The RSH improvisation class.

I think this collective improvisation in response to unusual circumstances merits being heard in its entity, mind struggling and flying in the end. In the end we all are free to become whatever we want. We want to become human, after all. 

Sometimes, language creates borders. But music somehow, difficultly, crosses borders. These records here certainly cross many borders. It is, for example absolutely not clear who composed this work, it magically composed itself. It wanted to come out. Everybody is free to contribute. In any way he, she wants.

This was an extraordinary emotional and artistic experience. I want to say thanks to (and please, remember the names!!!)

Yun-fei Li, Yue Ma, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, voice
Yi-yin Chien, flute 
Bo Kyung Kim, clarinet 
Zhaoqi Zhang, bassoon 
Yun-fei Li, Tue Ma, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, voice
Mao Hong, violine and Guzheng
Loh May, viola
Matthias Balzat, Ella Kliski, violoncello
Dennis Pientak and Jean Hommel, double bass

Me, electronics, mixing, synthesiser.

In these times

short piano pieces, birthday presents, waiting for the genius pianist who can play them…

Non-piano

Sweeties

Spring in all its colours, from flowers to allergies, from bulls to bugs.

RSH impro course. Eunhyun Chu, flute; Jieeun Ahn, oboe; Zhaoqi Zhang, bassoon; Benedikt Wild and me, piano; Xiaojingwen "Molly" Zhang, glasses;  Airam De Vera Ramos, guitar and flutes; Ying Liu, guitar and voice; Markéta Peldova, violin; Maria Leszczynska, violoncello; additional tracks (synthesizers, piano) + mixed + produced Hubertus Dreyer.

on spring, hayfever, dreams, squirrels, rainbows, Toreros, weather changes and photosynthesis

Another track from RSH Impro course… 

"Evening at the sea". The mood of the track reminds me of my favourite artist, the great Pina Bausch, that's why we decided to use a German title…

Airam De Vera Ramos and Ying Liu, guitar; Claudio Huerta Honores, accordeon; Maria Leszcynska, violoncello; additional tracks + mixed + produced Hubertus Dreyer.

Abend Am Meer

One of my oldest compositions, written at a time when I tried to emulate Prokovieff, revised two years ago.

Allemande

Waiting Room

A forgotten one, by the RSH-impro course. Seven in b-minor. Quite retro. Somehow the track did not make it into the first round with our very strict jury – I.e. the members of our course –, but Christopher Salzbrunn, who does among many other great things also video work for us, produced a very beautiful video for it. I realised it was just the mix that was bad at that time. Hope it's better now!!!!

Here the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tEb4sUe2iY

Yi-yin Chien – flute
Cristian Gonzales Palacios – oboe
Hyejin Kim – clarinet
Aleksandar Dimitrov and Camillo Chaparro Arenas – violoncello
Additional tracks (synthesizers, e-piano) + mixed + produced Hubertus Dreyer.

Saliendo Al Sol

Old & new from the RSH impro course. Eunhyun Chu, flute; Sarah Kaufmann, English Horn; Haneul Kim, French Horn; Heongjin Oh, Tuba; Carolin Seelhof, Didgeridoo; Sohyeon Oh, violin; Ella Sternstedt and Lars Radloff, Double Bass; additional tracks + mixed + produced by Hubertus Dreyer.

The piece feels most comfortable on big fat speakers, which is inversely proportional to how the majority of listeners then are likely to feel.

Obviously, this is purely functional music (how do I drive annoying guests out of my flat? How do I tell my co-workers that I want the meeting to end? How do I commit the perfect crime?).

May I add: Many thanks to https://soundcloud.com/tuonela-1 who was the first to draw my attention towards the mystery land between Contemporary Music ("Avantgarde") and Experimental Ambient… and thus, to the many many possibilities beyond well established genres…

Mountains

News from the RSH impro course. A live group improvisation, cut in seven segments, formed the base for several solo and duo improvisations, and suddenly Dali entered the room. He was polite, but taciturn. We rearranged things and he left; what else should we do.
Sarah Kaufmann, oboe; Natalie Schönberger, clarinet; Ermir Quirici, horn; Hyeongjin Oh, tuba; Claudio Huerta Honores, accordion; Anastasia Deligiannaki, violoncello; Ella Sternstedt and Lars Radloff, double bass; additional tracks + mixed + produced by Hubertus Dreyer.

