Schubert, Franz – “Notturno” – Trio Latitude 41
Price, Florence B – Symphony in E minor: IV – New Black Repertory Ensemble
Prangcharoen, Narong – Between Heaven and Hearth – Jonathan Borja and Christopher Janwong McKiggan

Gallagher, Ryan – Exorcism – Cornell University Wind Ensemble, Derek Roddy
Lansky, Paul – Songs of Parting: III – Patrick Mason, David Starobin
Schubert/Gordon – Erlkonig – The Michael Gordon Ensemble

Eleni Karaindrou – First Stamison -Music for Trojan Women
Adams, John Luther – The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies: Stutter – Steven Schick
Fitzell, Gordon – violence – eighth blackbird

Danielpour, Richard – A Child’s Reliquary: I – Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Vermont Symphony Orchestra
Michael Nyman – Waltz -Michael Nyman Band
Bartok, Bela – 14 Bagatelles – Orion Weiss

• I’ve made some skeptical comments about the New York Philharmonic before, but I have to say that this looks awesome. No, I probably won’t love everything they perform, but it would be unfair to say they aren’t thinking about programming creatively.
• As a counterpoint, a problem with large institutional music. Perhaps its more accurate to say the article is in praise of organizing our musical ecosystem into smaller operations.
• The next Seven Immediacies show happening on May 18th looks really cool.

So I’ve been listening to the new John K Samson (of Weakerthans fame) record. It’s a fun record that isn’t nearly as depressing as the early Weakerthans music or rocking as their later albums. He finds the happy medium and also manages to touch on both video games and hockey, so I’ve obviously been listening to it a lot. The video game references are very curious as he mentions games that aren’t new but far from vintage. It’s either a beautifully subtle way to date the time of the song’s origination, or we’ve discovered that Samson enjoys pulling games from the used shelves at Gamestop.

• This month’s featured image is from 4CP. I ask: Laboratory or music studio?
• Performing a pipe organ using the kinect. I would love to use this for percussion related music.
• The USS Enterprise idling for 24 hours. Proof that youtube can never ever dissapoint.
• Thrillbent, the new digital comics publisher, launched its new title last week. It’s called Insufferable, and its not bad. The art is interesting, and the story seems a little formulaic but I’ll stick around for the ride. Also, its free!
• Rick Deckard never thought the Internet could make him cry, but he was so very wrong.
• Fratres by Arvo Part, performed using 8-bit sound generators. It’s still awesome.
• John Carpenter soundtracks a la chiptune.
• DC is making a super big push of its Before Watchmen series. The blitz includes an edition of the prot0-Drudge Report newspaper New Frontiersman, which Rorschach read like the bible. My stance on this is, of course, clear.
• Take a step sequencer. Use the solar system to derive the ratios of each note’s frequency. Make it pretty.

Also, tomorrow I’ll be hosting an evening of music in Philadelphia featuring two really great musicians: Elizabeth Morgan-Ellis and Justin Bulava. Liz will be playing some music for harp and Justin will be playing some found percussion using chance operations. A great way to end the weekend, in my opinion. The details can be found on facebook.

Hour 1

Meador, James – Apocalyptic Voices – Tim Buzbee, Faith Debow
Rosenzweig, Morris – Past Light: One Thread Among It – New York New Music Ensemble
Goto, Yo – Lachrymae – University of Western Ontario Wind Ensemble, cond Colleen Richardson

Lansky, Paul – With the Grain: I – David Starobin, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, cond Justin Brown
Rihm Wolfgang – Sieben Passions: VII – RIAS Kammerchor
von Reuental, Neidhard – Blozen wir den anger ligen sahen – Drew Minter

Gordon, Michael – For Madeline – Bang On A Can All-Stars
Beethoven – Six Bagatelles: VI – Molly Morkoski

Hour 2
Art Ensemble of Chicago – Sangaredi – Tribute to Lester
Asenjo, Florencio – Basile’s Pentameron: The Large Louse, the Mouse, and the Cricket – Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, cond Kirk Trevor
Machover, Tod -Three Hyper-Dim-Sums – iO Quartet

Michael Harrison – Tone Cloud III – Revelations
Glass, Philip – In the Penal Colony: Scene 5 – Music Theatre Wales
Bolcom, William – Concert Suite in E-flat for Alto Saxophone and Band: IV – Christopher Creviston, Hannah Gruber

Diemer, Emma Lou – Seven Pieces for Marilyn: A Little Drumming – Emma Lou Diemer
Wills, Simon – Sonata for Trombones: Tempo di Marcia – Stentorian Consort
Wolfe, Julia – LAD – Matthew Welch

Janacek, Leos – Ave Maria – Cappella Amsterdam

Christian Wallumrod Ensemble – Eliasong – A Year From Easter

Last week I collected a bunch of field recordings for a disquiet Junto project. I only used one of the tracks, and I liked a few of them, so I began thinking of ways I could use others. This is the first of the extras I didn’t use, which required me to climb a few fences, jump a stream, and find ways through a few abandoned buildings to get in position for. It’s a recording of I-78 Eastbound near Exit 29. I know, what a creative title for the piece. There’s a mild amount of processing done to the track, notably some bit crushing.

The trombone part is all recorded live using a Boss VE-20. Its loosely organized around the and plungered looped notes, which vaguely imitate the passing cars.

