The Grooved Whale Project

For the past 10 or so years I have been looking for the codes that create music.

Most of my explorations ended up on digital equipment where I could reduce things to numbers and examine their mathematical patterns.  I learned quite a bit by doing this but programming electronics does not feed my soul.  The greatest pleasure for me as a musician is to interact with others, where I open myself up to the risks and rewards of creating in real time.

I have been working with three musicians – Kirk Watson, Alcvin Ramos and Haagen – and have found myself invigorated and challenged as a musician to bring my best to the table. We’ve been jamming and improvising together where nothing is scripted but everything unfolds beautifully. The thrill of interacting with others – of listening and responding, testing my boundaries, taking leaps of faith – is for me the creative adventure of music making.

Music is easy to create if you know and follow the codes. The kicker is it takes a lifetime to learn them. Every day I practice. Today I worked on a track that I thought would be interesting to post a sample of. It is only an exploration of a patch I created. It consists of a sparse bass line and some percussive elements, is 1 bar in pattern length and is tweaked in real time.

The difference between this improvised track and a finished song is in orders of magnitude. There are mistakes or musically undesirable parts to this track. There are boring parts – parts where you wish something might change.  There are also parts which groove where I should have stayed rather than move on. Such is the benefit of hindsight. Once I learn the patch I will be better able to control these elements.

This track may eventually become a component of a song, or it may end up being one of countless explorations that never make it to the light of day. Anyways, thot i would post it for your edification and/or enjoyment

Here are two more snippets from explorations from this week:
This one explores filter sweeps.

This one explores gating my violin in different patterns

Had a wonderful time at Entheos this weekend. Gave my first ever workshop on my research with music and whales. It felt really good to do – to finally release some of my ideas out there and get feedback. A rite of passage.

Back in the studio tonight, preparing for Shambhala. I’ve been working closely with two amazing musicians, Kirk Watson and Alcvin Ramos, focusing our creative efforts on how best to combine our acoustic instruments (violin, bass, shakuhachi) with technology. We will now be joined by a third amazing musician, live PA artist Haagen who will bring his gear into the mix. Together, we will be exploring the creation of human music.

Working with these fellow musicians has definitely broadened my horizons in terms of understanding music. First and foremost they release me from playing every role in the creation of a song. I can better concentrate on specific aspects of sound. I can take time to listen to what’s evolving outside the realm of my own creation. I can rest, recharge and wait for musical inspiration to hit.

The communication that is created between musicians is one of the most intriguing features of music. How do we know what to play and when to play it? What are the cues we are listening for? Why do we have these cues and where do they come from? Is music an innate language or one that we learn as we grow as musicians?