Nine Tunes Recorded 4/28/18

A few Saturday mornings back I recorded 9 or 10 of my tunes using cheesy cool keyboard backing tracks to help give it some rhythm.

Shamisen


Raisin Racine Ulteem


Brown Eyed Rig


Nomini


Toca Paseo


Matching The Breeze


Carolinseay


The Sparrow Blues


Looks On The Ground

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Why Glockenspiel?

My Vic Firth Glockenspiel

I recently got a glockenspiel and it has instantly become a favorite instrument of mine!  A glockenspiel is a small metallic xylophone with tuned keys.  It has a high-pitched, percussive sound.  The word Glock means "bells" and Spiel means "to play".  Together, glockenspiel means "a play of bells".  I ordered mine + mallets from Rob Zollman, who was excellent to work with.  So why did I get one?

Reason Number One:  Anna Meredith Plays One!
I hadn't heard of Anna Meredith before watching this Tiny Desk concert video, but I really liked her music and enjoyed seeing her play a little metallophone/xylophone during some of her compositions.  That was the inspiration right there.  I actually didn't know what a glockenspiel was until watching that video and had to look it up online to learn more.  A day later I had ordered one!

Reason Number Two:  It's a Legit Mallet Percussion Instrument
The primary mallet percussion instruments are vibraphone, marimba, xylophone and glockenspiel.  I've been wanting a mallet percussion instrument for some time now and glockenspiel allows me to have one.  I had also considered the Pearl malletSTATION or the MalletKAT but those are more modern, technology-based mallet percussion instruments.  The glockenspiel is a good old traditional acoustic instrument.  I also like how mallet instruments are designed like piano keyboards with the white keys on the first row and the black keys above them, but you strike the keys with mallets.

Reason Number Three:  It's Inexpensive
I've known about vibraphones and marimbas for a while, but I also knew that even halfway decent ones had a hefty price tag.  I wasn't going to get one of those any time soon.  However for about $150 you can get a pretty good glockenspiel and some really good mallets, and be all set.  So why not?

Reason Number Four:  It's Compact
Even if I could afford a vibraphone, I wouldn't have room for it.  My house is pretty small and because I like to have my instruments handy, the amount of space an instrument would take up is definitely a factor.  The glockenspiel I got is 32 keys, which is plenty to play any melody I want, but still small enough to fit on top of a bookshelf in the living room.

Reason Number Five:  It's Low Maintenance
One of the things I find distracting about a stringed instrument is having to tune it.  I just want to play an instrument that's already in tune and doesn't need to be fiddled around with.  I could be naive about this, but I began playing the glockenspiel right out of the box and haven't made any adjustments to it yet.  I like how it's always just ready to be played.  If I'm walking by it I can stop and spend a minute playing a tune before moving on.  Very cool. Perfect for super-econo practice sessions.

Reason Number Six:  The Bell-like Tone
Another word for a glockenspiel is "bells".  Some people might not like the high-pitched tone of a glockenspiel but I do.  The sound reminds me of the bells used during a yoga or meditation class.  Meditation bells are said to have a cleansing sound and vibration.  The purity and clarity of the glockenspiel's sound may have similar effects, and at the very least the bell-like tone is a reminder to return to a state of mindfulness in all walks of life, not just in music.

The glockenspiel is also considered a children's instrument.  Children, by their very nature, are beginners, and so again there could arguably be a Zen connection to the glockenspiel via "beginner's mind".  Beginner's mind refers to dropping our expectations and preconceived ideas about a subject, and seeing things with an open mind and fresh eyes, just as a beginner would.  I started playing the glockenspiel as a 44 year old beginner so I hope to retain that beginner's mind for as long as I play it.

Over the last year I've written about 57 tunes.  Most of these were written on tenor banjo but not necessarily for tenor banjo or any one specific instrument.  Quite often I randomly select five of these tunes using a card-turning selection process and after playing the five on my banjo I usually select one of them to try out on the glockenspiel.  Every single tune so far has been just as fun to play on the glockenspiel as it is on the banjo!  This gets the music out from under the fingers and off of any one particular instrument and into the brain.

