Albany Consort
First Zoom
Live Concert
It was on
Saturday June 27 at 6pm PST. It was not without its problems, but it was a fun
first foray into this territory, and I suspect that we will be doing a lot more
of this.
I promised to
post the live recording for those who were not able to attend for reason of timezone, scheduling, or any other consideration. This is
it:
It is not too
late to make a donation towards costs, and the costs of launching more and
larger performances like this. Here’s
the link.
Just completed
recording of Chaos/Sublime from last November
This was one
of the most fun concerts from last year. In an intimate setting (Palo Alto
Woman’s Club) to an enthralled close audience, expertly captured by videographer
Harvey Wolfson.
Albany Consort
Other Creative
Ventures
We’re in
lockdown, but not twiddling our thumbs. Here’s our latest.
Latest and Greatest
Virtual Music Project:
Zefiro Torna
I took the
liberty of tearing apart Monteverdo’s beautiful tenor
duet, and reorganized the parts in short chunks. Click on the image to download
a pdf of the sheet music.
Here’s me
playing a continuo part for this, at A=415 (normative baroque pitch)
And here’s me
again, this time at A=440 (modern pitch)
And in case
you don’t want to watch me, here are the corresponding audio files:
So this is
where you come in. I would love it if you would play along with me and record
yourself, preferably in video, audio also fine. Once I have a few tracks, I’ll
mix us all together in some creative way.
If you are an
old hand at this, you may now have enough to get started. If not, and you need
a bit of help getting started, call or text me (408-829-8116), or email me (jonathan@albanyconsort.com). Or
spend a few minutes with this video of me explaining how it works.
You can email
audio recordings to me directly. Small (lo res) video files may also be emailable. But if you make a hi
res video, or you don’t want to use email to transfer the file, email me, and I’ll send you a dropbox link.
A few words
about the music in case you need it:
The music is
very flexible. From page 2 to page 9, the bass repeats every two measures, and
you could play any of the lines at any beginning. If you want to line up
perfectly with me, I played each double page seven times, and you could do the
same thing. The original song is a duet, so for each of the seven versions on
each double page, you’ll see both the high part and the low part of the duet.
You can choose one or the other for each line. Of course, you don’t have to do
that. You could alternate top and bottom lines, then I might mix you against
yourself! Or you can choose random lines. Any you don’t like, you don’t have to
play at all. And of course you can repeat lines you particularly like. And if
you feel very bold, you can make up your own lines, perhaps using these just as
inspiration.
You’ll see
that each line is six measures, but there isn’t much in measures 5 and 6. I did
it this way so that you can breathe! But if you don’t need to, you can always
turn around after measure 4.
If you are a
bass player, playing the bass the same every time will get tedious. So I
suggest trying things out. Sometimes bowed (if you have a string bass),
sometimes pizz, sometimes loud, sometimes soft,
sometimes all the notes, sometimes some of the notes, sometimes with extra
notes or repeated notes. You will hear me doing that, and I encourage you the be creative.
You don’t
have to record the entire piece. Start where you like, end where you like. Page
1 and pages 10-11 are rather free. I am sure that some will enjoy harmonizing
with me in those free sections, and others will not wish to do so. All fine.
And don’t worry about how I will sync up the tracks, I’m getting pretty good at
that without extra clicks or claps.
Of course, if
you are an over-achiever, multiple takes are fine, and this gives me a whole
added dimension to work with.
If you don’t
want to listen to me while you are doing this, you can just record on your own
for the core (pages 2 to 9) as long as you maintain a steady half note = 96.
That’s what I was doing when I made the recording, which is why I am wearing
headphones.
And now, I am
looking forward to receiving your tracks …
Pre-SIP Livestream
In case you
missed it, here’s our last concert before we had to
shelter-in-place. Not all that virtual, other than the fact that this is a
livestreamed recording.
First Virtual
Music Project:
Mah Tovu
(completed)
For our first
real virtual project, I made an incremental recording of this lovely setting of
the traditional Jewish liturgical text “Mah Tovu” by Elaine Moise:
To do this,
first I created this simulated version for wind instruments:
I then sent
this to the other contributors to use as a reference track for their individual
recordings that I would mix together. This is the result.
Second Virtual
Music Project:
Romanesca
(still ongoing)
This is me
messing about with the Romanesca bass.
This is the audio at A=440 from that video, and this
is the same audio resampled at A=415.
