15 People

Hidden States - TOTW 2-1-10 by ooray

I’ve finally reached track #50! Another parallel looper experiment, with granular guitar and uneffected cello.

Sorry guys…I’ve been waylaid by a damnable cold and haven’t been able to record this weekend. Look out for Track #50 next week.

Islands-and-portents TOTW 1-18-10 by ooray

On vacation this weekend…cello is not travelling with me so here is a short guitar piece. Mostly layered backwards loops with a bassline played on my low E string.

Blackheart - TOTW 1-11-10 by ooray

Experiment with two parallel loopers - one looper is guitar through harmonizer, and the other is uneffected cello. I like the result - this piece comes in waves and feels more dynamic than my usual looper pieces.

Ankeny - TOTW - 1-04-10 by ooray

First track of the year! This track is layers of cello run through my TC VoiceWorks harmonizer.

Best of the Year by ooray

Well, it’s been 48 weeks (which means 46 tracks, since I took two weeks off) since I started this track of the week project and it’s time to reflect on everything that’s passed. Here are my favorite 15 tracks from the year, including some that I thought were a little overlooked. I’m hoping to have this collection mastered and released as an album sometime in the future if people are interested.

But before I comment on individual tracks, I’d like to talk about the project as a whole. Inspired by my friend Marc Fisher’s dust breeding blog, I started this project with a few goals in mind:

1) Keep up my improv skills so they wouldn’t be rusty for when shows rolled around
2) Push myself to learn new techniques and skills on the cello
3) As a means for promotion and recognition.

In terms of goals 1 and 2, I think the project has succeeded. In terms of 3, I am thankful for everyone who has listened and commented on this project. I wish I was able to comment more on the individual tracks and improvisations and what they mean to me, but it takes a long time for me to reflect on what I’ve done. I realize that this is not exactly conducive to the transparency the best blogs and projects have, but my project is what it is. In the future, I’ll try and comment more about details if people are interested.

What else have I learned from this project?

1) Improvisational discipline. Being forced to improvise a new track every week has done wonders for my writer’s block. I start something, and don’t worry about it. It’s made me less obsessive about each detail and think more about what kinds of musical structures my music fits into. Another one of the wonderful things about this project is that it’s made art a daily part of my life during stressful times and helped as a release for that.
2) Do it for yourself. Like I said, I am thankful for everyone who’s listened and commented. But honestly, there are so many other worthy people on the internet to listen to with similar projects, that I feel a little lost in the shuffle if I think about my music in that context. So, I am learning not to sweat it too much. If people like what I do, that’s wonderful, but it’s not a necessity for me to continue. Not all of us have audiences like Robert Haenke or Taylor Dupree’s projects.
3) Always be ready to collaborate. I’ve pared my live setup down to a few minimal pieces of gear, which has enabled me to swoop in and collaborate with anyone who’s willing. One of my favorite tracks this year was a collaboration between unrecognizable now and myself, and it wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t all ready to collaborate.

In re-listening to some of these improvisations, some seem a bit shrill and unfinished; some seem like much of the same, but I think these are my favorite 15 moments from this year, organized into a coherent collection.

Here are some notes on individual tracks that I thought were overlooked.

Andalucia: pure, unadulterated cello looping over a simple guitar part. I still like how coherent this one sounds. It sounds almost mideval to me, which is probably the result of listening to the Tous les matin du monde soundtrack too much.

Sun spots: this is the fruit of a collaboration between myself and unrecognizable now. I’ve played with them for a number of shows, which has been really great, but this was a pure improvisation between the three of us, with Marc looping everyone and making it all cohere. I’ve always felt we were pretty good at being restrained and listening to each other, with no one calling all the shots, and this feels like the culmination of two years of playing together.

Sleep: this was a very simple two chord guitar track, run through a multitude of pitch shifters. I really like it because it feels simple and pure.

Frog-chorus: this started with a simple idea: run guitar through Marc’s granular plugin and emerged as something that I was quite pleased with. Especially like the tonal shift in the middle.

Chimes at midnight, Scenes from a Vitrine, Oo-year: Some of my favorite tracks were a combination of guitar and cello. These were three of my favorites in that the guitar provides a nice improvisational structure for the cello.

Track 04: this is an improv from my favorite show this year, my show at the Dunes. It starts out with the cello run through my TC voiceworks for some choral style harmonization and ramps up to a shoegazerish conclusion from there. This was a really wonderful night for me; lots of friends and family came to see me play and it was one of the best audiences I’ve ever had.

Again, I hope everyone has a great new year and here’s to the past and future tracks of the week!

Oo-year - TOTW 12-28-09 by ooray

Last track of the year, and of the decade! Track #46 features backwards granular guitar and deep pizzicato from the cello (have been inspired by listening to Bert Jansch and the Pentangle lately).

Thanks to everyone who has listened in this year and provided encouragement. I’m going to try and continue tracks of the week as long as I can.

Coming soon…I’ll list my ten favorite tracks of this project and why they’re my favorites.

Cnia - TOTW 12-21-09 by ooray

Nearly the last track of the year! This week’s track is based off a chord in the 3rd sarabande.

Chior - TOTW 12-14-09 by ooray

A little heavenly strumming for track #44.

About a dog - TOTW 12-07-09 by ooray

A little experiment with sustained tones for a blustery winter day.