Category: Evening

This evening I recorded my fourth recording in the second Evening Improvisation series.  I have had a busy couple of weeks, so I have been planning this for some time.  One thing I can say, no improvisation is ever truly improvised, and in this case, I had a lot of planning time.  Perhaps, that is why I really like it!  Usually I might do three or four takes before I am satisfied.  And I wouldn’t post a video if I didn’t like it, but this was one improvisation I knew was good the moment I lifted by arms off the keys.  (Spoiler!)

This particular stop, the 8′ Trumpet on the swell, is quite noisy and nasally.  I had a different stop in mind originally, but upon reflection of my intentions, I realized that it would work rather ideally for this stop.  If Evening Improv II: III was an aria, that I would call this a fanfare.  A little on the nose for a trumpet stop, but why not!  What I was going for was a buzzing sort of accompaniment, one where pitch is indecipherable.  Then, as you listen, a theme emerges.

For me, when there are strong non-tonal elements, it’s important to simplify other things.  The form of the improvisation is A-B-A1.  There is only one theme and at most it is inverted and presented in no more than two voices.  The improvisation is also short.  I knew that I had had enough of what I was doing and couldn’t sustain itself any longer.  Whereas the idea, the buzzing, was planned, it is those other elements that reveal themselves to me as the improvisation happens.

 

 

The 8′ Gedackt on the Choir is the chiffiest stop on the whole instrument, like so much of the Moller organ at the Monastery.  And when given an overripe banana, throw it in the freezer and make banana bread.  By that I mean, it is up to me to make it work.  This particularly stop is a horrible ensemble stop and I rarely use it liturgically.  But I thought it would be an interesting stop for my latest set of improvisations.

In my mind, I consider this an aria/recitative.  After two fairly more energetic improvisations, I thought this particular stop could function in a speaking manner.  And much like the two previous stops, the Bourdon and Waldflote, the Gedackt has several different sounds within the various octaves.  Though, that chiff sure is consistent.  Sheesh.

PS: I just read the Wikipedia article on gadeckt and I had to quote it, saying the gadeckt is a “moderately soft, bland, flute-like tone, invaluable for basic ensemble sound in the pipe organ.”  Too funny.

 

Today’s improvisation continues my thoughts about exploring individual stops and the possibilities a single sound might contain.  Something I feel is not always taught well is how to register an instrument well.  That’s a broad statement for a different discussion, but something that needs close attention, especially in instruments of lesser quality like the one I play on, is the quality of the various octaves.  The wind system on the Monastery organ usually under blows the lower third of the keyboard and over blows the top third.

The 4′ Waldflote is an excellent example of this ‘problem.’  The bottom third has a rich, thick texture that one might expect from such a stop, the middle is a bland flute, and the top is shrill.  As an improvisor, it is my job to manipulate this rather than simply with the instrument was better.  Well, I do wish the instrument had better stops, but acoustic is great!

One last note, this improv has two techniques explicitly stolen.  The first is minimalist, which can be found in a composition I wrote for piano.  And the other is directly lifted from one of my favorite William Albright compositions from his Organbook III, Nocturne (with an excellent performance the inimitable Jens Korndörfer).  The waldflote handles Albright’s “wobble” texture with good effect.

And I have begun another series of evening improvisations.  This series will focus on one particular idea: the timbre of an individual stop.  The original Evening Improvisations, a series of (hopefully) avant-garde experimentations on my part, was trying to explore instruments in interesting ways.  What it lacks, in my opinion, is a more precise and exacting exploration.

There was one improv that I posted that used particular stops for their timbral qualities.  I really liked this as an experiment and I thought it would be interesting to explore it further.  So here is my second series of Evening Improvisations and I have taken it to the next level: each improv coming in this series will only involve one stop.

The only thing I think I want to explain about the improv is that it centers around the pitch E flat. There are some really excellent moments throughout and it being under 4 minutes makes it listenable.

This is the final improvisation for the “Evening Improvisation” series.  It is loud, a bit obnoxious, and was totally fun to play.  It has some elements similar to the earlier cluster-percussion improvisation, but from a different angle.  Specifically, there is a nearly continuous tremolo cluster in the pedals.  The feet are usually playing a chord that is accentuated by the hands.  I actually found this to be quite technically challenging.  And I will be honest, it has got me thinking that I might write a series of etudes for organ!

Happy Thanksgiving!  Almost that is.  And if you’re in the US (hi Canadian and non-US friends!).  I have sat on a few improvisations that I was not too crazy about from a recording session at Duquesne’s Chapel with the new organ.  I decided this week that I would head back in and try again.  To explain: my goal with the Evening Improvisations was twelve total recordings.  Six from the Monastery, and six elsewhere, Rice and Duquesne.  That plan was built as I was making recordings and in my mind, make a nice cycle.  It happens though, that I become unhappy with a product and feel the need to go back and start over.

In this case, over the weekend, I played for the Retreat Center side of the Monastery as my counterpart was out ill.  Part of their format includes two evening prayers where I get to improvise a long prelude to the service.  This improvisation was born out of one of those evenings.  It starts, as I often like to do, with a collection of harmonic inspired pitches and builds from there.  Unlike the electronic Rogers, the chapel organ has much more timbre to explore.  And unlike the service, I let it get a bit more dissonant.

 

Now that school is back in full swing, I have had a few moments to capture another recording.  Since the first six Evening Improvisations were at St. Paul of the Cross Monastery Church and the next three were at Rice, I knew it was time to make a recording on the new Jaeckel Organ at Duquesne’s Chapel.  Installation of the organ was completed last summer but I never really thought to swing by there and make a recording.  It is quite the unique instrument with aesthetics based on the writings of Charles Tournemire.

That all being said, after the visit to Houston, I knew this needed to happen.  The Monastery organ is not the best, though I am very fond of it.  For the exploration of different sorts of effects, having different instruments is necessary.  In the case of this improvisation, only 16′ stops were employed: 16′ Quintaton, 16′ Bourdon, and 16′ Soubasse for the pedals.  Only at the very end is the 32’added (I also use the thud from an earlier improvisation too).  The harmonics from the Quintaton that appear are really cool!

The last of the three improvisations I recorded at Rice is unlike the previous entries in that it is tonal. Or at least within the confines of scale.  To be completely honest about the recordings, they are actually from a second night of recording rather than my first go at the instrument.  The card in the recorder ran out of space on the first night and I went back for a second go at some of my original improvisations.  It is an interesting exercise to recreate an improvisational idea that was completely spontaneous with a new instrument.  I suspect that my first attempt was better, but this is what I captured in a recording.

The eighth Evening Improvisation incorporates something a little fun for me as the performer.  Organists have added elements outside of the notes of the keyboard.  Nicolaus Bruhns was well known for accompanying himself with his feet while playing the violin.  So why not do the same?  It’s pretty easy to figure out what I’ve added and having time on the organ at Rice makes it all that more fun.

Sometimes my own excitement gets the better of me.  I say that because the last post was of the brilliant organ at Rice University.  If you follow the numbers though, I went from Evening Improvisation 5 to Evening Improvisation 7.  And here is the 6th Evening Improvisation from St. Paul’s Monastery in Pittsburgh.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I find it wonderfully challenging to improvise on a single sound for as long as possible – liturgically, it can be fairly doable.  This video contains three individual improvisations, something akin to movements using three different timbral combinations.  I originally was going to use them separately but I recorded them at the same time and felt that they made a nice suite.  Here’s the order:

I. Mutations

II. Flutes (2:13)

III. Reeds (5:13)