A spontaneous get-together with me, Matt Demerritt (Tenor Sax) and Stan Behrens (Harmonica) at the KPFK Studios. It was a great way to bring in 2016! ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F32wWLfqg0
The Triangle Of Musical Excellence describes in a holistic fashion, the three points of self-education in Music that, when followed, will provide a balanced way of training yourself.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrE3IbpDF_I
This is an original piece that I really enjoy playing. It's a good example of seeing guitar loops being built in real time. The title comes from a faux pas. I was thinking I was naming it after the Dali painting, "The Persistence Of Memory," but hadn't realized that that was the actual title of the famous work. I still liked my title, so I kept it.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJEmU1m8ZB8
At the historical Beyond Baroque for Eric Vollmer's Voice In The Well Arts Salon. Once again the song that has followed me around for years.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3TOQL1B9Jc
This is the most avant garde piece on this record. It wasn't meant to be on this album but found its way there because it would've otherwise been discarded. There's a bit of an oddball tale behind this work:
My producer, George Madaraz, was commissioned with a task to come up with some music for an exercise video. This wasn't just any exercise video, however. The exercises were sourced in Carlos Castaneda's infamous teachings. Because of this, the project had an air of mysticism to it. This system of movement is known as Tensegrity. Sort of a Mexican Shaman's version of Hatha Yoga. I must say, it was a bit cultish. But that aside...
After using different musicians to come up music for the project--including George's wife, Debbie (RIP)--all had been rejected by the people who commissioned the project. Probably quite frustrated by all of this rejection, George turned to me in a last ditch attempt to come up with something they wouldn't reject.
One of the executives of the Tensegrity project showed up to kind of head off the project. Let me tell you, it's hell to deal with non-musicians who know nothing about music, trying to tell a musician what they want and how to proceed.
The first notion I got from her, the executive of the production, was, "I want you to create music that isn't music."
Hmm...right? I tried a few ideas and all got rejected. Too musical, apparently. But I was determined.
I said to her, "You and I need to do a Vulcan Mind Meld. I want you to start throwing words at me that describe the feeling behind these exercises and I'll try and come up with a sound that I think will express that."
On completion, she appeared to be entirely happy with my work. That was pleasing considering the mental bureaucracy I had to deal with that day.
Weeks, months went by. I finally called George to ask him what happened with the video project and whether they used my music. He told me that they sampled ??? ?????? ???? from the track I created. They used that one single note dispersed around the video. Since they didn't use my track save for one note, I put it here on this CD.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uy_wIR69tQ