Notorious non-percussionist bangs on stuff, film @ 11

There's been a percussion theme to the past few days.

I've been working on "Test Pilot's Lament", one of the songs I'm about to record. In it, percussion on an autoharp will take the place of rhythm guitar. The wooden handle of the autoharp's tuning crank turned out to be great for hitting several strings at a time and I'm practicing this. For a notorious non-percussionist, even a sequence of even eighth notes can be a challenge so I'm working on it with a metronome.

Also last evening I accompanied Celeste to the Musical Nightmare Before Christmas at the Starry Plough, organized by Suki and Lucio (whom I overheard referred to by someone in the crowd who I guess couldn't remember or pronounce his last name, as "Lucio Megatron"). There was lots to listen to including Lumper/Splitter's emergency guitar surgery and a solo set by notorious non-metronome Moe! Staiano. I was close enough that I was hit by flying shrapnel. It was awesome.

The memory of that experience came with me to my classical flute gig this morning, in which I was directed to play finger cymbals and claves in a couple of pieces instead of the flute. During rehearsal I made sure to play them in ways I wasn't supposed to, in honor of Moe!. But I play often enough with those classical people that they now expect me to act out in new music ways and it's hard to shock them anymore.

Year-end madness

Hmmm...exactly when am I going to get everything done I need to do before the end of the year? Or more precisely, before my two big commitments in January? I've got those sessions coming up, to finish "Not Made of Stone", and Womantis is supposed to premiere my piece "Genesis" in January too. So I've got a lot to do, and like Celeste always does in her blog, here it is in no particular order:

get flute and bass flute repaired
rehearsals with John for "Save a Prayer"
coordinate Dan's "Save a Prayer" piano part, editing, MIDI file export
be on the hook for Jim's questions about "Save a Prayer" and "Death & the Maiden"
practice vocals for all the songs
find out what mallets are good for playing percussion on an autoharp...or else see if chopsticks work, or the tuning implement
figure out how to pack everything
worry about if I can get my instruments onto the plane as carryon or not
go with Celeste to new music shows while she is back for the holidays
make elaborate plans for my time in Portland with K
make more elaborate Portland plans with Rich and Daria et. al. (I hope)
do Yule and Christmas things as appropriate with friends & family
play classical holiday gigs
work on "Genesis"
coordinate the Company's travel plans and lodging arrangements in Oregon

I'm sure I've forgotten plenty of things. If you know of any, drop me a line. Thanks muchly. :)

Duran Duran's speed seduction manual

Preparations are underway for the final round of recording sessions for our new album, "Not Made of Stone", coming up in January. We'll be recording two originals and one cover, "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran.

Dan's piano part for "Save a Prayer" is ready and input into Sibelius, and John and I have started rehearsing with it, to create his guitar part and the guitar solo he'll play at the end. Jim is learning the original bass line off the Duran Duran record, and Jeff will be creating his drum part based on the original and a couple of examples I sent him on a CD. I am practicing what's a pretty demanding vocal part and creating a bass flute part.

"Save a Prayer" is arguably the best Duran Duran song. It might be one of the most beautiful ballads ever written. Trying to do it justice is kind of scary but I hope, doable. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's found herself in the situation described in the lyrics...in fact I've been there more than once. To give in to temptation or not to give in?

The originals we will be recording are "Test Pilot's Lament" and "Death and the Maiden". Will Grant created the original sound bites for the "Death and the Maiden" electronica part, and I've created multiple lines out of them, and edited them together and created volume automation. I finalized the lyrics today. There is a lot more work to be done on that one, and on "Test Pilot's Lament", before January. It's a bit daunting but it can be done.

Concurrently with preparing for the sessions, I'm working on my piece, "Genesis", for twelve performers and a conductor. I'm told it will be performed in late January by the Womantis ensemble, an all-female improvising group in Oakland. Their custom is to include one token male musician in each concert, so I created the piece with that in mind. I now have to stop carrying the piece around in my head and write it down.

But even before all this happens, I just found out today that I'll be participating in the Bay Area Flute Fest on December 10th at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland. I have a 20-minute slot in which to demonstrate and improvise on the bass flute. That should be fun. I'm looking forward to it especially because I'll get to hear my friend Phil Gelb on the shakuhachi immediately afterwards.

