Brand new sounds August 3rd 2017

[furtwaengler]

Still feels like today. Anyway, I had the rare wonderful combination of an actual piano (a pretty new Yamaha C7 at an equally pretty new choral hall at the school - as opposed to the electric thing I've been using for practice all summer), my Zoom H2, and some time to kill after a rehearsal, so I recorded some improvisations which came out pretty well.

Naming can be a fun challenge, if we don't allow it to limit how musical expression naturally hits brains in different ways. A Wondrous Love is a reference to some devises that are used in the Parker/Shaw arrangement ot "What Wondrous Love is This" which I was steeped in during choir rehearsals in the spring semester. This one might be breaking new ground for me. I don't think I've done anything quite like this before. 

For the left hand alone, I call this one Seeds Growing because in listening to a lot of old recordings this summer, I am using a language here more typical of 15 years ago. In comparing them to his orchestral Notations, Boulez called his original Notations for Piano seeds, comparing them to the ancient seeds they found in Egyptian tomes which sprouted when planted. If you take a composer with noticeable development through their career, such as Beethoven or Scriabin, and compare their works going backwards in time, you will notice elements (seeds) of the latest compositions in the earlier ones. 

It is a Beautiful Cacophony because when I went to look up the spelling of cacophony which I wanted to name it, the definition was much harsher than I intended, but I still like the sound of the word. There does seem something a bit American about this, of the Ives, Copeland, Bernstein variety, and they all had a way making huge, bombastic, dissonant ahords sound grand and beautiful. 

I hope you enjoy the tin roof blowing in the wind as well. I didn't like it at first when we first moved to this new facility, thinking it was something dripping. Since it was explained to me (and their making the best use of a building donated to them) I do like it and it's a neat edition to the recording.