we see there in the notes, but that's as far as it goes. There is a disconnect from the composer who initially had to translate the sound onto the page to begin with. And to any of us who have had to write music onto a page, it is nearly impossible to imply everything that we intend through the pen. The timing and breath of music cannot be expressed exactly in written music. Musical notation is just a loose representation of the intention. So what must happen to interpret music through a score is to reach through the page and to try to play what that composer sat down and played as it was born in the first place. Anyway, I could go on with this part, but hopefully I've gotten my point across with just this. What I was getting at is that when I realized all of this, I still had to struggle to achieve it, whereas now, it seems to flow quite a bit more naturally. I don't know how it happened. Magic!
One thing that I have been bummed about in my improvs is that I have a tendency to always stay in 4/4 time. Probably a side-effect of living in the late 20th century, early 21st, when virtually all pop music is in common time. So today I went for a 6/8. Not sure if it worked, but anyway, you'll hear it.
Here we go, Day 20: https://ia800501.us.archive.org/4/items/Improv9311/9_3_114_04Pm.mp3
and Day 20, Part 2: https://ia700706.us.archive.org/10/items/Improv29311/9_3_113_56Pm.mp3
because pretty things are pretty.
I'm not the best of multi-taskers... in fact, I'm pretty bad at it. It translates into my music. Something I've always struggled with has been to hear consecutive lines polyphonically over a long period of time while I play. Of course, I've gotten better at it over the years through a lot of musical training, but still, not my strong suit. So as I've been improvising, I've been trying now and then to play multiple lines in canon, usually failing. I don't think I posted any of those. ;) But it's given me a real appreciation for the layering of lines when I am able to play them, and thus when I play through classical stuff, my ears grab that stuff a lot more easily.
I'm also breathing differently. A handful of years ago, when I started getting into flamenco, I began to understand how important it is to listen to improvised music. Especially to interpret composers that use folk music as a basis for their pieces, like Bartok, Dvorak, or even Chopin. It made me realize that I have to access the music from the standpoint of someone who is sitting down at an instrument, making sounds that they like, and then somehow having to translate that onto the page. I think when we're students, we try to play what we see there in the notes, but that's as far as it goes. There is a disconnect from the composer who initially had to translate the sound onto the page to begin with. And to any of us who have had to write music onto a page, it is nearly impossible to imply everything that we intend through the pen. The timing and breath of music cannot be expressed exactly in written music. Musical notation is just a loose representation of the intention. So what must happen to interpret music through a score is to reach through the page and to try to play what that composer sat down and played as it was born in the first place. Anyway, I could go on with this part, but hopefully I've gotten my point across with just this. What I was getting at is that when I realized all of this, I still had to struggle to achieve it, whereas now, it seems to flow quite a bit more naturally. I don't know how it happened. Magic!
One thing that I have been bummed about in my improvs is that I have a tendency to always stay in 4/4 time. Probably a side-effect of living in the late 20th century, early 21st, when virtually all pop music is in common time. So today I went for a 6/8. Not sure if it worked, but anyway, you'll hear it.
Here we go, Day 20: https://ia800501.us.archive.org/4/items/Improv9311/9_3_114_04Pm.mp3
and Day 20, Part 2: https://ia700706.us.archive.org/10/items/Improv29311/9_3_113_56Pm.mp3
because pretty things are pretty.
Friday, September 2, 2011
The Busking Project
It's funny that once upon a time, I did scales and arpeggios and things like that to warm up for playing classical music. Now I play classical music to warm up for improv. :)
These past couple of weeks, one of my best friends, Nick B., has been in town during a big project of his. He has been traveling around the world since March, and will continue through December, filming and interviewing buskers around the world, and posting about them online. So far, he as been through Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Greece, Italy, Turkey, India, Thailand, Japan, and I'm sure many, many more that I've missed here. Such a cool project! I'm so proud and excited for him. Check it out: http://thebuskingproject.com/
It's not likely that you'll see me busking anytime soon, but then again, I never thought I could be an improvisor, either!
Here we go, Day 19: https://ia700707.us.archive.org/1/items/Improv9211/9_2_114_26Pm.mp3
And I think it's probably time for another picture, right? I've actually got two. Aren't you excited?
These past couple of weeks, one of my best friends, Nick B., has been in town during a big project of his. He has been traveling around the world since March, and will continue through December, filming and interviewing buskers around the world, and posting about them online. So far, he as been through Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Greece, Italy, Turkey, India, Thailand, Japan, and I'm sure many, many more that I've missed here. Such a cool project! I'm so proud and excited for him. Check it out: http://thebuskingproject.com/
It's not likely that you'll see me busking anytime soon, but then again, I never thought I could be an improvisor, either!
Here we go, Day 19: https://ia700707.us.archive.org/1/items/Improv9211/9_2_114_26Pm.mp3
And I think it's probably time for another picture, right? I've actually got two. Aren't you excited?
Do you know what these are? They arrived at my home yesterday... a belated birthday gift from my amazing friend, Erica. Tuning hammer, and mutes. Now I know what you're thinking... the piano still was not in tune for the improv. Well... *cough*... that's all I've got to say about that. I'll take 'em for a spin soon enough. :)
and
This is Marc. Add this to the "urban idiot sports" album.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Days are numbered.
Sorry for all the sirens in the background. It's just a fact of NY living.
How is it already September? I'm gonna miss these summer days. Breakfast: two fried eggs with a salad of red leaf lettuce, figs, raspberries, and honeyed goat cheese, doused in balsamic vinaigrette.
Here we go, Day 18: https://ia600709.us.archive.org/20/items/Improv9111/9_1_114_48Pm.mp3
How is it already September? I'm gonna miss these summer days. Breakfast: two fried eggs with a salad of red leaf lettuce, figs, raspberries, and honeyed goat cheese, doused in balsamic vinaigrette.
Here we go, Day 18: https://ia600709.us.archive.org/20/items/Improv9111/9_1_114_48Pm.mp3
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