What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[RichardB]

I enjoyed listening to that. It sounds like you're at a bit of a crossroads where one way leads to doing things tastefully, landing in all the right places at the right moments and so on, and the other leads to something more angular, unpredictable and individual. Did you record the backing yourself? I can't quite hear it clearly enough on my laptop speakers to tell. It sounds like you did because you and the rhythm player seem to have a close rapport, again from what I can hear...

I've returned to my Simon Howard-inspired series with a quartet for clarinet(s), horn, piano and percussion, a combination I don't think has been tried before, which has been commissioned for a festival in Essen in November 2024 (so it should be finished in time!). The evening in question involves a concert by four musicians of Musikfabrik, whose second half will consist of this plus two of its companion pieces (only one of which will have been played before), after which the Evan Parker Electroacoustic Ensemble will play, with a new and rather intriguing lineup which I won't give away now in case it has to change. Watch this space.

[Joseph K]

Thanks very much, Richard. No, the backing track is just something I found on youtube. Yes, I like listening to it with my laptop connected to my hifi so the bass etc. sound more prominent, though I am aware that many people on social media will listen, if they listen at all, through mobile phone speakers or the like. I do enjoy playing over Blue Bossa, it's not difficult either, comprising only of 2-5-1s in C minor and D flat major. Your new commission sounds intriguing - how many pieces will your Simon Howard series consist of?

[RichardB]

the backing track is just something I found on youtube

I think it might be fun to try making your own, in that case!

how many pieces will your Simon Howard series consist of?

It consists of four "acts", each of four pieces, which are more or less interwoven. Simon's text consists of sixteen sections - the ordering and grouping of these has evolved through the process of composition, which began about seven years ago, although I think it has reached its definitive form now. One of the components of act 1 has so far been written and performed, by Fonema Consort. Act 1 is the most song-like in form, consisting of four pieces with solo voice which are performed in sequence. Act 2 was performed earlier this year by Soundinitiative, and is a continuous collage of instrumental, vocal, electronic and "theatrical" events. Act 3 for 16 instruments was the first to be completed and was performed in 2017 by Musikfabrik. When the current one is finished three of the components of act 4 will be ready. When Simon wrote the texts I had told him that the resulting piece would be about twenty minutes long, but when it's complete it will be around three hours in duration! While it's a series of pieces that can be presented separately, it's really planned as a single composition with many interconnections between the various components. The intention is that it should be performed complete, although in the current cultural climate that doesn't seem very likely to happen...

[Joseph K]

I think it might be fun to try making your own, in that case!

Well, I have a looper pedal, which I could record myself comping and perhaps simulate a bassline on my guitar. I can't see the point using it for something like Blue Bossa, when I can just use the reasonable one I found on youtube, but I will use the looper to create a backing track for a few of my own compositions. Now that would be fun...

It consists of four "acts", each of four pieces, which are more or less interwoven. Simon's text consists of sixteen sections - the ordering and grouping of these has evolved through the process of composition, which began about seven years ago, although I think it has reached its definitive form now. One of the components of act 1 has so far been written and performed, by Fonema Consort. Act 1 is the most song-like in form, consisting of four pieces with solo voice which are performed in sequence. Act 2 was performed earlier this year by Soundinitiative, and is a continuous collage of instrumental, vocal, electronic and "theatrical" events. Act 3 for 16 instruments was the first to be completed and was performed in 2017 by Musikfabrik. When the current one is finished three of the components of act 4 will be ready. When Simon wrote the texts I had told him that the resulting piece would be about twenty minutes long, but when it's complete it will be around three hours in duration! While it's a series of pieces that can be presented separately, it's really planned as a single composition with many interconnections between the various components. The intention is that it should be performed complete, although in the current cultural climate that doesn't seem very likely to happen...

Sounds fascinating. Very much looking forward to hearing it...

[RichardB]

Well, I have a looper pedal, which I could record myself comping and perhaps simulate a bassline on my guitar. I can't see the point using it for something like Blue Bossa, when I can just use the reasonable one I found on youtube, but I will use the looper to create a backing track for a few of my own compositions. Now that would be fun...

Why would you use a looper rather than just playing the accompaniment to as many choruses as you're planning to work with? The point is it's you playing.

[Joseph K]

Why would you use a looper rather than just playing the accompaniment to as many choruses as you're planning to work with? The point is it's you playing.