Dali

News from the RSH Impro course… which, by the way, happens to have a new account, please check it out if you happen to like our past products:

https://soundcloud.com/rsh-improkurs

While this one is certainly not a techno track, at least it works with beats!
Claudio Huerta Honores, accordion; Natalie Schönberger, clarinet; Qirici Ermir, French horn (most of the beats are processed horn sounds); Hyeongjin Oh, tuba (the high "sky sound" that runs through most of the track); Joaquim Simões, guitar; Anastasia Deligiannik, violoncello; Ella Sternstedt, bass guitar;  recording Benedikt Wild; additional tracks + mixed + produced by Hubertus Dreyer.

DistantSummer

Next year is György Ligeti's centenary. It might be an occasion to draw some attention also to Ligeti’s class, and an occasion to recontextualise some of the works by Ligeti and his students – in the end, Ligeti loved Jazz, was open to Pop music, loved the music of the Banda-Linda, the Pygmies, the Gbaya people and many other non-European traditions, he took sides with great maverick composers like Conlon Nancarrow and Harry Partch… and I guess he was the first avant-garde composer to do concerts together with Pygmy musicians. (Which, in my eyes, should be the future of music.)
So that’s why I was, and am, thinking about a remix project involving Ligeti’s works as well as works of his students. Between Oct. 2021 and March 2022, I was lucky to have been sponsored by the GEMA as part of the program “Neustart Kultur” (Culture New Start). 

The present track is a remix of “Capra”, a work for violin solo by Manfred Stahnke

https://www.babelscores.com/ManfredStahnke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Stahnke

…rather “ethno” and far from any techno influences: the violin part, played by Michael Kollars, was cut&rearranged and surrounded by a quadruple canon in the proportion 12:13 in rhythm as well as intervals, reflecting Manfred Stahnke’s love for the strange polyphony of the Ars Subtilior, many non-European traditions, Conlon Nancarrow, Harry Partch and Ben Johnston – another great maverick, if you’re interested, please listen to the magical, strange but in the end incredibly logical and soothing slow movement of his 7th String Quartet:

https://open.spotify.com/track/2eX0HMQNuIXpzET7WTnKpT?si=bceb825822c34dd5

(For German readers: Manfred Stahnke wrote an essay on this movement which will be published in the next volume of the journal "Musik und Ästhetik", "Ben Johnston und seine Notation an einem Extrempunkt: Beispiele aus seinem Streichquartett Nr. 7, 3. Satz.")

…and last not least, thanks also to WAVES for producing a cheap but efficient sampler (COSMO) that makes microtonal tunings easy!

Capra-Remix

Some kind of Christmas-Cookie… 

best wishes to all!

Ich steh an Deiner Krippen hier

Midi-Version (actually, not that bad) of my new string quartet that has seen its first performance on June 15th of this year in Hamburg, Christianskirche, by the Tonart-string quartet.

Every player plays his/her own tuning (Violin 1: Fifth divided into 4 equal steps, Violin 2: The same, but 25 Cent higher, Viola: Bohlen-Pierce-scale, Violoncello: Fifth divided into 3 equal steps). 

The quartet consists of seven short movements following each other without break:

Kongôbuji no ishi (the stones at Kongôbuji in Kôyasan)
Traveling – from 2'00''
Hsaing Waing – from 3'06''
Melody – 3'40''
Maria-Kannon – 4'31''
Bonsai – 6'51''
Coda – 8'00''

The piece quotes frequently the kakezume pattern, the "sacred pattern of Japanese music", which can be heard for the first time at the beginning. In addition, the Melody-section contains a quote from a piano piece by Miki Osawa, #01, 

https://on.soundcloud.com/1CWBJw1CcB6N8TD9A

This work is dedicated to Mari Tsurumi, my best friend in Japan, who died on March 22 of this year, who taught me so much about Japanese culture, and to Manfred "Kuller" Dietrich, who taught me to listen to Pharoah Sanders. I lost sight of him due to my cowardice.

