A free improvisation with Metalizer on Electric Guitar, Sonikjahz on Bass, and Self on Waterphone. I remixed the live recording: adjusted the volume and sound for each individual player and added a track of Cork City Gamelan percussion – while trying not to destroy the free improvised feeling. I am trying to learn the technique and get good at it. Much of my favorite music for listening to seems to be recorded and produced this way: use an improvisation as a starting point, and then remix it… and anyway: I cannot do this particular kind of Cork City Gamelan percussion arrangement live YET, it has to be in a remix for now – I hope to be able to do it soon some time, though, eventually. I am treating it as research and development. This means that it can stay on the long finger for a long time, as long as there are more exciting tasks to tackle.
Warming Up And Starting To Boil (about 5 1/2 minutes of something resembling music in a new window, 5.6 MB to download, in the iTunes and iPod AAC/MPEG4 format)
Please note: I cannot make this available under a Creative Commons license for cutting up and remixing, because only about half of it is my own creative work. Unlike most of the music I post here, this is “all rights reserved”. Also: This is entirely my own edit decision, without consulting with the others.
I absolutely love improvised music – both, listening to it as well as playing. I call this our “Just Play” sessions. We are not a band, and we have no repertoire – we don’t even talk about what we are going to play before we start. We literally just play, and we are open for others to join in, any time. Contact me if you would like to give it a try.
To promote making improvised music (while allowing anything that can make sounds to become a musical instrument) is a very special pursuit to me. I believe that it is a good way for people with disabilities to get into making their own music. Last December, I met with Dame Evelyn Glennie in Dublin, and she very much confirmed these feelings for me. I am planning to write an article about improvisation, based largely on what she had to say. Dame Evelyn is one of the foremost percussionists in the World. She became the first ever full time solo percussionist… and she is profoundly deaf! She reads lips when she talks to people. Watching Touch The Sound, a documentary movie about her, motivated me to get a Waterphone and to play live again after over 15 years of complete withdrawal due to my own disability.
