early projects
julean simon
started working with the wind-controler around 2001. Having not played music for 15 years, I had to start at the very beginning, more or less. The following are early solo-projects, mainly dealing with particular experiments, developing playing techniques and trying to understand the musical "eigenvalue" of this instrument.
010827
unison
CD 38,2min 15tracks, 2001 Berlin
Thats a solo-improvisation project - a
duett of two instruments that has been generated in realtime.
the midi-data from the controler have been sent
not only to the vl70m but simultaneously to an electronic piano. the
usually mechanistic unisono resulting from this setup, can be disturbed
though, since the two synths respond slightly different to the midi-data
they receive. refined playing technique enables
one to play with this difference in response and to a certain extent
control the voices separately. for instance, with special emboucher and
tonging it is possible to play notes only with one of the two voices,
to assign them different loudness or tone-length, or to introduce polyphony
(by use of the sustain pedal).
rather than imitating a duett, the challange of this project is to think
and play two instruments at the same time. thus, the goal has not been
to automate a unisono of voices but to set up a musical technique of
selective deconstruction of the implicite unisono tendency and thereby
to extend the typical playfield of a soloinstrument and to open additional
dimensions of instrument control. all the pieces are free improvized.
musically and thematically the unison-project connects to "symptoma/tologie",
piano / soprano sax duetts recorded 1984 with the pianist Heimo Puschnigg
(vnm LC 6185, GE 025).
Revisited in 2007: Nice harmonical ideas, not only because of the unison
concept. Also a stringent development through the pieces, from simple
and slow to increasing complexity. Pretty direct and close presence.
- maybe too much. Today I would give them a bit more space
| Track 01 3:01 Track 02 1:04 Track 03 2:10 Track 04 0:52 Track 05 3:12 |
Track 06 3:28 Track 07 3:28 Track 08 3:19 Track 09 3:32 Track 10 1:00 |
Track 11 3:53 Track 12 2:08 Track 13 2:26 Track 14 3:25 Track 15 1:16 |
020716
speed suite 17 hypercello pieces + 7 ethnomystics
CD 51min, 24tracks, 2002 Berlin
this collection of pieces has been a secundary result of a project customizing
the VL1-factory-preset cello-voice, which i dont find too useful. thus,
to be honest, "speed suite" consists of selected recordings
of sound- and playability-tests ;-)
well, meanwhile i like the thing for its own sake. i think it has consistent
musical dimensions: of course its purely improvised. mainly a-tonal.
phrases and lines dominate, usually there is no specific formal structure.
not even explicit musical entries and exits. the material repeats
quite heavily: favorite lines and harmonic structures can be found all
over the material. due to the original purpose the main focus lies on
expressiveness, dynamics, variability of sound, which forwards a rhythmic
and percussive overall characteristics. the obvious feature: its fast.
it chases. its nervous. spastic, if you like. at least some people who
heard it have survived it, as far as i can tell. - enjoy the samples!...
and yes, i guess, the original purpose - to devolop the optimal cello-voice
(for breathcontrol) has not yet been achieved.
From track nr.18 on there comes
some synth-noise-music, just to counterpoint the cello pieces. Originally
they were meant to become the "enthno-mystics" CD, but this
project never made it. Some of them ended up in music-videos (ellipsis,
ded fla).
| 01 2:28 02 1:25 03 1:35 04 2:07 05 2:17 06 2:03 |
07 0:38 08 3:03 09 1:10 10 1:32 11 1:43 12 2:26 |
13 0:51 14 1:32 15 0:57 16 6:43 17 1:00 18 2:51 |
19 3:26 20 1:48 21 3:11 22 1:48 23 2:44 24 1:42 |
030117
YelloCello
CD 52,2 min, 26 pieces, 2003 berlin j.simon
- electronics (yamaha wx5, vl1, korg c5000)
The cello-voice has been in its infancies in these times compared with
today (2007), but still i like the dry and rough sound, that gives the
pieces a material consistency. Especially in these string-trio-ish pieces
from No. 4 to 9. I can see from the ductus of the music that i was looking
for a kind of chamber-music approach (sometimes too closly oriented to
early 20th century music).
But certainly the main challenge here was to play two instruments at
the same time, but keep them as seperate as possible (e.g. No. 15, 16).
This can be accomplished with special voice-programming tricks and
with a certain playing technique. The patches respond differently to
breath- and lip-pressure, thereby it is possible to adress them seperately.
The last two pieces are from bachs cellosuites (1007 courante). While
the first is the piece as written (more or less) and the second has been
realtime-processed with granular-synthesis algorithms (programmed in
MAX/MSP). I have used this piece in the video "qurante".
| Track 01 1:56 Track 02 2:23 Track 03 3:22 Track 04 1:34 Track 05 0:28 Track 06 1:24 Track 07 1:12 |
Track 08 1:52 Track 09 1:39 Track 10 2:03 Track 11 1:48 Track 12 1:39 Track 13 1:46 Track 14 1:05 |
Track 15 1:17 Track 16 2:06 Track 17 0:41 Track 18 1:32 Track 19 3:13 Track 20 2:26 Track 21 1:47 |
Track 22 1:44
|
031202_thnw
the hypercello november workout
CD 60min, 37trax, 2003 Berlin
| Track 01 1:40 Track 02 1:24 Track 03 1:06 Track 04 1:45 Track 05 1:31 Track 06 1:02 Track 07 1:00 Track 08 1:09 Track 09 1:20 |
Track 10 2:06 Track 11 1:01 Track 12 3:59 Track 13 2:59 Track 14 1:06 Track 15 1:14 Track 16 2:10 Track 17 2:33 Track 18 3:11 |
Track 19 1:00 Track 20 1:15 Track 21 0:55 Track 22 1:30 Track 23 1:36 Track 24 1:56 Track 25 2:06 Track 26 1:17 Track 27 1:40 |
Track 28 1:55 Track 29 1:28 Track 30 2:01 Track 31 0:53 Track 32 1:58 Track 33 1:07 Track 34 1:24 Track 35 1:38 Track 36 0:54 |
040221
chops & beasts
CD 60min, 18traxs, 2004 Berlin
| Track 01 1:47 Track 02 3:57 Track 03 4:00 Track 04 5:05 Track 05 3:03 |
Track 06 3:48 Track 07 5:31 Track 08 2:07 Track 09 2:45 Track 10 1:31 |
Track 11 0:51 Track 12 3:32 Track 13 2:53 Track 14 4:39 Track 15 2:10 |
Track 16 4:47
|