Here's a a new tune I recorded this morning on the glockenspiel:

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Rhythm Parts on Casio CTK-2300 Keyboard

I've had a Casio CTK-2300 Keyboard gathering dust for years now.  This morning I powered it up, dusted it off and discovered that it has backing drum/rhythm tracks!  Today was the day I was ready to realize this.  Over the course of about an hour I scrolled through the rhythms and promptly selected one of my tunes to play over it.  Here are ten decent phone recordings that I feel safe sharing.  Almost all of these are first and only takes. 

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Tunes 51 Through 56 (The Hits Keep Coming)

I was recently listening to Terry Gross' interview with John Oliver on Fresh Air.  During the conversation, John Oliver mentioned that he played viola as a teen.  He said, "The better I got at it, the more frustrating I found playing it because I realized that I could not make the music sound the way I wanted to make it sound. And it was so infuriating because you just feel so impotent.  There were girls that I played with - when they played the violin could make it sound just spectacular. And I knew if I practiced for the rest of my life I would never be able to make it sound like that. So it was that weird situation of as I got kind of good at it the more and more I wanted to smash it into a wall.  When you start being able to technically play the notes of like an incredible piece like the Bach Double Concerto - just one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written - and playing it at my absolute best I was always butchering it. So it was really, really disappointing to kind of feel that the better I got, it felt like the worse I actually was".

I've experienced this frustration myself.  To overcome that hurdle, I set about writing my own personal repertoire of music to play that is mine and mine alone - little melodies I can play for enjoyment that are free from any genre, style, quality, precedent, example, tradition, expectation or sound other than my own devising.  OK cool.  That's now done.  I have 50+ tunes.  Enough to last a lifetime.

Last month I saw Bill Frisell play in New York City.  With him were Thomas Morgan, Rudy Royston and Eyvind Kang.  The improvised musical repartee that this quartet was able to achieve was both transcendent and discouraging.  The ease at which these guys made music together was an ever present reminder that what I'm doing is something completely different.  To overcome that valley I had to hit the reset button and realize that what I'm doing is something completely different.  So there.

When I reached 50 tunes in February - three months earlier than goal - I gave my mind a break.  However, I'm always going to have a creative drive that can't be turned off.  Fortunately I have an open tap and whether it's a blank page or a musical instrument, shit is going to come out.  It might be shit, but shit is going to keep coming.  That can't be stopped.

Tune number 51 is called Flea Circus.  I had the title before I had the melody, so it was going to be the title of whatever I wrote next.  This is what I wrote and it came to me almost immediately after hearing the Arthur Russell album Love Is Overtaking Me for the first time.

Number 52 is Doro Wat.  In this case I had the melody first.  I stole it almost entirely from the music of Mulatu Astatke who is basically the inventor of Ethiopian Jazz.  Soon after "writing" this music I needed a title and found the words Doro Wat which I learned was an Ethiopian chicken stew.  At my first opportunity I went to an Ethiopian restaurant to sample Doro Wat, and yes it is tasty!

Tune number 53 is called A Weird Drame.  It's a direct result from seeing Bill Frisell in New York.  During his first set that night he played his tune Baba Drame.  That sound stuck with me and the first time I picked up my banjo after returning home a melody very similar to that was the first thing I played.  The same exact notes you hear here.  Before leaving for New York, I had already been working on a little melody that I had hummed while listening to melodica player Augustus Pablo.  In the interest of convenience and synchronicity I forced that Augustus Pablo type melody upon the Bill Frisell/Baba Drame inspired melody.  A Weird Drame indeed.

Number 54 is called Kestrel.  I guess there are four mini parts to it.  It's a combination of things but I can't remember what the genesis was.  Some of it might be from steel drum music.  But steel drums have 55 notes not 54.  I know that one section of this was in my head as I woke up one morning and I played what I had heard in my head on the banjo as soon as I had gotten up and walked downstairs.  The rest of it - or all of it - might be an exercise in trying to make distinctive melodies out of a small amount of notes.

