Steps 4.1

[pianowolfi]

This is from one of my new projects "Steps"
a draft, therefore 4.1. Though, it might be more than only a draft.

The "subject" or scenery would be "The Abandoned Altar" (There might be other instruments and maybe voice in the final version)

A step towards "Project Steps"

I can't explain why I post exactly this now, I have never posted anything from "Steps" yet.
Enjoy

(sorry for the disturbances in the recording (though, one of these was not actually a disturbance but two strings touching each other, so it might be part of the thing)) I think I did something wrong with the input level or so, still experimenting , if somebody has a tipp for me regarding declipping I would be grateful)

[littletune]

Pianowolfi is soooooo cool!!!     
That low sound is sooo cool! I didn't even know you could make that kind of sound with a piano    first I thought it must be something else and then I tried on my piano and I think you can I don't know very much 
And I've listened to this really a lot of times now and I don't know why but it kinda seems a little different every time I listen to it I think it's magical and it's changing a little all the time and at the end I never expect that it will end and then it ends and im like noooooooooooooo!
well sorry for my stupid comments I just really wanted to say something    

[furtwaengler]

Wow, I don't know what to add to littletune's wonderful (not stupid) comments. Really that's hitting the nail on the head...my thoughts exactly. 

Wolfi I look forward to this project; do keep us posted!

[pianowolfi]

Yes I will keep you posted, thank you both

[dsbanks]

Nice approach and an excellent mind escape!

[pianowolfi]

Nice approach and an excellent mind escape!

Thank you very much! Yeah, escaping and then returning from a different standpoint is certainly a very important aspect/step

[chopinatic]

Very Dark and racey! Powerful stuff, with alot of passion! another great post wolfi

[pianowolfi]

Hi chopinatic, thank you very much

[quantum]

Great stuff Wolfi!  I like how you share with us the evolution of your work.  You've done this with several other of your projects in the past.  

There are sections in there that remind me of Debussy's preludes.  

Regarding the recording.  Make some sound check recordings first.  Position your mics, then play some loud stuff (as loud as you anticipate in your music).  Adjust the gain so that the loudest point in the sound check is below the clip level.  

[pianowolfi]

Great stuff Wolfi!  I like how you share with us the evolution of your work.  You've done this with several other of your projects in the past.  

There are sections in there that remind me of Debussy's preludes.  

Regarding the recording.  Make some sound check recordings first.  Position your mics, then play some loud stuff (as loud as you anticipate in your music).  Adjust the gain so that the loudest point in the sound check is below the clip level.  

Thank you, Quantum! I have played this and another (contrasting) part of "steps" last sunday at a private concert, and actually, though I experienced a sort of nervous crisis before it, it went much better than I had thought it would go and the resonance from the listeners was almost entirely positive. One listener (not a musician) said that he didn't get the rhythm. Well I mean okay, I use very complex rhythms, I can't write them fully correct myself actually, though I try, and when I'm into it I anyway can't "think" in common rhythm patterns anymore, I think more of phrases if I think at all about it anyway. I told him: If you walk, taking steps there can be disturbances, stumbling, obstacles...they just occur, they don't care about your rhythmical regularity...
 I said to him that I will try to play much more rhythmically clear the next time and of course it's a work in progress anyway.

[quantum]

Wolfi,

I've had some very articulate responses from non-musicians to my music when playing in concert.  They bring another perspective to the music - one that does not try to fit such sounds into some sort of musi-theoretical framework.  

Glad to hear you have opportunities to play your stuff.  Did you record the concert?

[pianowolfi]

Wolfi,

I've had some very articulate responses from non-musicians to my music when playing in concert.  They bring another perspective to the music - one that does not try to fit such sounds into some sort of musi-theoretical framework.  

Glad to hear you have opportunities to play your stuff.  Did you record the concert?

I didn't record it, but I guess I will soon do another recording

[rachfan]

Hi wolfi,

The abandoned altar should never have been left deserted and forsaken.  There is an eerie force  there.  Ambivalence, no, fear floods the senses.  Is this the Divine... or an unspeakable evil mocking from within the soiled tabernacle?  One is gripped by an icy shudder on a hot day.  Mysterious, low metallic tones are sour on the tongue.  Once free, if the spell can be broken, there may be no looking back--ever.

Very imaginative music, wolfi!  And very well played too.  Congratulations!

Quantum offers good advice on carefully testing the input sound before recording.  If it gets into the red, turn the recording volume down to stay within the peak limit.  If there is a "limiter switch" on your recorder, you're better off leaving it in "off" position, as it can actually add to the clipping problem rather than lessening or preventing it.  Finally, having mics with high "headroom" is very beneficial too.

