2 Guitar Tracks and a bass track. Recorded in 1997 on a Fostex R8 1/4" 8trk. Both Guitar tracks were in stereo. Played on a nylon string Aria classical. Electric Bass (recorded direct), Neck-through-body Mateo.

Celtic Tune

I wanted 12 minutes because I had a modern dance piece in mind, and was impressed with a show in Seattle called '12 minutes max' that showcases dance and performance art on a regular basis. I was impressed with it because I was amazed about what could be done with 12 minutes. Not long after I had the rhythm track, I put on the main guitar track that runs through the entire piece. It was completely improvised (I kept the second pass over the tape, never did any more) and is similar to the guitar track in the 'fruit' piece. The guitar was plugged in directly to a digital reverb unit and played working the volume knob to make the swelling effect. This is completely stolen from Bill Frisell as I saw him do this volume knob swelling thing when he was recording at Ironwood studios in Seattle when I was a staff engineer there in the late 80s early 90s. After this improvised guitar track the tape probably sat for a year. Every time I heard the rough mix of it, I enjoyed the 'watery effect of the guitar juxtaposed with the rhythms where they had these huge pipes hanging from what looked like big rubber bands that would bounce up and down in the water while the musicians/dancers would bang on them. But I wasn't sure where to go from there, so the tape sat for nearly a year. Then one winter day whilst living high on this hill in San Francisco, a storm front moved in in the early morning and wind and rain pounded the windows of my room upstairs (facing southwest, which where the storm was coming from) where my studio was. I immediately thought of this piece, got the tape out, did the bass track, and started to search for storm samples to put over the heavier drumming section. I stole samples from various places; I already had a lot of samples from doing sound effects for this small play in Seattle ('the vulgar librarian'). I also stole ocean storm samples from "quadrophenia" which are some of the finest stereo ocean samples I have ever heard (kudos to Pete Townsend, I'm sure).  I put a bass part over the storm that fits the rhythm of the drums which is great as the original guitar part isn't doing much right there (I remember when laying down the guitar track being baffled and befuddled about what to do during that sudden shift of dynamics in the rhythm track, but in the true jazz tradition, I just got through it, even if it meant just laying back). At the time I was also discovering how to make weird keyboard sounds using a sequencer as an arpeggiator and using that as the modulation signal through a vocoder of which I would modulate all sorts of sounds coming out of my little cheapie casio (with full size keyboard without enough keys, i.e. if you try to play Chopin on this thing, you'd go nuts). My favorite sound to modulate was organ; the casio actually had a nice deep organ sound. In this case, instead of the sequencer/arpeggiator as the modulation for the vocoder, I used the FX track from the Bill Frisell swelling guitar track (i.e. reverb and some delay). This was somewhat limiting in that I had to play right along with the guitar or it didn't work, you can barely tell it's there, it comes in a 1/3 of the way through when the guitar goes lower in register. So I had to play along with this improvised guitar track that had almost no attack on any of the notes. It was somewhat difficult, and I tried to harmonize as much as I could but usually doubled the melody. There were many flubs and punch-ins. The organ was pretty static through the busy section, which was a nice contrast. The last track was the reverse guitar and added reverse reverb on the original guitar track. For this I took the tracks, all on ADAT and transferred them to this Fostex R8 open reel machine. Flipped the tape over and started playing guitar. I made a pass trough the entire piece and then flipped the tape over again to see what I got. I always find some sort of 'discovered composition' when do backwards guitar (ala Jimi Hendrix), one of my favorite things to do. I flipped the tape back over and made another pass and that was it. The finished reverse guitar track was then recorded on one side of a stereo track to the computer and the other was a rough mix of the song so I could fly it back into the ADAT, essentially by ear. We (studio engineers) used to do a lot of this sort of thing before multi-track recording was done on computer. (I think the jury is still out if that?s a better way to record, but just like anything else, the people who do it all the time swear by it, myself, I still use tape machines, even digital tape machines like the ADAT, mostly because the transport behaves, and punches in, like those old MCI JH24 24 track 2" machines we had at Ironwood.). I did a similar 'flying' technique with reverse reverb on the guitar and FX tracks although I recorded them full stereo (I believe) and match something on the intro since these tracks needn't be as tight as the others. You have to listen carefully, but you can hear some reverberation of the guitar swells before the actual swells, and that's the effect. At any rate the reverse guitar solo (completely improvised) really surprised me. It gave the piece a dramatic effect.

