LRG.CSUF.032510.8pm.$10
fresh from my email…
Lloyd Rodgers Group in Concert
Premiere performance of “Darkening of the Light” from “Descent Into Formalism”
– Seventeen Movements: Counterpoints, Harmonies, and Meditations
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Principle of Sufficient Irritation
some pieces you ‘compose’ and other come out fully formed. “Principle of Sufficient Irritation” (POSI) is one of those pieces that sprang out of me almost fully realized almost exactly 4 years ago. even though i’m just a part-time adjunct teaching monkey, fall has always been very busy for me and not really a good time to compose and by the time november rolls around i’m itching to get some new pieces written. thinking back in 2005 it’s pretty telling that i remember most of the details around this piece.
Background
i know i had some rehearsals coming up with the PBE and really wanted to get some pieces written, especially something modular and improvisatory. besides having played terry riley’s “In C” the lloyd rodgers group had been performing many of his very simple and effective ‘black book‘ improvisations. i had already written one decent modular improvisation (tong aesthetics from the music from summerland CD), and i really wanted to explore another approach than the large through-composed pieces that were common in the late 60′s and 70′s. the funny thing is that when POSI was created (we originally referred to it by the day it was created. 11/25/05 was the original title) the particulars really didn’t matter anymore, i just needed a piece for a rehearsal and using improvisation as process sounded like a great way to create something new in a short time.
Writing Process
the process creating POSI was pretty simple; play a lick on my trombone, plug it into the sequencer and loop it while i improvised another one. i pretty quickly realized that the first gesture worked so well in canon that it was almost a piece by itself and after the initial inspiration my only goal was to “make it change”. my luck/the god(s)/karma must have been smiling on me that day b/c although i have never been good at writing canons, that day i figured out that i’m pretty good at improvising them (at least in this modular style). the rest of the piece pretty much wrote itself and needless to say i was pretty excited for my upcoming rehearsal.
1st rehearsal
well… here’s where i tell you that i took it to rehearsal and the group ‘got it’ and we played it down the first time. but actually the group was pretty stumped and it took us 3-4 rehearsals to get the hang of it. and it took a few tries of figuring out how to move from section to section and what the “rules” of the piece are. the main thing i remember is that when we finally played it like it was in my head i had that feeling of completion and pure joy that i experienced when i first wrote it and immediately became the piece that we ended all rehearsals with promising a frolicking good time at the end of every rehearsal (and performance)
Improvisation, Performance and Recording
even though the licks are written out, one of the best feeling of performing a modular improvisation (like POSI) is the ability to not worry what to play, but how to play it. each performance is like you get to visit something musically familiar, but each time you can experience it differently. i think performing a modular improvisation is very similar to giving actors an outline for a scene and telling them what needs to occur.
this recording of POSI was our last take of a two day session and in which we were all pretty mentally tired and loopy. if you were listening to the piece while looking at the score i’m sure it would be pretty hard to follow along, but if you listened a few times you should be able to hear that we are basically playing variations of variations of what was originally written down. i think its a great example of the pure improvisatory and musical joy that the PBE creates during many of our live show and i know that getting it on tape in a semi-artificial studio setting (in which the vibes and clarinet were recorded in separate rooms without being to see anybody else) is a testament of the great musicianship of scott, ryan, carl, bruce and eric. overall the way we were playing that afternoon i think we could have recorded the album over the phone and still have captured a great performance.
enjoy,
paul
Principle of Sufficient Irritation (originally 11/25/05)
* Paul Bailey, Trombone
* Bruce Gallego, Electric Guitar
* Eric Hendrickson, Keyboards
* Scott McIntosh, Clarinet
* Ryan Nunes, Vibraphone
* Carl Stronach, Bass Guitar
Recorded and Mixed by Paul Bailey and Marlon Luna
Recorded at California State University Fullerton and Swing House Studios Hollywood
the winners are already decided
after reading anne midgette’s washington post article Roll Over Beethoven about her new “alt-classical” genre i have a few bones to pick with with her description and logic.* besides mixing up the alt.classical genre with the alt.classical transcription bandwagon. (Alarm Will Sound’s Aphex Twin transcriptions and Christopher O’Riley’s Radiohead piano music) she tries then label [...]
Mosaic (Music of Jon Brenner)
there have been some great online discussions over the break about the “big” issues over at the NetNewMusic site; the purpose of music as art? is music a commodity? what is the role of technology in music?
currently i’m interested in using technology should help us to augment the possibilities of our lives (some call it augmented reality). its been interesting discovering the many examples with musicians exploring live looping, controllerism, mashups etc…
along those lines i’m going to introduce you to my friend jon brenner’s obsessive take on technology. his approach is pretty simple in which he uses everyday items (bicycle and coffee machine) to “assemble” songs piece by piece and like the mosaic on the right using a field recorder and protools.
as you will hear his results are pretty amazing!
enjoy!
espresto
presta pesto
tour de forte
shifted cadence
spoken chorus
caffeine machine
latte
also as a bonus is jon’s modular mashup of my fearless leader, overcoming tourism and lloyd rodgers the little prince
leaderless fear
die die die
die Originally uploaded by pbe tonight california state university diverse instrument ensemble music of cage, satie, machut, rodgers and brenner ryan nunes, vibes, john brenner, bass guitar, melissa rodgers, trumpet, keyboard, lloyd rodgers, saxophone, keyboard recital hall fullerton, ca free Be the first to like. Like Unlike
monday morning quarterback
d.i.e. had a pretty good show last wed night in which we premiered david toub’s piece this piece intentionally left blank. i thought it was a very effective composition and pretty good first performance. enjoy the mp3 mp3.
this performance represented the best of social networking and was made possible by david having a well designed website with scores and mp3′s. he also is very smart by having some pieces in open c score that are easily adapted to any instrumentation (most pbe music is written this way) which is the point of the diverse instrument ensemble.
anyway ,it was a challenging but fun piece to play and great example of the exchange of ideas by making your music public. i look forward to playing more of music like this and encourage others to follow.
d.i.e. (diverse intstrument ensemble), 051706
may 17 2006
california state university, fullerton
recital hall
folias echa para mi senora dona tarobilla de carallanos-1650
andrea falconiero
de plus en plus
gilles binchois
douglas law, countertenor
from 125 “contrapunti” on a cantus firmus-1540
constano festa
counterpoint 23
counterpoint 27
counterpoint 88
conterto I re minore per 2 oboe, archi e cembalo-1715
antonio vivaldi
la deploration de johan okeghem-1500
josquin despres
douglas law-countertenor, veronica paez-oboe, brian madigan-ebass, pam gadaire-eguitar, ryan nunes-vibraphone and marimba, michael lassarre-alto sax, carl stronach-vibraphone and marimba, esther li-keyboard, scott mcintosh-clarinet and bass clarinet, xico castano, clarinet, paul bailey-trombone, lloyd rodgers, conductor
lloyd rodgers group
just got back from lloyd rodgers dress rehearsal of his new piece “guns into mexico”. it combines prerecorded found object audio and video (paul greenhaw), combined with modular improvisations for synth, bass guitar, and percussion (2 vibes and assorted snares and toms) i really like it, you should go see it and make up your [...]
