3 Free Improvisation Albums for Free
Self promotion time here:
In July of 2015 I hauled out my huge percussion set up to record a trio album at my friend Jason Wietlispach's studio. A few months later, Jason contacted me with a crazy idea, “What if you brought you whole set up here and we invited a bunch of people to come in and play some duets with you?” I was intrigued and said, “Yes!”
So the call was put out on Facebook, asking if any musicians were interested in being a part of the project. Each person would be assigned a 30 minute time slot where they would come in, set up, improvise with me, and then pack up and go, letting the next person repeat things. Within a short time, we had our list of musicians. What really interested me was that I only knew a few of the musicians, and I had actually played with only a couple of them. So this would be an interesting musical challenge to meet and create with a revolving cast of players.
Finally, one November morning, I hauled all my gear to Jason's studio and we commenced on what would become a 12 hour marathon. While we had imagined this as a series of duos, a few people who had adjoining time slots wanted to play together in a trio. We also had a few people who showed up with a musician friend who we were glad to add to the mix in a few more trios.
All in all, 3.5 hours of music was recorded. And this music has sat in my computer until now. I have some 10 other albums in the can that kept pushing this one to the side. And there was also the matter of 3.5 hours of music to sift through and edit. So over the past few months I've found the extra time to go over all the recordings. Fortunately, the time passed since recording things has helped me listen with new ears. The tracks were edited for musical shape and flow, mastered, and sequenced into 3 separate albums.
And these 3 albums are available now to download for FREE!
The download links are below:
To add to this, you can view my video series on The Art of Improvisation. I video recorded most of the sessions that day and posted 12 videos with commentary describing what I was doing, thinking, feeling, and what worked or didn't for me musically.
In July of 2015 I hauled out my huge percussion set up to record a trio album at my friend Jason Wietlispach's studio. A few months later, Jason contacted me with a crazy idea, “What if you brought you whole set up here and we invited a bunch of people to come in and play some duets with you?” I was intrigued and said, “Yes!”
So the call was put out on Facebook, asking if any musicians were interested in being a part of the project. Each person would be assigned a 30 minute time slot where they would come in, set up, improvise with me, and then pack up and go, letting the next person repeat things. Within a short time, we had our list of musicians. What really interested me was that I only knew a few of the musicians, and I had actually played with only a couple of them. So this would be an interesting musical challenge to meet and create with a revolving cast of players.
Jason setting up mics on my extended set up.
Finally, one November morning, I hauled all my gear to Jason's studio and we commenced on what would become a 12 hour marathon. While we had imagined this as a series of duos, a few people who had adjoining time slots wanted to play together in a trio. We also had a few people who showed up with a musician friend who we were glad to add to the mix in a few more trios.
All in all, 3.5 hours of music was recorded. And this music has sat in my computer until now. I have some 10 other albums in the can that kept pushing this one to the side. And there was also the matter of 3.5 hours of music to sift through and edit. So over the past few months I've found the extra time to go over all the recordings. Fortunately, the time passed since recording things has helped me listen with new ears. The tracks were edited for musical shape and flow, mastered, and sequenced into 3 separate albums.
And these 3 albums are available now to download for FREE!
To add to this, you can view my video series on The Art of Improvisation. I video recorded most of the sessions that day and posted 12 videos with commentary describing what I was doing, thinking, feeling, and what worked or didn't for me musically.
I also previously blogged about these sessions in more detail in an 8-part series starting here: An Inside Look At Improvisation. So if you are new to improvising, or even experienced, I hope the 3 things (albums/videos/blogs) can help give you some insight into the creative aspects of one musician's quest to play improvised music.
Enjoy! And thanks for your interest!
~ MB
P.S. - The 3rd and final part on The Challenge of Writing Music Notation For Percussion will finally appear next week.
Deconstruct Yourself™
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