Just wanted to let you know I’ll be playing 2 shows this weekend (Long Beach and DTLA) with Chris Schalrb’s wonderful Psychic Temple project. It’s very interesting music that falls somewhere between the gaps of folk music, modal jazz, and the modular improvisation of Terry Riley. You can preview the music we will be performing on the show here.
Also my Alt-Classical EP is “officially” going to be released this coming Tuesday (02/16/11). You can download a copy for free at my SoundCloud and Bandcamp pages and it should be showing up at all the usual online sites (iTunes, Emusic, Rhapsody, Zune…) in the next few weeks.
my new Alt-Classical EP is coming out in january and while i’m finishing up the liner notes here is the first track. click below for links to the download and score.
Fearless Leader was partially inspired by a quote from the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti: “Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, its just not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I cannot escape.”
this piece was originally conceived as a modular improvisation (in the style of Terry Riley’s Tread on the Trail) but didn’t work as intended (modular improvisation and the resulting rhythmic syncopations didn’t mix well). the orchestration also went through quite a few revisions and for a long time i considered it the black sheep of my PBE repertoire. i guess it goes to show that sometimes you gotta stick with something until you get it right.
Fearless Leader (2006, revised Spring 2007)
clarinet, trombone, vibes, keyboard, electric guitar, bass guitar
this track is released via creative commons: attribution, noncommercial, and share alike which basically means to me feel to download, remix, mashup, deconstruct, etc… as long as you give me credit and don’t sell it. if you do i will have my critter army hunt you down and hug you until you change your ways.
i was enjoying a little extra time over the break and was able to upload some recordings from our late summer concerts that we played with the LANME.
here are our performances of Terry Riley’s “In C” and my “Principle of Sufficient Irritation”at our performances at collumbia (recording) college and in san pedro.
LANME:
christina giacona, clarinet
patrick colon, violin
kelly haley-sibler, flute
james miller, voice
audrey snyder, cello
daniel formidoni, sound design
PBE performers included:
paul bailey, trombone
scott mcintosh, clarinet
matt menaged, bass guitar
ryan nunes, vibes
nicholas white, piano
“Like it or not radio and all media are changing. There is no choice. Technology is the reason. Technology is changing the way we live, how we use our time, and what is available to us. We once thought of ourselves as ‘radio people’ or ‘TV people‘, now we are now simply in media. The web changed how we do our jobs and more importantly what those jobs are today. A person who concentrated on audio must know about written content and video. Radio news reporters now produce video pieces for their websites. The lines have blurred. Here’s the big one. Narrowcasting will replace broadcasting.”
“BIROBIDZHAN, Russia—Never have I heard so many snide comments about an upcoming trip. “Don’t bother coming back,” said a co-worker, laughing nervously. Birobidzhan has a way of making people laugh. Several of my colleagues were convinced I was joking. The word itself is not inherently funny, but the idea for which it stands is bizarre enough and its history is macabre enough that it makes people giggle. It is also ridiculously far away.”
“Can you give me a bit of background about the Tape Center and your relationship with Terry? Okay, well the tape center was a co-op, a very early electronic music studio that Ramon Sender and I started in 1961, I think it was. We also had a couple of performance spaces, so we did lots of performances. And we were a group of us, it was Terry, Pauline Oliveros, Ramon, myself and several other people were doing concerts together….”
“In Wired issue 17.09, Evan Ratliff wrote a story about how people disappear in the digital age. Then he went on the run himself, with Wired readers trying to track him down. His story in Wired issue 17.12, Gone, tells what happened. This blog shows the history of the hunt.”