       

[pianowolfi]

Hi wolfi,

The abandoned altar should never have been left deserted and forsaken.  There is an eerie force  there.  Ambivalence, no, fear floods the senses.  Is this the Divine... or an unspeakable evil mocking from within the soiled tabernacle?  One is gripped by an icy shudder on a hot day.  Mysterious, low metallic tones are sour on the tongue.  Once free, if the spell can be broken, there may be no looking back--ever.

Very imaginative music, wolfi!  And very well played too.  Congratulations!

Quantum offers good advice on carefully testing the input sound before recording.  If it gets into the red, turn the recording volume down to stay within the peak limit.  If there is a "limiter switch" on your recorder, you're better off leaving it in "off" position, as it can actually add to the clipping problem rather than lessening or preventing it.  Finally, having mics with high "headroom" is very beneficial too.

Hi Rachfan

great comments, thank you so much!
You got the background very well! Of course there is a whole story and scenario involved which I can't post completely but your description comes very close! It's meant to be like a "chamber music oratorio" or so. There will be three voices, piano and string quartet, and a narrator.

"Steps" as in "walking" ...

like

that certain person (which is the main charakter) encounters an abandoned altar, sees the destruction around and feels himself being incapable of reactivating the old rituals. There appear people like zombies who expect from him to revive it all for them but he can't, and because all this upsets him beyond any imagination, he actually faints. During this "blackout" he hears a voice speaking...(that voice will be sung in the final version, after this Steps 4.1 piece)

I have attached the second part of the introduction, Steps 1A and a rerecorded version of 4.1 which seems a bit tame to me (compared with the original above), but more clear.

[chopinatic]

Brilliant! Shows the power of the piano! Another great improv wolfi!
 

[pianowolfi]

Brilliant! Shows the power of the piano! Another great improv wolfi!
 

The power of the piano can be the power of creation and the power of love

[rachfan]

Hi wolfi,

I can't believe how close I came to visualizing the storyline underlying your music!  It just goes to show how descriptive your music really is.

I like the re-recorded 4.1.  It does have more clarity, but also the touching of the strings is more knowing and sure in execution than in the original recording.  Also you solved the peak distortions and clipping problem.

It'll be good when you come up with the vocal part so we can hear that too. 

David 

[furtwaengler]

Wolfi, your recordings sound amazing! What do you use to record? (Sorry if I've asked this before.)

I do like how in the first recording of 4.1 the strings emerge at such a volume that they are first felt in the manner a bass drum is felt, but in such a way that it is like an outside interference, and not yet perceived as what it physically is (This too is a reason I prefer listening to performances to watching them - why spoil the surprise?). I don't get the same effect in the second recording; it is definitely true for me that such aesthetic pleasures weigh much higher on the scale than do the actual recording qualities - that is, I never notice what Quantum noticed and actually prefer the effect of the first recording to that of the second for its outstanding presence. The peaking does not bother me (I even failed to notice it before it was brought up - I've a feeling this ought to make me weary!)

I'm amazed at David's perceptions! Great minds think alike. Your music speaks whether you reveal its inspirations or not. Words and music serve unique and independent services in communicating an idea, and sometimes they enhance each other...but sometimes one reveals little about the other, and other times they prove inseparable...the challenge is to avoid either words or music limiting each other in the process. I'll have to study your words more, yours Wolfi, and David's too to let that relationship sink in.

On the issue of rhythm, or the comment on rhythm...sometimes rhythm is liquid and can only be approximated on paper, or even in perception. The art is what floats through the air at 343 meters per second, and not what can be tried on the page. It is the challenge of handling a score, but it is also the advantage of a composer who has the talent and ability to himself realize his work first hand, and maybe more so still when its origin is improvised at a certain level of focus. If your rhythm is confusing to a first time listener, you may not need so much to come to him, as to let him come to your music on the level you conceive it. Experience can solve these riddles and take your audience into a new realm. What great symphony did you understand and appreciate every corner of on first listening! How much more do we appreciate things which have taken years of experience and discovery well worth the endeavor!  

(I don't know how that looks or makes sense, yet I post my 2 cents still.  )

[rachfan]

Hi wolfi,

Dave makes a point that I agonized over too while listening to your two renditions.  Specifically, I loved in the first recording how the bass strings played by the fingers came almost imperceptibly out of nowhere, presenting but the hint of a trace of a whisper of a tremor of a tone.  There was a lot of magic to that.  And Dave is right.  It was like sitting in a large theater when the organist plays the lowest tones on the organ causing the walls of the theater to vibrate before the ear detects their pitches.  I am glad though that the shattered peaks are gone in your second recording, as they caused distortion making those tones somewhat frazzled around the edges in my opinion.

David

[pianowolfi]

Wolfi, your recordings sound amazing! What do you use to record? (Sorry if I've asked this before.)