It's ok, but it would be even better if
other musicians were playing along with me. Could one of those other musicians
be you?
If you are up
for this, what I need from you is an audio or video track played against this.
I'm hoping to amass such recordings from many musicians. Then I plan to cut
them up and mix them in some very creative way. I'll probably adjust all the
pitches for A=430. Thus we can all play together, whether our instruments are
modern or ancient, whatever you like playing on. If you are not perfectly at
415 or at 440, no worries. I can tweak you in!
I think
tuning will be fairly forgiving for this big ensemble project. Just so that you
know, I recorded the harpsichord track in 1/6 comma meantone.
This makes the major chords more beautiful, as long as I don’t stray into keys
that are too far from center. There is always an argument to be made for any
tuning system, but I hope we won’t get into that territory for this project!
I recorded
this in my office using a Zoom Q4N. An audio recorder could have done it, or a
phone, or an ipad, or a computer with internal or
external mike or camera. Whatever equipment you have will work for this.
Perform your
offering while playing mine through headphones. What I was listening to while
recording this was a metronome track, to keep me at 92, so that I can slide
contributed pieces around, and they should fit together in a variety of
interesting ways.
What I played
is not a composition by a great composer, it is just my own ramblings in the
moment. I hope I put down something you could improvise against, or work out a
version if you prefer, but I am not expecting you to spend too much time on
this. It doesn’t have to be a fancy thing, long notes or simple chords would be
fine. But if you want to impress me with your competetive
divisions and runs, that would be great too. I am hoping for maximum variety.
You can also send me something shorter than a whole track and I will figure out
how to align it. This is a set of variations, and except for the first and the
last, they are all recorded at a steady tempo, so alignment should not be a
problem.
I'm hoping
there will be acoustic and electric instruments. Some strings (violins, violas,
cellos, basses, gambas, guitars, lutes), some wind
(recorders, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, saxophones), brass (trumpets,
horns, tubas), keyboards (pianos, organs, harpsichords, clavichords, synths),
percussion (tuned and untuned), unclassifiable (theramin, ondes). And hopefully
some instruments I haven’t even thought of.
The Romanesca sequence is very ancient. There are variants, but
the pattern I have used here is basically this simple and lovely 8 bar version:
Bb major | F major | G minor | D major |
Bb major | F major | G minor C minor D
major | G major
I start out
with free improv with these chords as the basis. If
you like playing against this, great; if you don’t just wait it out until 1:00
into the track, when I go into a strict 3/4. I stay there until 3:00, when I
change to 4/4. At 6:00 I do another free section for that last minute. Come in
an out as the fancy takes you. No need to play all the way through. And send me
multiple versions if you like. Email
or call me (408-829-8116) if you need more information or jiust
a bit of encouragement to get started.
I tried to
make some of the variations stay with this chord sequence. Some passing chords
creep in here and there. You can go with those, or stay with the primary
harmonies, or invent something new, whatever takes your
fancy. Whatever you do, I’ll find a way to include it. The whole thing may
actually end up being a lot longer than the seven minutes of what I did.
Audio or
video is fine. If you send me audio, please also send me some still still pictures of you, so that I can represent you
properly. The final video will be a collage of all of us, some videos, some
stills. A seven minute mp3 audio will end up around 7 Mbytes, so can be sent in
an email. If you prefer, you can ftp or dropbox the
recordings to me. Videos (mp4, mov, …) run a lot bigger, and won’t go through email. As an
alternative to dropbox or ftp, it is quite easy to
upload to an unlisted youtube as I did, and you can
then send me the link. Email or
call me (408-829-8116) if you could use some help with that part. Don’t worry
about converting to a standard format, I can work with any format you send me.
If I can
figure out a way to make this generate revenue, I won’t keep any for myself,
but I’ll either share it out among you, or if you prefer, donate it to one of
the current funds (such as SFEMS or AFM) supporting musicians who are
struggling to make ends meet. But the primary purpose is a pure experiment to
see what is possible.
Now I am
looking forward to our Romanesca convergence, and
hope a few of you will feel motivated to send me something.
…
Well, the
first few tracks duly arrived, and I cooked them up into a delightful
assortment. Some of it is awesome, some of it is a bit messy, but it gave me a
chance to get started learning the tools.
Hoping to do
another mix if a few more tracks arrive (you know if you promised and didn’t
deliver!!)
Stay well,
stay creative,
Jonathan.
408-829-8116