Surge anachronism (from 2004)

[quantum]

Following Ted's lead, here is an improvisation from 2004. Listening to it now, I can observe influences from some of the music I was studying at the time. 

Just wondering, those of you who have built up an archive of old recordings: what do you store it on and do you have a system for managing it?


Piano is a Steinway B, and a pair of boundary mics on a vertical surface in AB were used.

[ted]

I have downloaded the piece, which I shall listen to a few times tomorrow. Gosh, 2004, just before we could post recordings here, which event coincided with the rebuilding of my piano. A burst of enthusiasm for improvisation followed - Derek, Pianowolfi, Nightscape, m1469 and several others - all gone now.

Anyway, to answer your question, I store my recorded improvisations since 2006, comprising 165 CDs worth (285 pieces), on the computer itself, three hard disks and numerous USB sticks. A number of friends, here and abroad, have the lot too, as well as the large heap of scans of early written compositions in case of accidents.

I am unashamedly solipsistic, morbidly introspective some insist, and listen often to my own improvised music which, by virtue of related and recurring ideas, I tend to think of as one perpetually evolving organism of music. Therefore I keep a simple spreadsheet with technical information about each recording, duration and so on, but more importantly, with notes about my personal associations, possibly titles, merits and weaknesses, these latter being frequently unstable !

I also have, from earlier years, a huge heap of recorded improvisation on tape which I have been too lazy to manage at all because I don't consider I could improvise decently until about fifty-five; but perhaps I should extract and digitise it before the tapes deteriorate, gargantuan job though.

[ted]

I have listened a few times tonight. Aside from being very well recorded it shows your characteristic clarity and control in playing music of this sort; the muddiness and lack of precision often heard when other pianists play similar music is wholly absent. Although it is not my cup of tea to the extent that some of your later impressionistic playing is, there are specific cells whose texture is immediately interesting to me; the cyclic treble figurations against very deep bass phrases around 1:50 is a technique I shall remember for future use. The title gives me no clue unless you intend the words themselves as dissociated literary enhancement, much as James Joyce did, leaving precise meaning in complete control of the listening mind. Unlike most musicians, I assert the truth of this for all music anyway, universal meaning being an illusion. This is probably why I have less difficulty with modern music and abstract art than most seem to.

I remember a post years ago in which you claimed that you gained much insight into composed music in modern idiom when you suddenly realised you had been improvising similar stuff yourself for some time. I am sure there was a valuable clue in that remark about the creative process, and I have often pondered it since, but its complete aesthetic significance could be quite complicated.

Thanks for keeping the ball rolling on free improvisation here.

[quantum]

Thanks for listening and your observations, also for sharing how you manage your recording archive Ted.  

I like to give the listener freedom to hear what they hear, rather than impose that they should hear something specific.  If it is not what I was thinking about, that is okay too! In fact, I like to learn from the listener perspective and might even incorporate some of their ideas in future improvisations.  This piece was likely done as a study to investigate textures at the piano.  

For my music, sometimes the title or idea presents itself before I sit down to record, and other times the title comes to mind when reviewing the recording.  In this case it was the latter.  


As for my archive, recordings from around 2000-2009 were originally stored on CD or DVD.  It seemed the most economical medium at the time.  However, keeping track of where specific recordings were located as well as a good backup strategy could be laborious at times.  I remember a time when I needed to be very selective about doing digital recordings, as my recording computer had a 3 GB hard drive!  Recordings from 2009-present are on hard drives, and from a data-management perspective much more favorable. Thankfully hard drive prices are very affordable today.  The HDD's allow much easier data replication operations for backups and are easily searchable.  I like to keep at least three copies of my music on independent HDD's. Recordings before 2000 were on cassette, they are in a box somewhere waiting to be rediscovered.

Since 2003 or so, I started to document the technical details of recordings, mic positions, piano models, etc. as I wanted to improve my own knowledge of recording technique as well as develop a critical ear for recorded music.

For select improvisations, that is, music that I wish to share with others (such as here on PS) I have a spreadsheet spelling out details.  There are also the recordings which I have not (yet) shared with others, and these are simply archived by date.  However, I've been thinking that as the archive grows, more thorough documentation could only help.  There are some days when I want to listen to something I've done a few years back, yet can not seem to locate the files.  

[ted]

There are some days when I want to listen to something I've done a few years back, yet cannot seem to locate the files.  

Yes, I know the feeling, it's really infuriating. My situation is worse because most of my improvisations last an hour or more. I know there is a good section in there somewhere but even if I get the right file its position in the hour of playing frequently escapes me. It remains to be seen if my spreadsheet of notes will be of any use. But how does one describe a section or cell unambiguously in words anyway ? Trying to do that is often replacing one problem with a worse one.

[quantum]

But how does one describe a section or cell unambiguously in words anyway ? Trying to do that is often replacing one problem with a worse one.

Maybe one does not need to describe it.  A single word to remind you of the idea, or even a simple note that track abc at time xx:yy sounds good.  For the purposes of indexing a brief note may be all that's necessary if you just want to skim your index and find something quickly.