“Wikipedia contains facts about facts. It’s a collection of facts from other places. Facebook doesn’t have your friends. It has facts about your friends. Google is at its best when it gives you links to links, not the information itself. Over and over, the Internet is allowing new levels of abstraction. Information about information might be worth more than the information itself. Which posts should I read? Which elements of the project are at risk? Who is making the biggest difference to the organization? Right now, there’s way too much stuff and far too little information about that stuff. Sounds like an opportunity.” bpb (i’ts all about curation)
“Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist and the founder of the National Institute for Play — who has a treehouse above his office — recalls in a recent book how managers at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) noticed the younger engineers lacked problem-solving skills, though they had top grades and test scores. Realizing the older engineers had more play experience as kids — they’d taken apart clocks, built stereos, made models — JPL eventually incorporated questions about job applicants’ play backgrounds into interviews. “If you look at what produces learning and memory and well-being” in life, Brown has argued, “play is as fundamental as any other aspect.” The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that the decrease in free playtime could carry health risks: “For some children, this hurried lifestyle is a source of stress and anxiety and may even contribute to depression.” Not to mention the epidemic of childhood obesity in a generation of kids who never just go out and play. “
“Until recently, the center of the Eastside street-food universe was located in a small parking lot on Breed Street in Boyle Heights, a nocturnal band of vendors drawing customers from as far away as Riverside and San Diego, serving sticky, sizzling, crunchy, meaty snacks from all over Mexico; salsas hot enough to burn small, butterfly-shaped patches into the leather of your shoes; and quart-size foam cups of homemade orange drink. Over here were huaraches; over there Mexico City–style quesadillas; crunchy flautas; sugary churros; gooey tacos al vapor. The vendors never stayed open quite late enough, but Breed Street had become something of an institution, a place to take out of town visitors, a great quick dinner before a show. Sometimes there were even clowns.”
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
Come out and listen/perform Terry Riley’s modular improvisatory masterpiece “In C”
this Thursday night (august 6th 2009) at Midnight with members of the Paul Bailey
Ensemble and the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble.
Everybody is invited!
“In C” is shaping up to become this century’s new Messiah (via steve layton at Sequenza 21) — except wedon’t need no stinking Christmas to trot it out and have a go. So why not get into the spirit, and do your bit for communal music-making? To give you a head start, here is a PDF of the score, so you can spend a little time beforehand brushing up on your chops. Bring your friends and a music stand if you can. If you are planning to play please RSVP with your name and instrument at pbeinfo@gmail.com
We also are still playing with the LANME this Friday night in Santa Monica. i have really enjoyed playing the last two shows with them and putting together this show is all about getting all these great musicians I know together in one place. After playing our first show together it occurred to how much fun it would be to do it with all my friends.
We will do a short rehearsal/soundcheck to go over the piece at 11:30pm
Juanita’s
5930 York Blvd.
Highland Park (Los Angeles, Ca 90042)
Friday, August 7, 2009 (8pm)
PBE and LANME SMAS (Santa Monica Art Studios)
3026 Airport Avenue Santa Monica, CA 90405
performing: “in C” terry riley
“principle of sufficient irritation” paul bailey
and music by patrick conlon, dan formidoni, evan ziporyn and marvin lamb.christina giacona, clarinet/musical director
kelly wakelin, soprano
james miller, baritone
patrick conlon, violin
audrey snyder, cello
kelly haley, flute
sarah edgmon, clarinet
scott mcintosh, clarinet
daniel formidoni, keyboard
nicolas smith, keyboard
paul bailey trombone
matt menaged, bass guitar
performing: “in C” terry riley
“principle of sufficient irritation” paul bailey
and music by patrick conlon, dan formidoni, evan ziporyn and marvin lamb.
christina giacona, clarinet/musical director
kelly wakelin, soprano
james miller, baritone
patrick conlon, violin
audrey snyder, cello
kelly haley, flute
sarah edgmon, clarinet
scott mcintosh, clarinet
ryan nunes, vibes
daniel formidoni, keyboard
nicolas smith, keyboard
paul bailey trombone
matt menaged, bass guitar
op 10 reasons to see the PBE and LANME this friday night :
1. last minute gig
2. great to collaborate with other groups
3. in tarzana (hooray for our valley friends?!)
4. get to hear terry riley‘s “in c”
5. new music concerts usually suck
6. at least you can preview principle of sufficient irritation in advance
7. it’s in tarzana
8. ryan nunes’s last show before going to law school
9. flute, clarinet, violin, cello, vibraphone, piano, trombone and bass guitar
10. it’s free (except for the gas and having to drive out to tarzana)
members of the PBE (scott, matt, ryan and myself) will be performing with the los angeles new music ensemble (LANME) terry riley’s “in C” and my “principle of sufficient irritation” at columbia college in tarzana this friday night (8pm)
friday, july 31st, 8pm los angeles new music ensemble (with members of the PBE) free
performing: “in C” terry riley
“principle of sufficient irritation” paul bailey
and music by patrick conlon, dan formidoni, evan ziporyn and marvin lamb.
columbia college (columbia college theatre)
18618 oxnard street
tarzana, CA 91356-1411
Teachers at eight of the 10 L.A. Unified schools run by Villaraigosa’s team give him a resounding thumbs down.