Guess I shouldn't have deleted this one from my account… here it is again… I dedicate it to all people who, like me, love Ligeti, Stockhausen, Schönberg, Webern, Boulez, Bartók, Berg and so on, love equally Miles and Trane and Sanders and Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock and Joel Ross and love equally Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Prince, Co Shu Nie, Bjork, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Sting …and love Bach and Mozart and Josquin and Chopin… and besides love the music of the Gbaya, and Gamelan, and Japanese traditional music… why should we feel confined to ANY genre?

Chaplin

For Autumn days, basically improvised on August 18th 2024 in Hamburg, revised in September 2024 in Tokyo

180824

Tokyo, fine weather. I imagine something like, Schönberg, Lennie Tristano, Nancarrow and Miku Nakamura meeting in Roppongi, visiting an exhibition of Louise Burgeois…

Jass

The moment when remembering something changes everything

190125（思い出）

桜の空のした、また会いたいあなたに

A small birthday present for a very good friend of mine 
(https://soundcloud.com/hpreutter, also impressive on 
http://www.satzlehre.de/themen.html but in German only). Score available on demand. 

Kind of merging Uehara Hiromi and György Ligeti…

Since the piece is difficult to play, this is only a Midi recording (Sibelius, directly from the score), but the recording gives a rather good impression of the music.

The rhythm is 7/8 in the right hand, a 36/8 ostinato (19+17) in the left.

Hungarian Peanuts

Commissioned by the town of Aalen, Germany. Premiere on Oct 18, 2025. Here in a midi version (but a quite agreeable one, I think).This piece has a strong flavour of Mirin and Shoyu, so it's best consumed with chop sticks. 

Here a beautiful video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vu--4XHWKw

autogenerated by sayl, Public Domain AI, prompted by 水, 色, 秋, 兎, melody, 川瀬巴水

Water Colors

The largest track of the rsh impro course... already a few years old. Also findable on https://soundcloud.com/rsh-improkurs.

Based on a live improvisation we used without cuts. Additional soli, lots of samples from musical and non-musical sounds and a few effects were applied to enhance that trance-like feeling of looking out of the window while the sun is slowly setting and darkness is creeping into the room. Enjoy.
Agnes Konnerth, voice and percussion; Yuki Saito, guitar; Gayoung Lim, violin; Daniel Maskow, violoncello; Benedikt Wild, piano; additional effects, producing, mixing – Hubertus Dreyer

EveningSky 2

This track has originally been made for Hans Peter Reutter, who also hangs around here – his page is recommended listening for curious ears! - I wanted to show to him the possibilities of several iPad Synthesizers. The Curtis is definitely an anti-commercial synthesizer, but quite interesting; I recorded one long track ("improvisation") and edited it with Logic, which took by far more time than the recording... there is one sound (at about 0:26) that is obviously not made with the Curtis, e.g. the sound of a Chinese Qin with ring-modulation, a kind of homage to Stockhausen and his Tele-Musik, and there are near-quotes of Mikrophonie 1, but as it happens so often, the work took on a life of its own. Which is perhaps a good sign, as Seagram Murals pointed out to me: The work  wanted me to write it, not the other way round.

AllCurtis (fieldwork mix)

Another track originally made for Hans Peter Reutter in order to demonstrate to him a number of iPad-Synthesizers. Playing around with the Morphwiz is great fun and can be VERY time-consuming, but I also got some severe bashing for this piece because of the rather simple Morphwiz-sounds and the lack of dynamic control. For me, the most interesting thing here was the facility with which one can produce glissandi and vibrato on the Morphwiz, and I think that the piece hints at some aspects that could be developed further with other synthesizers and/or live instruments.

Morphwiz-Diary 1

After earning lots of undeserved praise for this short piece, I feel heavily obliged to make it much longer (sorry, here I was translating from Japanese :p) so I call this a trailer. Don't count on progress before xmas.



IndianSpaceMelancholy 1 (Trailer)

Collaboration by Rune Martinsen and me; we worked on it for the last two weeks.