True.

[Joseph K]

I'm about to compose (onto paper, I mean) some lines over some of Charlie Parker's tune 'Confirmation' - specifically, over a section comprising the chords E half-diminished - Adom7 - Dmin7 - G7 - Cmin7 - F7 - Bflat7. It's two chords per bar (except for the Bflat7, which takes up a whole bar) so the harmonic rhythm is quite fast and therefore really requires some preparation like I'm about to do, and this sequence occurs twice in the first A section and again in the second A section, so I need vocab for it. I've been working on this tune for a few months now, but haven't got that far, hence the need for this. To aid and inspire me in this I have Bert Ligon's book Comprehensive Technique For Jazz Musicians which is quite a hefty tome, and features an exhaustive collection of logical ideas for chains of 2-5s using what he calls outline exercises - these are like paradigms for lines which adhere to voice-leading principles where the seventh of the 2 chord resolves to the third of the 5 chord. I find that if I have a page consisting of ten ideas for the abovementioned chord progression from 'Confirmation' and learn them, I can then work on the important business of varying them - it's good to have an visual object to bounce ideas off of. Or at least that's the idea...

[Joseph K]

I've recorded this song a lot but this is the first time with this particular backing track, which I think is probably my favourite one I've encountered.

Stella By Starlight - YouTube

[Serial_Apologist]

I've recorded this song a lot but this is the first time with this particular backing track, which I think is probably my favourite one I've encountered.

Nice asymmetrical playing to the changes there, Mister K! I love this tune too, and have worked out a solo piano version for myself to improvise on - but I prefer your effort!

[Joseph K]

Nice asymmetrical playing to the changes there, Mister K! I love this tune too, and have worked out a solo piano version for myself to improvise on - but I prefer your effort!

Thanks very much, SA!

[Joseph K]

Been working on this for a while. Not that for the most part it's difficult, just a couple of triplet runs in the first chorus and one longer one in the second - these have been the bits requiring practice, and as you can see, the one in the second is still not quite totally clean.

Mike Stern's solo on Stella By Starlight - YouTube

[Pulcinella]

This afternoon, I'm looking at the pieces we are singing in a concert in York's Late Music Festival next month: we are supposed to be note and word perfect at rehearsal tomorrow!

Given that we are singing in English, Latin (two styles of pronunciation!), German, Russian, and Icelandic, this is proving quite a challenge for my aging brain!

[Suffolkcoastal]

Currently composing (rather slowly) a Cello Concerto for no apparent reason than I felt like writing one. I'm surprised really at what I managed to complete in 2023 considering the circumstances, a short piece for small orchestra, Symphony No 4, String Quartet No 5, three short pieces for piano & a short work for Brass, Organ & Timpani.

[Pabmusic]

A little piece for my granddaughter, Wren. She was born nearly 5 months premature (!) in 2021, and nether my daughter nor her husband told any grandparent until Wren returned home from Alder Hey hospital - about 4-5 months after her birth by caesarian section. So - a great surprise. Anyway, she's fine now.

When she was learning to walk (very unsteadily) last May or so I wrote this, based on some video my daughter sent me. It's for clarinet quintet (Carice's mother leads one) and we were all quite happy with it - including the depiction of a short nap inbetween.

https://soundcloud.com/pabmusic-445605675/jenny-wren-for-clarinet-quintet?si=0b4d5ea45e424ac9bce58870afaede30&utm_so urce=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social _sharing

[oliver sudden]

Apart from being a new departure in terms of composing three seldom combined kinds of activity into the same piece, it's the seventh instalment to have been completed so far of a series of sixteen based on a cycle of poems written for me by our late friend Simon Howard. The sixteen are grouped into four "acts", in each of which four of them are interleaved in various ways. Act 3 is a 32-minute composition for an ensemble of sixteen instrumentalists (one of whom is also a vocalist) which was premiered by the Musikfabrik ensemble in Cologne in 2017; of the two completed components of act 4, only one (a duo for horn and percussion) has been performed so far; the other (a solo for basset horn) was written last year.

In case anyone’s keeping track: I will (finally!) be premiering that basset horn solo tomorrow, in a concert also including the premiere of Prof Barrett’s new quartet for basset horn/contrabass clarinet, horn, piano, and percussion.

https://www.theater-essen.de/programm/a-z/richard-barrettcatastrophe-138071/