Yes, I've been working this music into dance shows of various shapes and sizes for awhile, I guess it's one of my more popular pieces. <a href=http://www.youtube.com/v/k_pzd8pEedE>Dance Performance</a>

Water

Nora Chipaumire and I were in a Mary Armentrout piece together and during rehearsals and backstage during the show she told me about a solo piece she was working on, and the ideas she had for a sound score. I don't know what it was about the rapport we had, but I knocked this piece out in a couple of days from start to finish. One of the big things we discussed was the use of shortwave radio noise and broadcasts, and I told her about the fruit piece and how that came about and she seemed really excited about this. So I looked for BBC and other African shortwave station broadcasts on the net, and of course, found loads. All the instruments played were played on the yamaha DTX drum kit, I always wondered if I could do a piece like that, and although I wish I could redone all of those performances as I was obviously noodling, I seemed to have pulled it off nonetheless. I essentially ran DAT tape while I was exploring the various settings on the DTX and what I could play on them right out of the box. I then created a track of radio noise and the various clips from broadcasts and then just mixed in the samples and phrases from the DTX. Probably the first piece I created entirely on the computer doing 2 track editing without multi-track tape and mixing and such. In some ways it was quicker to do this sort of piece in that way because you never have the opportunity to second guess your mixing decisions, as soon as you move on to the next element, the decision has been made. This basically means that composition decisions had more focus than mix decisions, and luckily I had the ears to make decent mix decisions along the way. I like the sound bites from the broadcasts because they were happened upon instead of looked for and they reflect concepts (such as how businesses spend their money) that apply to any and all societies, not just Africa's young societies struggling to define themselves and function.
Nora Chipaumire performed her solo dance piece 'Kaffir' at the Summerfest Dance Festival on 7/16/2003 at ODC theater in San Francisco.


Notes on Zimbabwe, 2003

The first of many 'vocoder experiments' that were done around the same time as <a href=http://soundcloud.com/rodneyjohnson/water>'water,'</a> I found this one program on this cheapie little behringer reverb/delay unit called a 'vocoder.' I had never really played with one before. I read in the docs about what it was supposed to do and the idea of one signal modulating another really sounded enticing. I was terribly green about analog synths at that point, and I probably still am (but at least now I can sort of talk the language), but what I ended up doing was some experiments using a QY20 Yamaha sequencer (kind of like the 'walkman' of sequencers if you're into composing in MIDI, I tried, and I'm not terribly thrilled about how much time it takes to program the things) as an arpeggiator, which worked great because it allowed me to program the sequencer to play the same arpeggiation (in this case two different lines in two octaves that alternate every other note) with it switching to different instruments every so often, for the sole purpose of just seeing what different sounds I could get out of this combination of gear. You hear the original sound of the arpeggiator mixed in just so I could later tell what instrument of the QY worked with whatever instrument I had going on the casio of which I played similar chord progressions. I did this sort of for documentation purposes as I found right away that this combination of equipment had nearly infinite possibilities as I would fiddle with the thing for hours every time I sat down in front of it. The only thing even remotely 'composed' is the arpeggiation from the QY. Even that was done without much forethought. If I remember right I just picked a key and started punching up notes and alternating the octave button in between with the thing set in step recording mode. What resulted was two different lines in two octaves as well as serving as a metronomic rhythm (which I found quite hypnotizing while I was playing the casio over it). Also, for extra control of the equalization and thus tone I put a cry baby wah pedal between the casio and the vocoder. People familiar with the effect will hear it plenty on these tracks.

(Exp1bb wavelab1)


Vocoder Experiment 1

The arpeggiation on this one was done in <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SynthEdit target=_blank>synthedit</a> (which is slightly more difficult to program than an actual analogue synth!). I also overdubbed some droning, auto-panning organ distortions and some more swelling Bill-Frisell-style guitar stuff.

(Exp4b)