Tune 55 is Now Defunct.  I pride myself on not being able to transcribe by ear very well.  This is how I convince myself that I've written an original melody instead of a direct note for note copy of something someone else came up with.  So hopefully that happened here, although a trained ear might hear a similarity to an obscure composition called Funky Resurgence by Ulysses Crockett.  I noticed that because Funky Resurgance's head melody was my source for Now Defunct, but upon transcribing/writing it I noticed an unexpected similarity to the Phish song Meat.  Cool.  I love stuff like that.  The B-part was just slapped on spur of the moment.  This may be a continuation of the trend to write really simple, sparse melodies with just a few notes.

Finally, tune 56 is called Wanderley.  Six tunes in less than two months might be a fairly fast pace, but it's not as fast as the 50 tunes I wrote over nine months from June 2017 to February 2018.  I don't feel as much pressure to create right now, being content with the 50+ tunes I've got.  I can't even get to all of them in a week now unless I play an average of 8 per day.  Anyway, I had a little melody going based on what sounded to me like the vocal line of the Bad Religion song Operation Rescue.  It was too insignificant to stand on its own so I shelved it temporarily.  Meanwhile I was listening to the Brazilian organist Walter Wanderley and as a result came up with a tropical sounding melody.  I played with some more experimental sounding B and C parts for it, but then I realized that the teeny tiny little Bad Religion based melody could be tacked right on and a simple, fun tune was now in existence.  I would like to welcome Wanderley to the world.

That's all I got for now. 

Five of the Best Mary Halvorson Albums

Mary Halvorson's Code Girl album came out yesterday and had some coverage on Bandcamp, Spotify and Pitchfork.  Not counting her early duo with Jessica Pavone, this is the first time that Mary has worked with a singer and incorporated vocals directly into her music, so it might also be the first time some folks are becoming aware of this influential guitarist, composer and improviser.  For anyone interested, there's a huge backlog of recordings out there worth checking out.  Dozens, really.  To narrow it down, here are five favorites.

Meltframe (solo)
Mary's long awaited debut solo guitar album does not disappoint.  Make sure you have the volume already turned up to feel the full impact of those opening notes of track 1 - Oliver Nelson's "Cascades" - and then sit back and enjoy the roller coaster ride.

Meltframe is an album of covers. Instead of writing music for solo guitar, Mary decided to interpret other people's songs. The selections span from the well known masters (Ornette Coleman, Duke Ellington, McCoy Tyner), to more obscure figures (Roscoe Mitchell, Annette Peacock) and contemporaries (Chris Lightcap, Tomas Fujiwara).  Meltframe might be my all-time favorite Mary Halvorson LP, however, by the time any of us had heard this, Mary had already moved on.

Secret Keeper - Emerge (duo)

Secret Keeper is Mary's duo project with bassist Stephan Crump.  It's primarily a vehicle for their highly improvised compositions.  The way that you are able to fluidly chat with a really good friend...that's the music that Secret Keeper makes: an in-the-moment bass and guitar conversation that could probably never come out the same way twice. 

If your speakers don't rattle while you're listening to this you need cheaper speakers or more volume.  I like to listen to Emerge in environments where other sounds that aren't on the recording bleed in - birds, sirens, dog barking, wind, clutter on the table getting out of hand.  What type of music is Secret Keeper?  Not a concern.  (Jazz post-rock chamber music...)

Thumscrew (trio)

Thumbscrew is an experimental trio on the fringes of jazz, consisting of Mary Halvorson (guitar), Michael Formanek (double bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums).  Their 2014 debut of heavy hitting jazz rocks with a heavy metal attitude.  It's too cohesive to be fully improvised, yet too feral to be entirely composed. 

In Thumbscrew, Mary is matched up with the equally skillful Formanek and Fujiwara, and this work is product of three great listeners working in tandem. If you find it hard to jive with Thumbscrew's inverted groove just give it time. Soon you'll be inverted.