Flip Quartet premiere

The Flip got its first performance last evening!

Here are some stream-of-consciousness highlights:

1. At least 4 of the audience members had never been to a "new music" concert before.
2. Matt Davignon and Phillip Greenlief's Misspelled Duo music.
3. Moe! hurling a superball across the gallery to bounce it off the wall, twice, as part of his South quarter improvisation.
4. A good-sized audience, which Matt D described as "the biggest the LSG has had in 2 months".
5. The performers holding their three-minute timers aloft and flipping them over together, sometimes with a count-off from Moe!.
6. My brother Will doing videography and the look on his face during some parts of the improvisation.
7. The wonderful new gallery lighting rig with faders which allowed us to light up each of the four stations and make them visible.
8. Suki blowing bubbles in those classic 70s old-fashioned glasses.
9. Theresa applying a huge dry branch to the wall of the gallery.
10. Lucio and Theresa playing my Native American flute.
11. Actual door money for the performers.
12. The magnificent array of metal objects in the South quarter.
13. Lucio's leaning tower of shaker blocks.
14. Not a single word of text was spoken. The printouts of poems in the East quarter were crumpled up as sound sources.
15. The jack o'lantern didn't get improvised with. Granted, I forgot to light it. Poor Jack had a lobotomy for nothing. ;)
16. Moe! blowing soap bubbles while Matt D announced the performance.

There will be another performance of the Flip in spring in Oakland. Stay tuned!

Forgot to mention

I forgot to blog about the artist who attended the Palais concerts. He was at all the performances on Saturday evening at the 1078 Gallery, and he spent the whole time creating these intricate free-hand pen-and-ink drawings on torn up pieces of cardboard. He would give them to musicians and audience members.

I can't read his signature very well but it looks like "John M..." The drawings are very beautiful and seem to focus on mountains and evergreens drawn different ways. I have three of them. My favorite is, of course, the one he drew during Lucio's and my performance. He entitled it, "Action of Breath and Voice".

Music is life, and life music

This is the first chance I've had to blog about the Palais Ideal event in Chico this past weekend. As Phillip G pointed out, it was kind of like a retreat for the SF Bay Area new music community. There were quite a few of us there and it was just far away enough to feel like we were out of town. I love changes of scenery.

Phillip & I had an uneventful drive up on Saturday but a bit of a struggle with web-based directions once we hit town. Once there everything went smoothly from my perspective. There were people in attendance at every set I saw. I got to hear Marielle Jakobsen's solo work for the first time, which was a treat. It's very tasteful, and thoughtful, and a lot more complicated than perhaps it looks. Phillip's solo performance proved to me that even when he is exhausted, he is still himself, and still owns the venue. Danny Cohen's singer/songwriter set was a lot of fun too, when evening came. It was very dark and evocative, with song titles like "Rigor Mortis on the Ridge".

Austin Space made the trip up from the Bay Area, armed with a weekend pass and collecting CDs from many musicians for the KFJC library. He also came armed with an impressive recording rig and recorded a lucky few of us -- myself and Lucio included, I'm proud to say.

Lucio didn't arrive until Saturday evening, since he had a gig at the looping festival in Santa Cruz that afternoon. He came blazing up the highway and arrived ready to rock.

It was funny -- I must have been giving off a very "Where's Lucio?" vibe because folks kept coming up to me and letting me know whether or not they had seen him. (Austin picked up on this and asked me, "What does Lucio look like?" so he could get in on the Lucio watch.) When he ultimately did arrive, three different people ran up to me to inform me excitedly, "Lucio's here!" I got excited too and ran off to find him.

Our set went pretty well with a really on-the-ball sound engineer named Steve making sure the words could be heard above the instrumentalism.

There was just a lot of positive energy in the event. Organizer Jason Cassidy, who had every right to be stressed out, was nothing but mellow and positive every time I spoke to him, even though he was dealing with headliner cancellations and all kinds of stuff I don't envy. There were lots of volunteers around and audience members who were not all members of the bands. I'm hoping the Palais will become an annual event. I'd do it again in a second.

Next up for me is the San Francisco night of the Duck & Cover tomorrow, and then the Flip Quartet meeting/rehearsal on Saturday and then the Flip itself, on November 2nd. More collaborating with Lucio, which is always good.