Photo by Will Hamilton / Iriamu
Colin’s Music Corner returns for a second season! I have decided to give myself some grace and put out seasons on a decidedly non-seasonal schedule.
While last season’s episodes featured a sort of running commentary on deep listening or existing with sound, I find that I am not an expert in meditative practices – I am simply a musician! I can talk through my own experiences, but I consider myself an unreliable narrator – what I hear and experience as music is not what another listener might hear.
With that, going forward I will announce the pieces featured in the episode along with a little info on what was used and the contours or characteristics of each piece. I can’t promise I won’t go off on a tangent now and then.
So, this is an electric guitar episode! You may not be able to tell what the original source sounds are in the first piece – the looping of low sounds, of tapping and scrubbing strings. The pitch of the loops are manipulated, creating a soundscape that is broader than usual for the guitar. This leads into a fingerstyle reverie, the addition of a kalimba or thumb piano, and eventually to a reverberant field of delay lines played with a fidget spinner! I am using alternate methods of playing the guitar to create a strange, quiet space.
The second piece is made of a simple guitar loop and somewhat randomized delay lines. As the piece continues, the lines start to converge. What might happen?
The third and longest piece starts with a cavernous, free-flowing melody. The guitar has a somewhat jazz plus classical feeling, almost a Third Stream fusion. The beginning reminds me of the Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie duo album Sargasso Sea. As rolling chords start to build and tumble, a sustaining line emerges, floating across the turbulence. Rhythmic patterns come into view and eventually give way to huge, slow-moving ambient chords.
Colin Bragg 