These last two ones were made with my new Edirol R-09HR, many of my previous recordings were made with a Yamaha Workstation AW 1600 and two Studio Project B1 mics. Somehow that latter setting never satisfied me completely, it just didn't sound right, the sound was always a bit "flat" and tinny in my ear Plus that thing is technically difficult to handle, whereas the Edirol is very easy to handle.
Before I got that Yamaha thing I used to record with a Sony Minidisc recorder.

I do like how in the first recording of 4.1 the strings emerge at such a volume that they are first felt in the manner a bass drum is felt, but in such a way that it is like an outside interference, and not yet perceived as what it physically is

Hi wolfi,

Dave makes a point that I agonized over too while listening to your two renditions.  Specifically, I loved in the first recording how the bass strings played by the fingers came almost imperceptibly out of nowhere, presenting but the hint of a trace of a whisper of a tremor of a tone.  There was a lot of magic to that.  And Dave is right.  It was like sitting in a large theater when the organist plays the lowest tones on the organ causing the walls of the theater to vibrate before the ear detects their pitches.

This is a very important point which I was not really aware of! Thank you both for pointing it out to me! In a future release I will take it into account!

I'm amazed at David's perceptions! Great minds think alike. Your music speaks whether you reveal its inspirations or not. Words and music serve unique and independent services in communicating an idea, and sometimes they enhance each other...but sometimes one reveals little about the other, and other times they prove inseparable...the challenge is to avoid either words or music limiting each other in the process.

Yes very well said! I got a bit more descriptive here than usual because the whole thing is planned as a sort of oratorio and there will be an actual storyline.

On the issue of rhythm, or the comment on rhythm...sometimes rhythm is liquid and can only be approximated on paper, or even in perception. The art is what floats through the air at 343 meters per second, and not what can be tried on the page. It is the challenge of handling a score, but it is also the advantage of a composer who has the talent and ability to himself realize his work first hand, and maybe more so still when its origin is improvised at a certain level of focus. If your rhythm is confusing to a first time listener, you may not need so much to come to him, as to let him come to your music on the level you conceive it. Experience can solve these riddles and take your audience into a new realm. What great symphony did you understand and appreciate every corner of on first listening! How much more do we appreciate things which have taken years of experience and discovery well worth the endeavor!  

(I don't know how that looks or makes sense, yet I post my 2 cents still.  )

Yes, as so often it makes a lot of sense! You are a very inspired musical spirit!

[m1469]

Wolfi, thanks for pointing this thread out!  It was posted originally during a different time in my life, and I guess I was in some other world. 

Well, I am never disappointed when I listen to you.  I always very much appreciate the shape of your thoughts and visions, and that you are wanting and willing to share them.  Did I miss somewhere the secret in how you get that sound in the bass?  Or is it actually a super secret?  Or, is it obviously you with your hands?  I must confess I don't know, partly because I don't understand the logistics of how it would work if it's just you alone.  I mean, I could imagine, but I don't know.  In any event, I like it extremely .

I find that having listened to all of the recordings you have posted, puts me in a different place in the end than when I began.  I realize there are some darker characteristics here, but somehow I feel a little better about life after listening.

I am actually quite anxious to hear your latest, though I understand the need for some space before you might listen.  But, I will keep my eyes open for it anyway .

[pianowolfi]

Yes I know you understand my music, and I also feel a deep resonance and understanding for your music. It just happened and I take it as it is and I am happy about it

That sound is no super secret, I was playing directly on the bass strings with my fingers, in parts also with my finger nails, there is a part where it's a bit "alla marcia" that's more the fingernails.
And in one part I played with the left hand on the strings and with the right hand on the keys. I must say, I don't really like to do that often because I don't know what it will do to the strings if it's used frequently, but I just felt it was absolutely necessary for this one.

I have listened a few times to No 9 in the meanwhile and well, I used my voice in it, not because I really wanted to sing, but because I wanted to mark the melody/text for writing down the voice part, since for sure I would forget completely how it should go together with the accompaniment and the text if I only played it on the piano. It is mainly a sort of recitative with a lot of text and with long interludes. I perfectly know that my voice technique does by far not live up to this, and believe me, there is no way I am going to post all the parts that contain voice because it sounds just really pathetic and weird and does not express the real thing, but I'll try to post excerpts from it (perhaps even some parts where the voice doesn't sound that weird) and of course, once it is finished and performed, I might post the version with the real singers

[m1469]

Thanks for explaining it .  I don't know what it does to the strings, either.  I will be interested, of course, in your voice .  I understand the idea to be shy, though, too.  All the same, I will keep my eyes peeled!

[floydcramerfan]

Wolfy, very cool and creepy with the bass sounds.

[pianowolfi]

Wolfy, very cool and creepy with the bass sounds.

Thank you Floyd I think you might like my Dies-I-Rag, once I (re-)posted it

[floydcramerfan]

Your Steps would make a cool background music to use in a PSA (public service announcement).