Let us tell you what this work contains: Fresh water, recorded by Rune Martinsen in summer 2011 in the Norwegian mountains. Let us also tell you what this work does NOT contain:  No additional sounds, no external synthesizers, no compression, no ring modulation, no flanger, no phaser, no microphaser, no limiter, no exciter, no transformer… Enjoy.

Schmeltzpunkt (KappaRemix) RuneMartinsen/hdathome Collab

The basic idea for this track dates back to 1986, but at that time I was not able to realize the idea fully. In the moment, I'm glad to have a good keyboard at hand, and the idea has haunted me ever since, and finally, also I've got a little bit more time again… so here is it, after 26 years in the closet! 
As for the instrumentation, in the last week (being in München now), I tried quite a few of the many synthesizers by my brother, and found to my surprise that I was bored by them in no time… So I turned to one of my favorite instruments, the instrument I know best e.g. the piano, which is at the same time neutral and evocative, adding just a little bit DAW trickery because I like the DAW too.

February Moment

This track was projected when I visited Edgar Mann, a good friend and very independent-minded composer, two weeks ago. We had three wonderful days in the beautiful city of Aalen and he showed me a lot of interesting works and sketches – most of them done with Cubase 3, over ten years ago. For what will become the first of a series of collaborations, we decided to use a fascinating mix of prepared piano and violin and turn it into a kind of hysteric Walpurgisnacht inferno… 

Please visit http://soundcloud.com/edgarmann 's page at SC !

Hysteria Edgar Mann/hdathome collab

Sequel of Morphwiz-Diary 1. This time, I tried to make the most of the SONIC properties of the Morphwiz synth – which has such a beautiful interface and could profit from adequate sounds… or put it otherwise, many synths with much more interesting sounds could profit from the Morphwiz interface. Well...

If you like this, please check also Ttaattoo's stunning remixes:
http://snd.sc/LbJ2aK
http://snd.sc/Nvkeuk
The second features the great zenjungle in the last two minutes, the right thing for Saturday Night at a good underground disco, for getting into deep trance or just for your next party at home…!

!!!Artwork by the very gifted Maria A. Druckenthaner
http://www.facebook.com/mdruckenthaner
I saw this photo and was struck at how beautiful it expresses many of the feelings and thoughts I had while making the track.

Morphwiz-Diary 2

This track has been composed, as a birthday present, for Frank Zabel, a wonderful teacher (prof) for music theory at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf.

https://soundcloud.com/frank-zabel

check it out!

Flying Zucchettos

just a fucked-up reharmonisation… of a song that, for me, seems to be a good song for these days.

Every crisis, a chance. Let's make the best of it.

Somewhere

Online improvisation with members of my improvisation course at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf. Dennis Pientak (Double Bass) improvised based on my "Curtis revisited", Yunfei Li added her voice, followed by Jean Hommel (double bass), Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (voice), Bo Kyung Kim (clarinet), Yi-Chuang Yang (trumpet) and Yue Ma (voice). additional tracks (synthesizers) + mixing + producing, Hubertus Dreyer. The recordings took place between April 21 and 27 and in Germany, Russia, China, Taiwan and Korea, so I think it could be called a global response to a global situation…

improvisation course at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf, online improvisation, part II.

Please watch also the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8CtatKpBfA

More relaxed than part I, somewhere in dream country, with a few coins tossed at the beginning and the end asking for the next turn of events.

Voice – Yünfei Li. Flute – Yi-yin Chen. Bassoon – Zhaoqi Zhang. Guzheng – Mao Hong. Violoncello and coins – Matthias Balzat. Additional effects + mixing + producing, Hubertus Dreyer. – Hubertus Dreyer.

The image shows a graphic representation of our discussion before engaging in the recordings.

