Look at me get things out consistently! Three weeks in a row no less! Seriously, there is nothing like a little routine and pitting recording back into it feels good. In fact, as of writing this, I also uploaded another silly video with my kids and our stuffed animal, Monster (click here for the fun). Coming out of this pandemic (or limping out? ugh), I am endeavoring be more consistent with my output. A big piece of it is: I have a new church position and I spend time in that space regularly. Also, the organ is an fine enough condition, unlike my last years at the Monastery. That M.P. Möller imploded in those last years and you can hear it in my final liturgical improv there – there is so much noise and it is all coming from the organ and even with the filters on it, it is quite apparent that a lot of noise was pulled out and it affects the sound of the organ in the recording quite a bit.
That all being prefaced, I had been wanting to get back into the experimental side of output by exploring this new (to me) instrument. My first attraction in these situations is to go straight to manipulating the harmonic series. Or some kind of timbrel manipulation. An excellent example of this is Evening Improvisation I, number 11. One of the great things about playing the organ is that spectral (harmonic) manipulation is really easy with mutations. Broadly speaking, mutation stops are a kind of harmonic manipulation and monkeying with them is easy.
Two things I want to add to my thoughts here: the first is that it has been about two and a half years since my last Evening Improvisation post. My interests have evolved as happens to all of us and I think that can be heard here particularly in light of the second thought. I have been listening to A LOT of Kaija Saariaho and it is certainly influencing my more experimental musical self. There are things that are here that are pretty typical: gestures, repetition, ABA improvisational form, etc. But I feel like this shows some change from the last set of Evening Improvisations. Or maybe I am reading into it too much and overthinking it all. Let me leave it at: it is good to be getting things out there.