[pianowolfi]

Thanks for explaining it .  I don't know what it does to the strings, either.  I will be interested, of course, in your voice .  I understand the idea to be shy, though, too.  All the same, I will keep my eyes peeled!

Okay of course the whole thing is a draft but a "successful" one with which I can work in the future
There are a few text passages in it, and as I said, it's a sort of recitative with instrumental interludes. Basically it's about a dialogue between Jesus and a leper. Jesus asks him "Where has your path led your soul? I have seen you thousands of years ago but back then you were different!" (4:28 "doch damals warst du anders") The leper tells Jesus about his life and how he met the death in the shape of a skeleton (at 8:41 he starts talking about that skeleton) in the forest and how since then he got that illness and how he had to go into solitude and how he needs to live from begging. (instead of a score I had that text on my piano) The thunder in the beginning is like a part of it

Anyway, I had to do a few really rough cuts   But I am happy if you like to listen

[pianowolfi]

Your Steps would make a cool background music to use in a PSA (public service announcement).

  

[m1469]

Okay of course the whole thing is a draft but a "successful" one with which I can work in the future
There are a few text passages in it, and as I said, it's a sort of recitative with instrumental interludes. Basically it's about a dialogue between Jesus and a leper. Jesus asks him "Where has your path led your soul? I have seen you thousands of years ago but back then you were different!" (4:28 "doch damals warst du anders") The leper tells Jesus about his life and how he met the death in the shape of a skeleton (at 8:41 he starts talking about that skeleton) in the forest and how since then he got that illness and how he had to go into solitude and how he needs to live from begging. (instead of a score I had that text on my piano) The thunder in the beginning is like a part of it

Anyway, I had to do a few really rough cuts   But I am happy if you like to listen

I am listening now.  I am just interested in your process and wonder since this is an improvisation, how did it work?  I mean, you knew a text you would like to include, and then the opportunity just presented itself?  Or, you had some sense, too, of the music which would go along with it, and the overall draft in its framing is what is improvised?  I'm just curious, and if you feel inclined to share how that works/worked for you I'd love to learn about it. [edit] I have just finished this clip and it definitely does have a sense of being a part of a bigger picture.  I can tell it's part of a much bigger picture, actually.  Thanks for posting this .  

I did make up a little song quite awhile back, where I was improvising along on the piano, and suddenly I started singing in text (that I was making up, too, at the time) but somehow it was all something right (and eventually I'd like to develop it).  

[pianowolfi]

Oh yes, I think remember your song, m1469

Well this Steps project is in many ways very different from my other endeavours, since I had the idea for it when I was roughly 20 years younger. I had read that book ("The Fifth Gospel") already a few times before and I always came back to it and some sentences started to sound in my mind and I had the idea of composing on them but I wasn't able to concretize what I felt inside, and I also had basically no self-confidence yet, regarding such a goal, I didn't think that I would ever be capable of even only beginning such a thing So I guess it had to grow inside of me, nourished by life experience, for another 18-20 years. And obviously "Styx" and "Centuries" had to precede it (Which of course doesn't mean these two were in any way inferior to "Steps"). And then, in 2009 I started with the first improv-drafts, actually following a quite strict concept. From the moment when I played the first note I felt completely different than with my other attempts, I just sensed that I need to be totally open, like a blank sheet of paper and only follow the inspiration. My preconceived ideas aren't enough, this needs something more.  And so I got many times surprised by what happened, what elements got into it, from which I hadn't thought they would fit into it in the first place

 There have been quite long time intervals between the single parts/drafts and I only start to play if I sense a certain "constellation" or if I have a certain distinct feeling "yes, this is it", like for instance the No. 4.1 where I have had the "vision" of an abandoned altar the night before. And just a "vision" is also not enough per se, it needs this certain feeling of "yes this is it, this is a part of Steps" after the recording is done. And then I can start editing and organizing. So it's less spontaneous than my other projects but this absolutely okay with me, since I consider it to be a life project which started together with my presence in this world, and which is growing together with me.

[m1469]

Well, it is nice to read of musicians who think like this.  Very nice.  I find it quite inspiring.

[pianowolfi]

Well, it is nice to read of musicians who think like this.  Very nice.  I find it quite inspiring.

I am like this. Of course only at very special moments. But these moments seem to be essential to me Like my life was completely forlorn without them

(Btw I know these cuts are horrible! I listened again but somehow it seemed more important to me to get into communication, at that moment )

[pianowolfi]

This is from today. I am again exploring the environment of my "Steps" project, and I am experimenting.

First I thought that I just want to play a few chords, for pianostreet, like an Improv experiment. Just a few chords, no motifs, no developments, no buildups, nothing like that, just a few interesting chords in a changing rhythmical environment.

Well, it turned out quite differently than I thought...