C Garden – Steve Layton (2011)
C Garden – Steve Layton (2011)
(feat. Paul Hertz, Diego Monroy, Jim Goodin, Paul Muller)
A mashup by Steve Layton from mid-2011. Paul Hetrz’s organ playing anchors this like a foghorn in dangerous waters. The other parts flow perfectly around this to form a beautiful texture, bubbling in a sort of reflective optimism – like a sunset the after the perfect day.
Steve Layton is a Dallas-based composer specializing in mixing and mashing of disparate pieces. C Garden was originally created for an ImprovFriday event on August 12, 2011.
I Will Begin a Journey – Jim Goodin (2011)
I Will Begin a Journey – Jim Goodin (2011)
download mp3
Jim Goodin is a Brooklyn-based musician who frequently contributes to ImprovFriday. “I Will Begin a Journey” is a simple folk tune that begins with a series of pizzicato arpeggios that are looped, creating an infectious texture that is complimented by the tune that emerges towards the middle. This is excellent traveling music!
Matthew Hunter: Prepared Piano Improv. I (2009)
Matthew Hunter: Prepared Piano Improv. I (2009)
Prepared Piano Improv. I (2009) by Matthew Hunter
“”Utilising the unusual timbres of an inelegantly prepared piano as devised by myself and my sound engineer friend Dan.
A chance meeting with resulted in us toying with a piano at the school of music. I was being clever and showinghim how to mute the strings with my hand. In response he took 4 or 5 plastic folders out of his bag and placed them across all the strings.We liked the sound so much that we moved into the studio. He set up mics, carefully spread the folders across the strings, put some headphones on me, and told me to play. This was the result, and it was only when he played it back to me a few weeks later that I realised how well it worked. Hopefully there will be more in the future.”
EMU Recording Studio, Edler Conservatorium of Music. Recorded by Dan Pitman.”
JC Combs: The Drone In My Life (2010)
JC Combs: The Drone In My Life: (2010)
Dark, mysterious combination of piano and menacing ambient atmospherics fashioned from processed piano sounds. Creates a feeling of anxiety as if in an alien cityscape at night. Tension builds nicely by the restrained suspension of long tones.
Here is what JC Combs writes about this piece:
“The Drone in My Life” is from a small scale set called “Affliction Suite ” … The piece consists entirely of piano improvisation, including the inside of the piano. As with the other works I employ post-improvisation (what I and others nowadays refer to as re-composition) techniques via audio tool platforms. As for its form, its split into two sections. The first showcasing free piano improvisation with the drone backing up the piano, and the second half where the drone permeates the piece – as the title suggests. Of course, I strive for some humor in my works, in this case the title word play on Feldman’s “Viola in My Life.”
Alex Carpenter: Fainting Spell Mix (2010)
Alex Carpenter: Fainting Spell Mix (2010)
Fainting Spell Mix is an ambient work similar to that being created by James Ross and Richard Lainhart. Alex uses a self-designed multi-amp and delay network he calls the Live Audio Delay System and achieves a convincing sense of stasis and movement simultaneously. In this piece Alex plays guitar and produces a fine, music box-like texture that seems to hang in the air. The result is a restful and engaging piece that holds your interest even as it slowly unfolds. ’Fainting Spell Mix’ was originally posted at ImprovFriday for the September 25, 2010 event.
More info at http://transparentmeans.net/
Bruce Hamilton-Glibs (2010)
“Glibs” is about trying to create a static yet floating or soaring environment. I use Paul Muller’s minimalist textures a lot in my IF (ImprovFriday) mashes and usually use most or all of his tracks, but this time i just took a few bars and looped them with some processing to create a pulsing, energized, harmonic pad.
To this groove I couldn’t resist adding and tweaking Jukka-Pekka Kervien’s glitchtronica, which is also very busy but ultimately a static texture. On top of these controlled fireworks Adam Kondor’s sparse string lines hover, providing an acoustic contrast with slow melancholic melodies and counterpoint. I manipulated these lines a fair amount to get them to sit right in the harmony and in the mix.
Finally I added some warm pizzicato bass tones to flesh out the spectrum and add harmonic nuance. So ultimately it’s the acoustic string elements that provide form, and the electronic parts ,both stable and chaotic, that serve as eternal and essentially unchanging presences.
I like the simultaneously human and otherworldly feelings thesecontrasts can provide, and love the fact that these elements were contributed from around the planet and remixed within a weekend.”
via Improv Friday Event June 17th-19th 2010
commentary via Improv Friday podcast August 18th 2010
Walls and Whispers: Steve Moyes (2009)
Walls and Whispers: Steve Moyes (2009)
looped guitar improvisation originally posted at ImprovFriday Event: October 23rd 2009
Adam Kondor: Ildikó Vékony (2009)
Adam Kondor: Ildikó Vékony (2009)
Adam Kondor’s memorial to his ex-wife who died in a fall while rock climbing. The performance is a mashup of found sounds/field recordings and his wife performing his Six Sonate for Cimbalom Solo
“Ildikó was one of the world’s premiere cimbalom players (in Adam’s own words “She was the best cimbalom player in Hungary, and for classical music probably the best all over the world – not many people play Bach on cimbalom”), and a composer in her own right. She’s featured on all kinds of major recordings, and had worked with everyone from Kurtag to Ligeti to Eötvös (in fact she was soloist just last January in NYC at Zankel Hall, in a concert led by Eötvös)” http://bit.ly/6rMCcq
you can read more about the memorial here
Paul Bailey: Music for Controllers V (2009)
Paul Bailey: Music for Controllers V
via paul bailey:
“improvisation performed and recorded live created by using various “controllers” (macbookpro, ableton live, korg nanokey, iphone, (buddha machine and srutibox) originally performed on ImprovFriday event. October 16th-17th 2009″
Music for Controllers V by paul bailey
curated by Shane Cadman
Thomas Bjornseth: Improv Friday 011510
Thomas Bjornseth: Improv Friday 011510
via the composer:
“I always start off with an improvisation, and work out the final piece in midi. Some times there’s a lot of fiddling about, other times I only clean it up a little, which is the case for the Jan. 15th piece. So no big secrets there, but what I try to achieve is a style of improvisation that sounds like it could have been written in the more traditional sense.”
Thomas Bjornseth/atonality.net
curated by Paul Muller
Paul Hertz: Polymetric Phrygian Plainchant (2009)
Paul Hertz: Polymetric Phrygian Plainchant (2009)
Paul’s notes:
“Polymetric Phrygian Plainchant is based on a Phrygian mode version of the Dies Irae. It was composed and recorded entirely in Sibelius 5, using synthesized woodwind instruments. The altered Dies Irae melody is successively heard at five different tempos, in the ratio 2:3:5:7:11. This piece dates from July 2009 and was first posted on ImprovFriday.“
Paul Muller: Fast Piece for Two Recorder (2010) + Bruce Hamilton: grass robot (2010)
Today is a double post featuring a two tracks from last weeks ImprovFriday Event (January 8th-9th 2009)
Paul Muller: Fast Piece for Two Recorders “Somehow this started out as Philip Glass and wound up as bluegrass…”
and the remix of it
Bruce Hamilton: grass robot “mini-minimaly-mashup + synth bass improv”
which also features music by Mike Crain and Jane Martin
Richard Lainhart: Autumn Afternoon With Rain (2009)
Richard Lainhart: Autumn Afternoon With Rain (2009)
“a realtime improvisation for electric guitar with laptop processing”
originally posted on ImprovFriday, October 9th-10th 2009
Mark Harris: I Am A Long Way From Home (2009)
“a live improvisation. based around a recoding I did of wind in the trees”
