Here’s a short educational video explaining some fundamental concepts of maths and tuning. Nice production by frequent collaborator Anna Tanczos of Sci-Comm Studios.
Category: Music
Great to hear Alexia Coley played, interviewed – and majorly bigged up (embiggened?) – by Craig Charles on BBC Radio 6. I really enjoy playing with her, great singer, great performer and a good, good person. Album on Jalapeno Records out in the autumn.
Listen (from 1:37 here
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Spiked
Out of nowhere (well somewhere obviously) I’ve been asked to step in the guitar shoes with The Spike Orchestra. I’ve not heard of these people before, but I’m glad I have a quick listen reveals a sophisticated, witty, complex and satisfying original blend of Naked City, cartoon composer Carl Stalling, Kenny Wheelery contemporary jazz, rock and something unnameable. My first concert with them will be Sept 13th 2013 at the Forge, Kingston and I can’t wait to get stuck into/get roasted by the spaghetti charts.
After a slight hiatus while half of the band reproduced themselves the VTQ are back in the studio, reroasting chops for some summer gigs. I love the people, (Paul Thorpe, Nathan Thomas, Richard Watts, Pat Symes, Liz Mitchell, ‘Frank’ Watkins and Mat Duke) and am moved by the ego-less humour and creativity of the music.
With 3 Albums down, festival gigs and a bucket of TV syncing it’s infectious, eclectic and irresistible music, and I’ll continue playing with them until they find me out.
It’s wonderful to be involved in classical guitar virtuoso John Williams’ latest recording project. Details to follow, but the energy, enthusiasm and skill he continues to deliver after 200 CDs, all the accolades and well over a half-century of professional musicianship is astonishing and inspiring in equal measure.
In May, I’ll be recording a second instructional Guitar DVD for Future Publishing. Not Jazz, like the last one and it will involve a lot of research and work, but am looking very much forward to it. Now I have to beg, borrow or steal* a Gibson 335…
*possibly buy
I can say without bias that Bridget‘s classical guitar playing and arranging is exquisite and widely admired by musicians from Julian Bream to Tim Minchin. It was an absolute pleasure to record and produce her debut solo album, and the next is just around the corner.
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Composition for Martino:Unstrung (Sixteen Films 2008) Full length documentary of the extraordinary life of jazz guitar legend Pat Martino.
“Perhaps the best documentary about a jazz musician ever made” – Victor L. Schermer All About Jazz – read full review and interviews here.
Here’s Tim Minchin’s masterpiece Storm, animated and produced by DC Turner and Tracy King, for which I had the pleasure of providing production & arranging services.
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BloodLines
A Chimera Network project Bloodlines is a performance that traces the microscopic drama that plays out between a serious disease and medical treatment in the human body. It draws on its makers’ personal experience of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (which I developed in 2004) and its treatment through intensive chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a bone marrow transplant (donated by his sister Alex Mermikides, who is directing the performance). Also collaborating in the performance is Ann Van de Velde, a clinical haematologist involved in the care and treatment of blood disorders such as Leukaemia, and Anna Tanczos, a digital artist specialising in science communication.
‘…is the human body a soul-less, self-less object at the mercy of automatic internal processes…or is it a precious vessel containing a unique individual…?’
Sian Ede Art & Science. London and New York: Taurus Books, 2010. p.145
Bloodlines was presented at the 2013 European Bone Marrow Transplant Conference and will premiere at the Dana Centre on 18 July 2013.
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The Chimera Network
My sister, Dr. Alex Mermikides, and I have recently won funding from the AHRC to set up a network of scientists, artists, writers and musicians to collaborate on Art-Science projects.
The Chimera Network brings together a network of scholars and professionals in arts and science disciplines. Through a series of events and artworks, the network explores collaborations between artists and scientists, asking:
How might collaborating with scientists generate novel creative methodologies, artistic forms and modes of spectatorship in artistic practice?
How might collaborating with artists prompt new understandings of scientific ideas and forms of science communication for both scientists and the general public?
Exciting projects afoot.
On May 9th, I’ll be playing with the fab (almost) all-Australian Orchestra Ruthless Jabiru under the directorship and baton of Kelly Lovelady.
I’ll be performing live electronics with the 18-piece ensemble, for Brett Dean’s fabulous Carlo. Which interweaves multiple fragments of renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo’s vocal works (of which I am great admirer) among the live orchestral passages. Originally written for sampler and CD, I’m reworking the electronics for Ableton Live to be triggered via Launchpad (assuming my Push won’t reach me by then). It’s quite a tricky score and electronic fiddle but potentially very powerful.
We’ll be performing in the incredible Exhibition Hall of London’s Australia House (which you may recognise as Gringott’s Wizarding Bank).Ticketing info here. Magic.
Jazz Guitar Instructional DVD published by the good folk of Future Publishing
In their words…
From the makers of Guitar Techniques this magazine and DVD package is especially for guitarists that can play from lower to upper intermediate level. It’s for those that want to strike out on the path to jazz – or who simply fancy adding some cool jazz chords or some juicy jazzy licks to their current arsenal of chops.
