Category: Improvisation

Over the past several semesters at Duquesne, I have taken the task of writing all of the sight reading exercises for the students. It’s been a lot of fun to create pieces that each have a little quirk in them to offer a small challenge as they are sight read. It has been in the back of my head to edit the best of them into something a little longer, approximately 2 minuntes or so, and throw them up on IMSLP. And I’ve finally done it! I like the four of them quite a bit, but my favorite has to be the Fugetta on D-S-C-H.

Quick story there: back in November 2021, in teaching the third semester of written theory, I took a single class to give an overview of fugue as a form and genre. I offered the class the chance to give me a subject of their choosing and I would improvise a fugue on that subject. One of the students then handed my Dmitri Shostakovitch’s musical signature and I have to say, it was an absolute delight! My improvised fugue went well that morning and it inspired me to write that as the “harder” sight-reading exercise last month. Unlike the first three, the Fugetta appears unedited from its original form. Get the score from IMSLP here!

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.

What a semester! It literally has been three months since I have posted but I have an excellent excuse. I am nearly done with my doctorate but something came up in the process of completing it. My advisers discovered that I had not taken any courses in electronic music composition! Now, as much as I wanted to be done with course work, this is something I have not done (except once and rather amateurishly). It is something I really needed in my education. It added just a little more to do than I normally like. That made the past three months way too busy.

Holy cow though, I am loving learning new things. While this next video does not have any electronic composition elements, it does include something I have learned about: de-noising software. Most of my videos have not included that kind of software and boy some of it could use it. At some point, I will post the new piece that I am creating, which has been a unique experience as a composer. And it is thoroughly an organ composition realized electronically.

This improvisation comes from my time practicing at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Missoula, Montana where I played my Sonata No. 1. Dr. Nancy Cooper was my first organ teacher and since my family return there every summer, I have made it a habit of playing there yearly. Of course, with this wonderful Richard Bond neo-Baroque tracker rebuild, it was hard not to play around with it after practicing for a few hours. The key word there is tracker; much the previous post from the tracker at St. Paul Cathedral here in Pittsburgh, it is really fun to play with slowly lifting and depressing the action.

The 8′ Principle is such a lush stop on this instrument. It was hard to ignore!

Happy New Year!  It has been an exciting time as things are gearing up for an exciting summer.  The Kansas City AGO 2018 Convention sent out a very kind promotion to a piece of mine that will be premiered, Sonata No. 1.  It has been a long time coming and it is very, very exciting.

On a note about the blog, I have wanted to post something for some time but due to a mix of Christmas, family, and some issues with the organ, I have not been unhappy with the handful of recordings I have made.  Well, after the KC Newsletter, I wanted to post something and I took a look at the recordings I had and I found this gem.

Back in November, I went to St. Paul Cathedral to make a recording of more experimental improvisations, but it was not a very satisfying session.  Or at least that is what I thought at the time.  While reviewing the recording I came upon this terrifying improv.  St. Paul Cathedral has a magnificent von Beckerath organ, one that reminds me of the organ I played my undergrad days.  Really, both are German neo-Baroque trackers which allow for certain kinds of exploitation.  When I re-listened to the improv, I recalled the difficulty in moving my fingers slowly off the keys to create the desired effect.  The cromorne had particularly interesting sonorities when using this technique was applied.

As with any avant-garde composition or improvisation, I tried to ground it with some simple elements.  It is essentially a binary form, with a heavy emphasis on the lowest C pitch.  It is a balance; when there are highly strange elements present, simplicity is certainly needed.  And lastly, that middle section makes me think of this sound, whether or not it was intentional at the time.

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.