Vocoder Experiment 4

This piece was a rif I was working on and ended up performing in one of the 'fruit' performances. The name derived from an improv theater technique/exercise called 'viewpoints' of which we were exploring during the week we generated material for the 'fruit show.' There was a Gibson guitar there with only three or four strings on it, with the high string missing. I just started playing this arpeggio with the three highest strings remaining and just barring the frets. Yet another discovered composition. I also stayed at Justin's place for a couple of nights then and found a similarly fashioned Gibson guitar (I don't know what it was about that trip that I was seemingly finding partially strung Gibsons everywhere I went) with the high string missing and threw a cassette in the deck in his basement studio and recorded a ½ hour of meandering around with the arpeggio and brought it to rehearsal, played it in the rental car, etc. Later I ended up using it Ali's 'Let's get Intimate' piece. I really like the spacey nature of it, I would noodle around for hours when I had the time kill. The recording for it here was probably done using my cheapie Fender squire strat into a cry baby wah pedal into the behringer 24-bit reverb unit. The tremolo version of this piece was recorded similarly only using a tremolo/reverb patch in the behringer, and then doing the Bill Frisell volume knob trick to silence the attack on the strings. I was very pleased with some of the effects I got on that 16 minute pass. The tremolo version is, in some ways, even more spacey and moody than the original. The ali/seeley guitar piece came about when I was playing at one of their rehearsals when they were generating material for the "let's get Intimate" piece. I was essentially playing this tremolo version of viewpoints when they wanted something edgier, so I turned the reverb down, turned on a slap echo and started barring the same chords only edgier and more rhythmically. Seeley really liked the string clicking sounds which I used as a count-in, so I added more of that. 
(020623music_a_trimmed)

Viewpoints


05-Feb-06 01:39 PM:
Raf and Simon came over to my place for some perfunctory activity before going to the Kilowatt to watch the super bowl, which happened to be the first full football game I saw the entire year.

When they arrived, the gear was all set up and as Simon was checking the guitar tuning I noticed the old cry baby wah pedal sitting next to the faithful digitek RP300 and had put aside some extra patch cords earlier, just in case. I mentioned to Simon that he could patch the wah pedal in if he wanted to and he seemed almost annoyed with the idea. So he switched on the wah pedal on the digitek set on this super crazy transistor distortion setting (Don't know which program it was on) and started playing with it. And it sounded great! I immediately put the ADAT in record and started hitting the high hat until I stumbled upon the one of what Simon was doing (or I simply created the one, I never know), and then Raf joined in with the bass and off we went for about 10 minutes.

There was some nice dynamics, and Raf held onto this nice progression on the bottom, which matched Simon's exploration of what this particular guitar sound could do. It was so fun for me, in fact, that every time I hear it makes me want to put an organ track over it. Raf's bass is consistent enough to make it predictable enough to overdub to, I may actually do it at some point. Simon's Guitar part is just blistering all the way through with the low strings sounding very strat-through-a-fender-amp type of thing. And the high strings that always seemed to be ready to feedback an octave up of which Simon so skillfully manipulated with the wah pedal on the digitek. The raspiness of the guitar sound was very intense at the time and upon first playback (which we did immediately after recording it) it didn't quite as intense as it did when we were playing. I'm suspecting with all the high overtones that the sound didn't translate to digital very well. Maybe next time I'll roll the Fostex analogue machine. I probably won't get a pro tools setup myself until all of my tape machines die and I can't get parts for them anymore. 

This is a term that old english studio engineers used to say when they added an organ or other synth tracks to rock mix. And that's what I've been messing with the last several weeks of spare time (which there hasn't been much lately), an organ/synth track to the Super Bowl jam.

07-Mar-06 10:47 PM:
I've been experimenting with this vocoder-modulated organ sound for quite awhile now, and it always seems hit and miss as far as when it works and when it doesn't. I've also based arrangements on bits and pieces of parts found while noodling around with the sound (<a href="http://soundcloud.com/rodneyjohnson/vocoder-organ-tune" target=_blank>Here</a>  is an example of that sort of work). Generally, this sort of sound is so harmonically complex that it gets lost in a mix without making it the most prominent thing. But, of course, I always seem to try to use it to add "just a bit of colour" to a mix in a similar fashion as a lot of blues/rock mixes do with a Hammond organ using a Leslie. Basically though, it seems with this type of sound, that the busier the mix, the more difficult it is for the complexities of the sound to come through without making it too prominent.

This was the case with the Super Bowl Jam. The Scoop/Wah sound from the digitek pedal Simon was using was extremely broadband harmonically, and the wah pedal made it very rhythmically busy as well. And I didn't want to loose those qualities, I just wanted to add "just a bit of colour."

I wanted also to keep the performance in the spirit of the improvisational nature of the overall track. I didn't want to cherry-pick compose every part and do a ton of punch-ins and editing, etc. I just thought I would just play through the entire 10 minutes as if I were actually an active part of the moment. Realistically though, what I really thought would happen is what happens quite a bit in the studio, just get a decent enough performance and fix the one or two flubs with punch-ins. As it happened, I never got around to even bothering with the punch-ins. I would just rewind the ADAT back to the head of the song and try again. I think I kept the 5th recorded pass of it over the span of a week while doing quite a bit of listening to track between passes.