Charter’s upheaval provides some progress for Locke High – Los Angeles Times “A year ago, Green Dot Public Schools, which runs 12 charters serving the city’s urban poor, took over the school. The effort to transform Locke has been a nationally watched test of whether such a large, deeply impoverished urban high school could be transformed by a charter operator. Charter schools are publicly-funded but operate beyond the direct control of school districts, exempt from many regulations and union contracts.”
In C and Me: listen – Steve Hicken talks about In C and its impact on academia and tonal music.
Buying A Book For The Kindle Is Digital Russian Roulette – Podcasting News – “According to Gear Diary’s Dan Cohen, DRM is the Kindle’s Achilles heal. Cohen upgraded his iPod touch and bought a new iPhone 3GS recently, and found that he couldn’t download much of his substantial Kindle library to the supported devices”
RIP: A Remix Manifesto -In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.
when i first got to college i was literally a “hayseed from kansas” (lenexa, kansas that is) and although i liked much of the music we were studying i kept asking my theory professor and long suffering composition teacher (dr. walter mays/wichita state university) for music by composers who were “alive now”.
to his credit he started with ligeti, then moved on to martin, stockhausen, berio, lutoslowski, penderecki… they were all interesting artists but none of them really “spoke” to me. all that changed after he gave me the score to reich’s “8 lines”. listening to that piece changed my life. i then knew i had found my “home”.
to his credit even though “those minimalists, that passing fad” (not said with a sneer, but more like a disapproving uncle) were not his cup of tea, he soon introduced me to glass and riley and always respected my early aesthetic. that little “push in the right direction” was all i needed.
steve reich might have won the award for the double sextet. but encountering his music in my youth was important because it showed that great art music was possible outside of the academic, orchestral, and modernist traditions.
last night i got hear terry riley at the getty center. the first half featured his string trio and string quartet performed by the calder quartet who are currently in residency at julliard.
i hadn’t been planning to see the concert, mostly because of all the music being performed in the festival i knew this concert wasn’t featuring the any of terry’s sting music that i was most interested in. particularly cadenza on a plain and salome dances for peace. so when my friend j. michael walker called and asked if i wanted to go, i figured it was good karma to take him up on the offer.
in terms of artistic achievement the first half of the concert (string quartet and trio) really deserves little mention. i cannot figure out two things:
why this music was programmed?
who’s idea was it to have the calder quartet play it?
the first half of the concert resulted in a deep retrospective to show his development through two pieces; a boulez-influenced graduate thesis (string trio 1961) to the early lamont young/doug leedy influenced composition(string quartet, 1960).
because of the lack of any program notes, i’m not sure how many people in the audience came prepared with how these pieces related to the evening.
if riley’s name hadn’t been on the program, i’m sure many in the audience wouldn’t have any idea that the music was written by the same man.
using that same fuzzy logic, i guess since the first half featured music by riley written in his 20′s it only made sense to have musicians in their 20′s play it. the result reminded me of too many undergraduate composers forums i have attended. and i assume they came pretty close to reminding terry of his student days back in berkeley.
the second half of the concert was much more enjoyable. riley performed improvisations of much of the music he is known for. one of the first improvisations featured much of the repetitive patterns intermixed with a jazz standards (i’m fuzzy on my titles), coltrane influenced voice leading, with a little stride and ragtime piano thrown in. i’m sure the intent was a musical lecture (in the best spirit) to show the influences and relationships between all of the music he loves. i know many “important” composers wouldn’t dare show their “bag of tricks” that readily in public, but it only points to greatness of an artist when he/she is willing to show you what is behind the curtain.
oh yeah, on the last encore he played a improvised version of salome dances that i’ll never forget.
i’m stuck cleaning the house today for tonight’s poker party with some old students from john marshall high school (now in mid-20′s and not members of the slacker generation). i decided to give internet radio a try again and found some great stations that have made the house cleaning not so miserable. iridian radio and [...]
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