Information and updates relating to the CFIS.
David Grundy – piano. Afternoon of 16th March 2009. Robinson College.
1/ piano and cymbal (3:48)
2/ 16th march # 2 (3:54)
3/ 16th march # 3 (0:40)
4/ 16th march # 4 (8:47)
5/ 16th march # 5 (6:52)
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4ab7e05db61c95d08c9e7c56ba37815f74242a0f76fc00f1
Sounding: An Evening of Music at The Shop, XVIII Jesus Lane, Cambridge (13/03/09)
“sounding, vbl. n. 1.a. The action or process of sounding or ascertaining the depth of water by means of the line and lead or (now usu.) by means of echo; an instance of this.” (OED)
Sounding: Testing the waters; listening to the sonic depths. An informal, though organised occasion: a space to try things out in a relaxed, semi-concert environment.
first half
[1] Benjamin Britten – Six Metamorphoses After Ovid (15:12)
David Curington (oboe)
[2] The Cambridge Free Improvisation Society – Shoplifting (13:24)
Jo Davis (flute) David Curington (oboe, teacups)
Nathan Bettany (oboe, xaphoon) Daniel Larwood (electric guitar, xaphoon) Jacken Waters (electric guitar) Lu Mason (voice) David Grundy (piano)
second half
[3] Daniel Larwood – Ambient Intro (5:04)
[4] Daniel Larwood – Fingerpicking 1 (3:43)
[5] Daniel Larwood – Fingerpicking 2 (8:34)
Daniel Larwood (electric guitar)
[6] Lycanthrope Oboe – Wolf Shop (22:52)
Jacken Waters (electric guitar, pedals)
[7] David Grundy – Closing Time (13:30)
David Grundy (laptop, recorder, piano)
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4ab7e05db61c95d08c9e7c56ba37815f725dc00e2a965b28
Robinson College, 22nd February 2009
**** Get it here – http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4ab7e05db61c95d04012e8015643d9c8ac32a34931127ca6 ****
Rodin - The Gates of Hell
Playing around with ideas for a Dante project at Robinson College (as well as playing around with a microphone)
Preparations for Hell: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4ab7e05db61c95d0d2db6fb9a8902bda
(1) Recorder Reorder (5:31)
(2) Drumming Up Support (10:58)
(3) Piano Trinity (10:39)
(4) Bolt Your Doors (8:39)
(5) Please Make Your Way to Your Seats… (8:21)
(6) …For the Premiere of a Lost Work by Edvard Grieg (13:15)
Total Time (57:23)
David Curington, David Grundy, Daniel Larwood
Piece 1 features recorders: DC (tenor) DG (descant/sopranino) DL (treble)
Piece 2 features DC, DG, DL (percussion, voice)
Piece 3 features DC (inside piano) DG, DL (piano)
Piece 4 features DC (cor anglais) DG (piano, voice) DL (guitar, recorder)
Piece 5 features DC (percussion) DG (piano) DL (guitar)
Piece 6 features DC (piano) DL (guitar) DG (percussion, recorder)
Robinson College, Sunday 1st February 2009
Download it! from: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4ab7e05db61c95d091b20cc0d07ba4d24d6ff4a807da4d2d
PART ONE
(1) One (7:10)
(2) Two (10:12)
(3) Three (8:30)
Total Time (25:52)
PART TWO
(1) The Windows are Sealed (14:06)
(2) Repose/ A Polish Stomp/ Meditative (19:41)
(3) Bring Out Your Dead (9:52)
(4) Maniac Afro (10:59)
(5) Puccini (9:24)
Total Time (64:02)
Robinson College, Sunday 18th January 2009
Dan Larwood – acoustic guitar
David Grundy – piano
Robinson College, 3rd December 2008
Description: Duos and solos for acoustic guitar and piano. The music was often very quiet, so you may have to turn up the volume switch in order to hear it! The guitar was amplified through a microphone, which gives it a strange pinging tone on the first piece (and there are occasional bits of microphone feedback), but these problems seem to have righted themselves after that.
Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?yjzzhmtjkmw
Piano Improvisation
Church of St Andrew and St Mary, Grantchester, 2/12/08
A cold winter afternoon, sunny, after rain. My work finished for this term, so took the opportunity to cycle out around Grantchester, over the meadows. Got to the Church, walked around, soaking in the atmosphere or whatever they say. Trying to get a feel of/for the place. Went inside, walked around the church for five minutes or so, looking at details – though not details as in a guided tour sort of examination, but things that struck me – sunlight reflected through stained glass onto a wall, the play of light in areas of bright white and shadow at various different parts of the church. There was a piano there, next to a stained-glass window – a digital piano, i.e. without strings/hammers, but with proper weighted keys and a good sound. I plugged it in, sat down, and played for just over 20 minutes (no longer because my fingers got so cold in the church).
Was it a ‘free improvisation’? Methodologically, it was completely improvised, with no prior working out of figures. Though one motif threads through the whole piece, particularly in the first ten minutes, this is one I came across improvisationally – it happened to be constructed from the first combination of notes I played. But the fact that the piece works on repetition, in a ‘minimalist’ way (as well as breaking up the constancy of flow through much use of silence), would seem to prevent the sort of complete freedom that ‘free improv’ aims for (with qualifications)? So does that mean that the improv become ‘free’ only when it moves away from repetitions of figures to scampering dissonance? This was a considered move – but so was everything. Yet at the same time things emerge you wouldn’t expect. Free improv is not abdicating control, yet at the same time it is, or at least, things do happen which you can’t quite control even though it is you playing the music – and that’s not to say that you get ‘possessed by some spirit force’ or any of that bullshit.
Or maybe that’s just what happens in all improvisation, free or not – it allows you to go to places you wouldn’t have gone playing entirely composed music. After all, the idea of composed/written music as opposed to music passed on by oral tradition (song) or communal improvisation (the West African drum choir) is a specifically western idea only properly emerging over the last five hundred years or so. And so to take it as the ‘normal’ for music is an incredibly limiting view. In that sense, improvisation is far more ‘natural’, not an aberration.
That doesn’t take away the problem of what makes an improvisation ‘free’, however – what seperates ‘free improv’ from mere ‘jamming’. We can say that the avoidance of too many key centres and stiff chords, obvious harmonic progressions helps – though of course many improvisers use tonality, often as part of an anarchic cut-up (Mengelberg, Beresford), whereas the music of Derek Bailey is a lot ‘purer’ in its abstraction and unpredictable harmonic workings. The ‘minimalist’ style (Charlemagne Palestine, La Monte Young, Terry Riley) obviously has a far more fixed harmonic base, often centred around the idea of a drone, or a drone-like repeated figure. But through this unpredictable things happen, overtones start to get teased out of the original sound, perceptions change. Five minutes after the start, you’re playing something quite different, but it’s evolved in such a way that you didn’t notice the changeover. That makes structure more malleable. So it works to similar ends as more purely free improv, perhaps.
David Grundy
Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?4ffnjndodjj
David Curington – oboe, recorder, voice
Dan Larwood – electric guitar, voice, recorder, drums
David Grundy – piano, laptop, vocals, recorder, drums
Andrew Kay – drums, delay pedal, piano
Robinson College, 30th November 2008
Description: A session featuring a lengthy drone section and delay pedal experimentation.
Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?114ezwj3jgz
Recorded at Robinson College, 31st November 2008
