Let's Try it a Second Time

Last summer at DJSS, a mysterious gentleman handed me this mysterious note:

He asked me to write a piece for him, using that sentence as the title. I slipped the tiny slip of paper into my tiny camera bag, where it remained for a few months. I hadn’t forgotten about it, I just forgot what it said and where I had put it.



When I did find it, I considered what to do with it. I pondered its meaning. I wondered about the word “second.” Use of repeats? Length of notes? The interval of a second, as in, a series of either whole or half steps? I came close to asking the author of the note (Michael Howard) about what he was implying, but decided I should just let it remain a mystery.

So I just started humming the sentence, to understand the rhythm of it. I noticed that “try” and “sec” had the most stress, so those syllables ended up landing on strong beats. The A section practically wrote itself, as they say. The piece begged for a B section, so I wondered what key it would move to. Up a second? Down a second? Neither worked, because the next section didn’t need to move anywhere. The feeling changed, but the key remained in A minor.

When I write with someone in mind, it gives me so much more material to work with, than to just write for an instrument or group of instruments. I know Michael’s sense of humor, I know how he plays the drums, and yet, this piece seemed to be revealing another side to him, the quiet tenderness that we only witness after he has had several glasses of champagne and has just about nodded off in his chair.

I pulled together a beautiful and sensitive band for the world premiere, featuring Dieuwke van Strein on flute, Irene Stroeer on alto sax, myself on piano, Martin Young on bass and of course, Michael Howard, stirring and brushing his drums.

Now that we’ve tried it, I look forward to playing it a second time, because Once is simply Not Enough.

View video of our performance at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMuf1m-aSkg

Countdown to Monteton - 5/4/3/2/1!

Probably the piece I was looking forward to playing at DJSS the most this year was a new one called “5/4/3/2/1,” written just after Dave Brubeck passed away. At that time, I was obsessed with his “Take Five,” and wondered if I could write something in 5/4 time that would sound as natural as his piece.

I came up with a seemingly simple and repetitive motive that worked itself around a 12-bar blues form, with one small twist in the harmony at measure 10. I instantly thought of Sandy Williams (Sandy is the exceptional guitarist on my new CD who is very open to experimentation) so I dedicated it to him, and was very proud when he said he loved it (esp. measure 10!) It’s hard to describe the feel with words, but to me, it has a hip vibe, like something from the 60’s. The word “beatnik” comes to mind. (I guess we should all wear berets when we play it. . . I wonder if Sandy ever wears a beret??) So it should be perfect for a concert in France!

I gathered a group of students and teachers to rehearse the piece. Afterwards, Ian, one of the great sax teachers, said to me, “It’s so hard – why did you write it in 5/4 time?” After my initial worry that no one will ever, ever want to play it, I remembered a discussion we had in the class that I lead at Anderson University for my composition students. Difficulty seems to raise the bar in our creativity. When we can’t solve something quickly, our minds actually get excited about the challenge. If it’s easy, I might be too bored with it and never finish, but if I’m puzzled and confused, I will probably keep going back to it.

The Monteton performance on July 22 was phenomenal, featuring Ian Bumstead and Tanguy Pellen on saxes, Jonathan Bratoeff on guitar, myself on piano, Ferg Ireland on bass and Guy Clapham on drums. Afterwards, I said to Ian, “That’s why I wrote it.” And he agreed that it was for a good reason.

Look how happy Ian Bumstead was!

You Say Nice and I Say Nice

There is nothing quite like having a little girl run to meet you when she sees you coming off the train. Aimee and her family took me to the quaint villages in Antibes and the hills above, and then back to their beautiful home in Valbonne. To get to the village, you can take a 30-minute walk through the forest. Sound dreamy? Yes, it was.

The first thing Aimee wanted to do was to play a game in their swimming pool with marbles, and see who could find the most. Being the competitive person that I am, I realized that I was losing skin on my knuckles because I’m scraping the bottom of the pool every time I make a grab. So the next time I played, I prissily plucked. (She beat me every time, by the way.)

After a wonderful dinner in the village, and a wonderful night’s sleep, and a wonderful French breakfast on their patio, we drove to Nice to visit a couple of my Monteton friends who teach at a Yamaha studio. Nice has the glorious coast on my right and many, many hotels on my left. It was refreshing (although hot) to walk through the old town, where you hear almost as much Italian as you do French, and see more Italian architecture.