I expect this track to be perpetually tweaked and revised, but this performance is from May 5, 2012.

featured image: Nick Nolte (found on wikipedia)

Dirge (2011) originally started out as an exploration of using a chord quality as a homevbase, rather than a single tonic. It eventually settled into having roughly a key and being very sad.

I’ll be putting up sheet music for the work on New Music Shelf this summer. The piece is a good exercise in maintaining energy through long phrases, and I think its suitable for any mature high school or early college player.

It’s only performance was at the first Beta Test performance at Bookspace in May, 2011. This version was recorded by myself at home a few weeks before the gig.

Featured imaged: Nick Sherman on flickr.

(those are cream cheeses)

Some cool links and thoughts unattached to categorization:

• The New Aesthetic has been popping up everywhere since a panel at SXSW. Bruce Sterling had some praise and criticism for it in Wired. Simon Reynolds asks what music has contributed to NA and points to Auto-Tune and glitch effects as big contributers. I couldn’t agree more, especially when auto tuning is used as more than a means of airbrushing intonation. A few other ideas that crossed my mind: Music that explores new means of communication, such as craigslist missed connections? Also, I think Pat Muchmore would have something to say about this, considering his thesis was Humanity and Mechanicity in the music of Nine Inch Nails.
• Painting monsters into thrift stores paintings is wonderful.
• I’m not sure how I found this video, but Popeye is a JERK. Lots of fun cartoon moments involving music.
  

  Watch this video on YouTube.

• Receive a postcard of a poem in the mail every other week, for $5 a month! I’d love to have a music service like this.
• Burt’s Bee’s essentially commissioned a piece of music using only sounds cultivated from nature in honor of Earth Day. This makes me think all sorts of things, some of them contradictory. I’ll avoid the musical politics and environmental issues and just say its pretty cool sounding.
• I also got this by reading some on the New Aesthetic. Various photographs of iconic places layered on top of each other. It’s very reminiscent of John Oswald’s Z24, which was a layering of 24 recordings of Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra.
• Catching up with John Carlos, the bronze medal winner in the 1968 Olympic games who gave the black power salute. It’s a great read about a great person, and it really speaks to the civic duty of average citizens.

No radio show today, but I’ll be back on next week. Tuesday night was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came out as well as ThingNY and Vaudeville Park. The entire night, from listening Nat’s Assemblage and the Mujo quartet to performing Nat’s new piece, was wonderful. Assemblage also instagram’d itself very well.

I did a rough mix of my piece on the program: A Fuzzy Troposcatter From Below, and you can find it below the fold along with some thoughts on the word experimental.

A Fuzzy Troposcatter From Below (2012) is for two amplified trombones with effects and tape. The tape part includes samples from Cuban tropospheric scatter (“troposcatter”) transmissions picked up in Florida.  Audio is from the premiere recording with Rick Parker at Vaudeville Park April 24, 2012 as part of ThingNY’s Seven Immediacies Series.

Writing this piece was a little rockier than I anticipated. As my deadlines were approaching, I found myself with a scrapped theme and a few musical ideas that had no interest in dating each other.  Even though it wouldn’t be an efficient use of time, I decided I had to go outside my original plan if I wanted to create some music worth listening to. This forced me to experiment with some new techniques and ideas I had yet to really get to know. At the top of this list was playing the trombone through live effects.

I have some issues with the phrase “experimental music.” Varese scoffed at the phrase, saying that the experiments happen before the finished piece, and I largely felt the same way before performing …Troposcatter… I like to experiment with sounds and musical elements, but the music I produce is the result of these experiments, not the sounds themselves. Additionally, I hate when I hear with the tag experimental is used as a euphemism for noisy. If we’re going to tag music with experimental, I’d like the music to reach out to the frontiers of the unknown in sound manipulation.

The revelation I had with …Troposcatter… is that experimental can be used personally. Another musician may have already tried out this or that, but its new to me. Most of the music I create has that level of experimentation since I’m not one for travelling on roads I’ve already driven down.  That said, I think a tag should express something of common agreement, so I won’t be attaching it to my music any time soon.

I also had an interesting readjustment of the word when I saw 2673 at Omega Sound Fix. He seemed like he was experimenting with sound right in front of the audience. Sure, it was noisy, but it also seemed like he only had a hypothesis of what was to come when he adjusted this or that. I felt like I was watching a 21st century sound alchemist, which was thrilling.

A ‘studio’ version of A Fuzzy Troposcatter From Below will probably be coming this summer, at which point I’ll have some more thoughts on the piece.

I posted a rough demo for my piece on the program last week and also ran down the rest of the concert details.

featured image epiclectic on flickr.

Here are some noteworthy links related to education and music ed. I should be posting a lot more on my teaching experiences soon, too.

• John Thompson discusses the problems that Extended Learning Time does not address. My personal experiences and interpretation of this piece is that the money has the potential to transform schools, but that won’t happen if schools prioritize meeting the bureaucratic requirements over reversing cultures of low expectations.
• Students remixing Beethoven’s Eroica as part of a project run by the Brooklyn Philharmonic.
• The fact that schools are currently under a lot of scrutiny is no secret. Oakland administration is claiming they’re incentivizing their high school positions, but are the incentives really worth the added workload?
• Education loans for private K-12 schools are now becoming popular.