Tomeka Reid Quartet (quartet)
The Tomeka Reid Quartet is led by cellist Tomeka Reid and on this this CD almost all of the compositions were written by Tomeka.  Mary plays more of an accompanist role in this quartet.  Tomeka's tunes are melodic, in the traditional sense, and this ironically provides a unique setting for Mary's signature guitar sound to find its place.  Tomeka and Mary almost have a vague Grappelli / Reinhardt thing going here.

This CD is fairly easily categorized as jazz, and as such it is easily one of the best jazz recordings I've heard in recent years.  You don't have to qualify it by putting into some free or experimental category.  It sits well within the jazz fold.  No worries there.

Mary Halvorson Octet - Away With You (octet)
There have been several recordings in Mary Halvorson's name with her as the band leader: Dragon's Head, Saturn Sings, Bending Bridges, Illusionary Sea.  Each one of those grew in size, depth and impact.  They are all worth hearing, but for now I'm jumping all the way ahead to the Octet.

On Away With You, Mary's up to 8 in the ensemble thanks to the addition of steel guitarist Susan Alcorn.  Away With You might bear an unintentional resemblance to Frank Zappa's large band jazz masterpieces Grand Wazoo and Waka Jawaka.  These compositions are strong.  The arrangements are classic.  Code Girl is where she goes from here.

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New York City Redo: Just Give Me Something I'm Used To

Caffe Reggio 2017

The getting there might have been different (a 7-hour overnight bus ride last year, a 51 minute flight this year) but the arrival was the same: Greenwich Village, 10:00 on a Saturday morning.  First stop - Caffe Reggio.  Same table as last year.  Same waitress as last year.  She's probably there every day.  Same Classical music playing over speakers.  Exact same furniture, decor, artwork, table setup. Same amount of people in cafe. Same type of people.  I'm probably sitting in the exact same chair.

Caffe Reggio 2018

Noontime.  Entering White Horse Tavern, just like last year.  Is that the same two old-timers sitting at the right of the bar?  They have the same two bottled beers as before, and that one guy is looking at a newspaper again.  Today's newspaper.

That's definitely the exact same bartender.  And yep I'm sitting the same stool at the bar.  Hey there's Dylan Thomas!  Was that cane there last year?  Yep.  It's been there so long no one can remember why.  Guinness still on draft, thank goodness.  "It's getting more popular" says Bob.  More popular than last year(?), I wonder.  Why do large groups of talky goofballs walk in this place, stay for a few minutes and then leave?  So Groundhog Day.

What's the occasion?  Bill Frisell at the Village Vanguard.  Same reason as last time.  Now it's 8pm.  Well at least the Vanguard hasn't changed that much.  There might have been a new poster on the wall.

Set Break

New York City is an organic, constantly shifting organism.  You can't make it bend to your will or even expect it meet expectations.  But somehow for a little while there March 2017 could have doubled for March 2018.

Things are different after you've heard Liquid Liquid

Even though their entire recorded output is covered in less than 25 tracks on the Slip In and Out of Phenomenon retrospective, the early 1980's New York band Liquid Liquid is proving to be quite the important discovery.  Hearing them for the first time this month instantly got my mind working.  I was ready for it.

Here are some early takeaways:

Liquid Liquid's music is rhythm-based and percussion driven.  There is no guitar.  No horns.  Yet somehow still melodic despite having no main melody instrument.

It sounds alien, like a transmission from another world they have not told us of.  Is this the music the Jivaroan tribe would play before shrinking heads?

This is primal, primitive, outsider art.  Urban field recordings.  The musicians aren't even musicians.  They are experimental, minimalist sound artists - throwing beats and yelps at a canvas to see what sticks.

Only amateurs could make music this devoid of intent.

The vocals aren't even vocals.  They are chants, shrieks and undecipherable words.  What the hell is a marimba doing in there and why does it sound so good?

It's way, way OUT.  And grooving and danceable.  Sun Ra meets Talking Heads makes Liquid Liquid.

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