For the most part, the organ track follows and sometimes counterpoints Raf's Bass Line changes. Sometimes it provides more melodic content during times when Simon's guitar part is more repetitive, at other times it adds harmonic support during Simon's more melodic parts. The great part being, that none of these composition decisions were really preconceived at all, I just tried to focus on listening to what everyone else was playing to influence what I was going to do next, as with any improvisational style.

Well, that seems like a lot of work to add "just a bit of colour" to a jam track, but it really wasn't. And now the overall tune has a another harmonic dimension to it.


(060205 Raf Simon Studio9 w 060224Organ b)

Superbowl Jam


(080116 ThePatriot 2nd Voc roughmix wPerc Raf080207bass)

The Patriot

Named because Josh Wolf was released from prison that day. Raf on Bass, Simon on Keys, me on Drumz and overdubbed percussion. 

(070403 JoshWolfOutro w070408perc.mp3)

Josh Wolf Outro

1st time I wrote music for a poem written by someone else. Written in 1996 on a 4 track, this was the first attempt of a "good" recording. It still sounds very demo-ish and I still want to redo it but the ideas are definitely there (you can tell I was so proud of my vocoder organ keyboard sound and was very self-conscious about my voice!)

 (011115seeds evenmoretop.mp3)

Seeds

A song I wrote around the time of my mother's death in spring 1998.

Janice's Song

How Much is Too Much?

I see wars in Babylon, oil spewing into the gulf, and I cannot help but wonder
If people are so blind, they can't see it as a sign, of their own blunder

Do they shake their heads, as the make their beds and shuffle off to work
Become mesmerized and then rationalize it all as just the world gone berserk

the Weathermen of the Underground just a student over-reaction?
the peaceful means of JFK and MLK just part of a different faction?

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in tough times, maintain their neutrality." --JFK
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious superficiality." --MLK

(CHO)
how much is too much
when a little isn't enough

It seems we have come so far,
but is that really where we are?

but How much of it Have I seen,
So much happened before I'd ever been

"Tough love" is just the right phrase: love for the rich and privileged,
the tough part comes for everyone else, as they are packaged, ravaged,and disparaged.

popular culture has become the propaganda system designed to make people feel helpless,
that the only role they can have is to buy stuff in attempt make others feel jealous.

And Propaganda is to a democracy what a Warm gun is to totalitarians.
it makes us feel as humanitarian as a vegetarian while our governments act so barbarian.

you need to fight, 'cause You never need an argument against the use of violence
It's hard to keep peace and easy to demand war in the namesake of benevolence

With Profit as the main motive People are expendable
Who needs a healthy working class When slaves are so dependable

Why bother making what can be imported more cheaply
Why Sell for less than the buyers will pay so steeply

It's a story that's been going on since the time of Athens
people went hungry while wealthy landowners slept in mansions

Is it any better than it was back then?
Or are we doomed to repeat it all again and again?

(CHO)
how much is too much
when a little isn't enough

It seems we have come so far,
but is that really where we are?

How much Have I seen,
What will it take to make me intervene?

religious fundamentalism, racism, jingoism and fear,
these are ways to crush people while you keep them near.

Gandhi wrote, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world"
But it's so easy choose the comforting illusion as it becomes unfurled

this illusion comes with "Soaring economic growth"
then it crashes, the opulent rewarded, and poor once again are loathed

Comfortable and complacent is what our media tries to keep everyone
Free Press? SURE! to anyone that owns one!

MLK taught us non-violence and that we should all forgive
But he also said "if a man has not found something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

It remains a mystery to me, if I've done all I can or not nearly enough.
Have I rationalized my pacifist ways so my life won't be so rough?

is non-violence a force more powerful, than ordinary violence can detonize.
Or should I just "Agitate, Antagonize, Educate and Organize" --Saul Alinsky 

is violence the only thing people with power understand?
Is that why we find ourselves so complacently comfortable, just like they planned?

Yeah, Rupert Murdoch...
He's got a free press

Everybody's worried about how to stop terrorism.
Well, there's an easy way: stop participating in materialism.

Stop Buying stuff you don't need


How Much is Too Much?

Here are some of the pieces I have been working on over the last decade or two, most of them are completely unfinished rough ideas of which I may (or may not) finish later. It usually takes a specific project deadline to get me to finish something.

rodneyjohnson

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