- To get you started, the most useful chords and scales you can use in jazz
- Jazz rhythm styles; now you’ve learn some cool jazz chords, do some comping (accompaniment) with them!
- Learn some great lead jazz guitar licks
- Playalong tunes:
- Bossa Nova – in the style of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto and Charlie Byrd
- Jazz-Blues – in the style of Barney Kessel, Kenny Burrell and Herb Ellis
- Jazz-Funk – reminiscent of George Benson and Grant Green
- Ballad – inspired by accompanists Joe Pass and Herb Ellis
- Rhythm Changes – essential jazz progression first used by George Gershwin
A collaboration with Mike Hall and Tom Hardwidge of Considered Creative brought about this super fun animation for the opening of the 2013 QED conference. Musically, I wanted to capture the relentless spirit of scientific exploration through the ages, so felt a perpetual motion chord sequence with the instruments changing in line with the ages. 50 points for identifying the sound when Cox throws the LHC switch.
For Part 2 of the Beatless series lets look at a Beatles rework by one Joe Connor.
Here the motivic and harmonic elements of the piece are extracted and examined through repetition with gentle timbral variation – techniques borrowed from minimalist and process music.
This, together with non-quantisation rhythmic elements creates a compelling atmosphere. Electronic music has been refreshed of late with such artists as Mount Kimbie rejecting the dominance that strict grid-based (‘quantized’) time has had on the genre. ‘Loose’ (but not sloppy) timing has a huge effect on musical expression, and this latest trend in IDM is heartening.
Enjoy.
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The Beatless – Part 1 Remodalisation
I thought I’d use this platform to share with you some of the great work my students are doing together with some commentary addressing compositional technique. Here’s the first of many to come.
As part of one of my coursework portfolios, I offered my talented and creative students at Surrey the option to rework a Beatles track. Beyond a cover or remix, the brief was to reinterpret and/or electronically deconstruct/reconstruct musical materials from any Beatles track. There was some great work such as Em Bollon’s modal reinterpretation of ‘Here Comes The Sun’ Remodalisation (invented term) is the technique of translating melodic and/or harmonic material into a parallel mode (set of notes or scale). The original track’s major tonality (with some modal interchange and secondary dominants) is really effectively (and intuitively) reinterpreted into mixolydian and dorian ideas, blended with electronic japery. Quite lovely.
A rehearsal of the fab (& lovely) livingroominlondon ensemble playing my piece for quintet and electronics The Escher Café, A musical representation of a set of M.C. Escher engravings.
The Voodoo Trombone Quartet’s latest album is OUT. Lovely, lovely post ska eclectica. http://open.spotify.com/album/3ViPhvhno2st63A6tSAVSn Personell:
Paul Thorpe – Keys, Vocals
Milton Mermikides – Guitars
Matt Duke – Bass
James ‘Frank Watkins’ – Drums
Liz Mitchell – Baritone Saz
Nathan Thomas -French Horn
Pat Symes – Trombone
Richard Watts – Trumpet
Here’s a video of the presentation at the British Library on March 12th 2012. In preparation for the lecture I was put in an MRI machine with a plastic fretboard (aka ruler) and improvised while UCL neuroscientist Dr. Joern Diedrichsen examined my brain’s working. For the event I performed to a video of my brain activity showing what bits lit up (technical) during improvisation.
On musical learning and Pat Martino.
And my brain on jazz.
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Composers and their critics
Today’s musical legends had their fair share of criticism. Match the composer to their bad review, and in the process don’t take any criticism of your own work too seriously, you’ll only avoid negative feedback if you don’t write anything.
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MiltOnNotes Volume One
Here’s a compilation of several lectures on composition, 539 slides on many compositional aspects relevant to all styles.
If you don’t have time to read it all, simply type in a random page number and you should get a good stimulus for a composition.
Monday 23rd January 8pm, King’s Place. The fabulous Living Room In London Ensemble with Manu Delago of Björk fame, perform a great concert – including a London Premiere of new piece ‘The Escher Café’ blending classical, jazz and live electronics. http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on-book-tickets/music/manu-delago-living-room-in-london?tid=16
For a dynamic list of Hidden Music projects click here.
Hidden Music:Sonic is a collection of electronic works using compositional systems to translate physical phenomena of the biological world into complex mesmeric soundscapes. Source material include the DNA, colour and shape of microbacterial colonies, the population of blood cells during leukaemia treatment, the shape of the coronal suture of the human skull, tree-rings, MRI scans of the human brain and the passage of molecules through the cell membrane.
Bonus material! Album purchase includes 6,000 word liner notes, detailing the philosophy and process behind these works.
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A collection of Internet theme tunes (2008-2011) in glorious high quality (including themes to the Pod Delusion, Lady Geek, QED and GeekPop). Free to listen or pay little/what you like to own.
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