It’s so great to see David and Johan at the studio. Seeing Monteton friends outside of Monteton helps Monteton feel more real, I guess. They were busy painting and prepping for fall, but David took a little time to play some blues with me.

I Didn’t Know It, But He Was a Poet

The great thing about traveling alone is meeting interesting people that you may not have talked to if you were with a companion. My next leg of the journey was to visit my 8-yr-old friend and piano student Aimee, who lives in the charming village of Valbonne, in the hills above Antibes, which is right on the Mediterranean coast.

But first, another 4-hour train ride, and this time, a smiling gentleman named Jean-Luc sat in the seat beside me. I never know exactly how to start the conversation, except to say the unexciting line of “do you speak English?” Which is what I said. It turns out that he was heading home after a poetry conference, where he was one of the presenters. (He told me this in English.) We had a wonderful conversation, talking about music, mainly. He said something about good music and good poetry connecting our hearts with our minds (except he said it even better, because he is a poet.)

If you read French and would like to read his writings:

http://loiseaudefeudugarlaban.blogspot.com/

Moanin' in Montpellier

Good-byes are painful in Monteton. Generally, we just say “see you next year” so that we can get through it. No crying from me. But after the tiredness of a four-hour train ride to the next city, the sound of a jazz guitar duo in the streets of Montpellier got me little teary. I found a sweet little restaurant that gave me the best view of the concert, and took my time eating, listening, and watching the little paper hearts that were scattered over the patio blow in the wind.

The concert took place here

Top photo: Not the concert, but you get the idea

Christian brings (even more) magic to Monteton

Last year, I met Christian, a jazz pianist from London preparing for his final year of college. We only had a couple of hours together, because he had just arrived for week 2, and my week was ending that night. But he seemed fascinated about my compositions, and I love to talk music talk, so we found a practice room where I could play and tell the stories behind the music. He was one of the best audiences I have ever had, listening and responding with great enthusiasm!

This year, he was back, now a graduate, and now, one of the teaching assistants at the school. He said that our conversation last year inspired him so much that he had been writing all year. Several of his innovative tunes were played during the week, too. Oh, and he’s a magician by trade. I’m hoping that he can magically transport me back to Monteton real soon!

One-O-Four is Smokin' Hot

It is two weeks until Monteton and the temperature in Indy is incredibly high, so I’m forced to stay inside and write. A fast tune with a Latin feel emerges, the melody falling mostly on offbeats. I get to a certain spot, about 8 bars in, and I can’t figure out what to do next. After several experiments that got me nowhere, I tried putting the idea in another key. It was amazing to me what a difference this made. The piece took on a whole new character just by having the 6th note in the tune go down one step lower than the original idea. Suddenly it’s slower, more sultry, with long, long melody notes. So, do I scrap what I first thought of and make this a slow piece, or is there a way to merge the two ideas? I tried, but . . . no. Instead, I made 2 different songs, inspired by the Indiana heat wave:
One-O-Four and Smokin' Hot Ballad.

I passed out music at the rehearsal for One-O-Four, and said I was open to changes or suggestions. But Ian, who is a great sax player and one of the teachers there, kept saying, no, let’s do it the way you wrote it. I had a 6-bar B section with a swing feel, which is a little unusual, so I didn’t know if they were going to like it for improvising on. But Ian said something like, "you made it different, and that’s what made it special." So great to have such encouraging words for my work.

Everyone put their hearts into the performance - they were hot, hot, hot! Afterwards, Irene came up to the stage with tears in her eyes. She had heard the two guitarists, Olivier and David, rehearsing in the afternoon, and said they were amazing. But she didn’t know that they were playing something I had written.

This is my beautiful and talented crew from the world premiere performance of “One-O-Four.” Back Row: Terry Knight/drums, Ian Bumstead/sax, Guy Clapham/percussion, Tanguy Pellen/trumpet, Olivier Coppi/guitar, me/piano, Nic France/bongos, David Besnard/guitar. Front Row: Ferg Ireland/bass

And the smokin’ hot players for the world premiere of “Smokin’ Hot Ballad.”
Dorian Lockett/DJSS director and bass player, me/piano, Ian Bumstead/sax, Quentin Collins/trumpet, Guy Clapham/drums, Jonathan Bratoeff/guitar.

One-O-Four (youtube video coming soon!)
Smokin’ Hot Ballad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=Kfr7LI0uGZY