THIS IS A STUDY piece for my OCTET Project. [Please forgive a few wrong notes in the model...] It's inspired by the WEBERN-BACH Ricercare a 6 voci, one of the hardest pieces I've ever conducted. The challenge is to find and develop a resonant, vocal style of playing as ensemble. And that in a composite texture which is at once simple & complex, at once open [naked] & dense. The problem is that each individual has to know the whole, which is generally not the case if we rush or "end-gain" a piece to concert performance, or become dependent on a conductor. The only really factor keeping us from working this way, it seems to me, is "time" or its contemporary equivalent, "money." If each of the eight players learns to study the score, and the BACH original, by singing all the voices, playing it on a keyboard, making multitrack recordings, etc., a new sense of ensemble sound and performance will very quickly unfold. 

WEBSCORE is at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_bach_b-minor_1.html
DOWNLOAD score pdf is at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_bach_b-minor.pdf
DOWNLOAD parts at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_bach_b-minor_parts.pdf
DOWNLOAD performance model mp3 at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_bach-b-minor.mp3

The idea is to OCTET Project is to set a new standard. LISTEN, for example, to this recording of the WEBERN-BACH below. In my view, with all due respect to the great musicians playing, it's imbalanced in almost every way. Just a mess, really. See what you think....What I'm critical of is NOT the individuals playing, but rather the performance practice itself, as a whole.

♫ BOULEZ plays WEBERN-BACH Ricercare a 6 voci (1935), London http://bit.ly/1zU2lv9 


from OCTET PROJECT, "Arr. BACH fugue in b minor [no. 24 book I] performance model

Composer. Writer. Photographer. Former conductor & founder of the ASKO ensemble.

On a bike/ski/hike trek of the Pacific Northwest studying native plants & climate breakdown 🌲 from sagebrush sea to whitebark pine. Composing off-grid the whole way.

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THINKING LIKE A STONEPINE, a soundpoem manifesto https://vimeo.com/844665859

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CURRENTLY on mt bike/ski/climbing trek through Pacific Northwest, working on a photobook about WHITEBARK PINE COLLAPSE and CLIMATE CRISIS. BASES in the WALLOWAS | AMSTERDAM | ALPS. 

WEEKLY photo/poetry updates at www.picture-poems.com & THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE new music, poetry & dance performance project at www.cs-music.com

ALWAYS ON THE LOOKOUT for progressive, tech-savy, instrumental virtuosi interested in dialogue & collaborative undertakings.

CONTACT cliff@picture-opoems.com
Or on SKYPE or FACETIME @cliffcrego

MUSIC? The one thing humans do,
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from OCTET PROJECT, "Arr. BACH fugue in b minor [no. 24 book I] performance model

Cliff Crego