In these times II

Romantic Landscape is the first of two longer piano pieces that deal with the sound of bells in my home town, using them as a kind of "projection screen" for certain personal experiences. Just as one can watch drifting clouds and dream the most fanciful images into them. The piece started with a small idea that visited me on a beautiful morning in May 1985; it was executed in some detail in 1986. Neither these sketches nor a recording of the work that I did then survived 1989. But I couldn't get rid of the memories – the piece kept haunting me –, and in the next two decades additional ideas appeared. Since September 2012, those wavering shapes from the vapoury mist again did enfold me & held me & and I endeavoured on a journey through the past, wandering through my spirit-realm and youthful leaves of grass, study days in Hamburg like some ancient, half-expiring lay and eighteen years Japan…

I would like to thank Sidney Corbett, a great composer to whom this piece is dedicated and who encouraged me more than anyone else to keep  at the idea; Manfred Stahnke, another great composer, who provided me with an occasion to give a first performance of the work (on February 4th, in Hamburg), thus prodding me gently into finishing the work; György Ligeti who always believed in me – and I don't even know why; Wolfgang-Andreas Schultz who always commented on my works unerringly, open-mindedly and without prejudice; Mari Takano, my favorite living composer (as I have to admit), from whom I learned more about composition than I can tell; Hans Peter Reutter who keeps saving me from succumbing to depressions; Christine Wilhelmi, actress and non-musician who always showed deep interest in my music; Roland Sendel, roommate, serving with endless discussions in the kitchen; Miki Osawa who generously allowed me to take some of her music for a video about iPad-controlled christmas trees (it serves as a kind of Cantus Firmus from 7'12")… well, I'd have to name dozens of people as well.

Pno HD. Art Work Miki Osawa

If anybody is interested in the score, please contact me & I can send it by snail mail (hand-written, A3-size). A computer score will appear some time in the future…

Romantic Landscape 1

Improvisation online at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Part 3. Bo Kyung Kim, clarinet, Yue Ma, voice, Ella Kiiski, violoncello; additional tracks (synthesizers) + mixing + producing, Hubertus Dreyer.

lyrics

I wonder why my inlaid harp has fifty strings,
Each with its flower-like fret an interval of youth.
...The sage Chuangzi is day-dreaming, bewitched by butterflies,
The spring-heart of Emperor Wang is crying in a cuckoo
Mermen weep their pearly tears down a moon-green sea,
Blue fields are breathing their jade to the sun....
And a moment that ought to have lasted for ever
Has come and gone before I knew.

锦瑟无端五十弦
一弦一柱百思华年度
庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶
望帝春心托杜鹃
沧海月明珠有泪 
蓝田日暖玉内生烟容
此情可待成追忆
只是当时已惘然

In these times III

Next instalment of the RSH improvisation course, featuring Ekaterina Zhurasvskaya, voice; Yi-Yin Chien, flute, Bo Kyung Kim, clarinet; Yi-Chuan Yang, trumpet; Jia-Hua Feng, trombone; Matthias Balzac, violoncello; Jean Hommel and Dennis Pientak, double bass; additional tracks (synthesizers) + mixing + producing, Hubertus Dreyer.

In these times 4

New track – somewhat more light-hearted from the RSH improvisation course, with Russian Lyrics spoken by Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, violin by Gayeong Gal and Xiaoxuan Chen, kitchen percussion by Xiaojingwen "Molly" Zhang, piano by her cat; additional tracks (synthesizers) + mixing + producing, Hubertus Dreyer.

Update: here is also a fine video for the track!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJoz-sCGTA&feature=youtu.be

The title comes from a famous novel by Natsume Sôseki, which could roughly be translated as "I am a cat", but you know, the Japanese have many many ways to say "I"… and the "I" Sôseki chooses is very fitting to the cat in the Russian poem Ekaterina recites here.

吾輩は猫である

Something sweet from the RSH improvisation course. Three short musical watercolours and, perhaps, one fairy tale (the woodcutter Wang Zhi watches immortals playing a board game for what seems to him only a few moments; but afterwards he realises that many years have passed) which has been reworked in countless versions, one of the most famous being the Japanese story of Urashima Tarô.

Xiaoxuan Chen, violin; Xiaojingwen "Molly" Zhang, (nearly) all parts of the piano; Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, voice; Aleksandar Dimitrov, violoncello. additional tracks (synthesisers) + mixing + producing Hubertus Dreyer.

Aquarelle

The RSH impro-course has a new account, please check it out if you happen to like the music presented here:

https://soundcloud.com/rsh-improkurs

hdathome

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