Three Improvisations
Hi there. It's been a while, I know. So today, I offer you three downloads for the price of one! Actually, the price here is always free, so it's hard to improve on that. Speaking of which, have you noticed how all these people like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails and so on have made the news in the past year or so for offering their music as free downloads? Oh, so revolutionary of them? Well, tell your friends who was way ahead of the curve! That's right, brucebaldwin.net offered new music for free before any of them. And I'm still not on the cover of Time!
I recently upgraded my live looping setup by purchasing a Boss RC-50 Loop Station. This not only allows me to create three independent loops at the same time, it is also in stereo. About a million more options are available to me than I had with the Jamman pedal. The loops can be in sync or out of sync with each other. One of the things that I'm really fascinated by is overlapping three loops of differing durations, so that they continuously form new combinations. Additionally, for my live percussion sound, I got a Roland Handsonic 10, which is more fun than I can tell you. So instead of miking up various drums and so on, I can conjure up all kinds of different instruments with the Handsonic. Both of these devices will have a big impact on Ascent's live sound when we get back to performing next week. They also have a big impact on my ability to improvise instrumental music at great length. The nice side effect is that when I save the loops, they sound much better.
So, here are three little jams that came out of the practice room during the past few weeks. The only preplanning that goes into this kind of thing for me is "I think I'll play in this key now." I have left all of the sounds unaltered in the spirit of sharing the warts-and-all improvisational flavor with you. I didn't add or remove anything. The only thing I had to do to mix them down was to decide where each part starts and stops. The difference would be that when they occurred naturally in the practice room, they were much, much longer, as I built up the parts bit by bit.
Please download and let me know what you think...
Improv I
Improv II
Improv III
I recently upgraded my live looping setup by purchasing a Boss RC-50 Loop Station. This not only allows me to create three independent loops at the same time, it is also in stereo. About a million more options are available to me than I had with the Jamman pedal. The loops can be in sync or out of sync with each other. One of the things that I'm really fascinated by is overlapping three loops of differing durations, so that they continuously form new combinations. Additionally, for my live percussion sound, I got a Roland Handsonic 10, which is more fun than I can tell you. So instead of miking up various drums and so on, I can conjure up all kinds of different instruments with the Handsonic. Both of these devices will have a big impact on Ascent's live sound when we get back to performing next week. They also have a big impact on my ability to improvise instrumental music at great length. The nice side effect is that when I save the loops, they sound much better.
So, here are three little jams that came out of the practice room during the past few weeks. The only preplanning that goes into this kind of thing for me is "I think I'll play in this key now." I have left all of the sounds unaltered in the spirit of sharing the warts-and-all improvisational flavor with you. I didn't add or remove anything. The only thing I had to do to mix them down was to decide where each part starts and stops. The difference would be that when they occurred naturally in the practice room, they were much, much longer, as I built up the parts bit by bit.
Please download and let me know what you think...
Improv I
Improv II
Improv III
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