Prepared Piano Piece No. 2 (1992) is an unscored, improvised work combining live performance and experimental tape technique. It was created and recorded the day after Vermilion. Both pieces are part of a set of short works for prepared piano(s) which, as it would turn out, were created three weeks before the death of John… Continue reading 1992+30: Prepared Piano Piece No. 2
Category: Memoir
1992+30: Vermilion
Vermilion (1992) was originally a song for two voices, two prepared pianos and household-object percussion, part of a set titled “Four Home Dubs” from my early 4-track cassette efforts. This instrumental presents the two prepared pianos on their own, digitized from the original master cassette 20 years later. The recording was made during a stay… Continue reading 1992+30: Vermilion
Chaos
“Chaos, Part II” was recorded through the condenser mic on a boom box in my family’s living room, thus the wildly uneven volume of the opening. It’s a barely finished sketch meant to be part of a suite on an impromptu, DIY, “pause-record” cassette album; by default, juvenilia. This was my musical childhood. I was already 18, but… Continue reading Chaos
2001+21: vale
vale (for three alto kalimbas, 2001) is a very simple piece. It consists of a melodic pattern which is built up in three-part harmony, followed by a mirror image of this process to create an arch form. It reaches its peak in a square 64 measures, inhabiting an intuitive, casual music space. It was composed… Continue reading 2001+21: vale
For Celine
For Celine (1995) was composed on the occasion of the birth of my brother’s first child, for whom the piece was named. It’s special in another way as well. It’s probably the first composition that is consistent with the general body of my work, though not necessarily an Opus 1. My focus as a musician… Continue reading For Celine
Sequences
Sequences (2000, rev. 2020) is scored for percussion and two marimbas. The title refers to sequences both in the sense of a musical phrase that repeats with a variation in pitch each time (in this case, with a variation in rhythm as well), and in the sense of an arrangement programmed electronically using a sequencer… Continue reading Sequences
95/25: Uhuru
Uhuru is a self-released album which was completed during the winter of 1995 and released in the fall. I had originally hoped to release it on CD but was unable to secure sufficient funds, so it arrived in a run of 100 cassettes. The program was over 70 minutes long, comprising mainly songs and instrumentals… Continue reading 95/25: Uhuru
90/30: Eccentricities
Eccentricities is a six-song, self-released cassette EP which emerged in the fall of 1990. I recall having 100 copies made and being satisfied with that level of dispersion; it was all I could afford in any case. In honour of the 30th anniversary, I present two of the songs here (with a third linked below).… Continue reading 90/30: Eccentricities
Black on Steve’s Birthday!
Iconic composer Steve Reich turns 84 today. He was recently alleged to have made some pointedly anti-Black racist remarks in the early 70s. Today is also a kind of late emergence for me; my first performance on a symphony orchestra program (albeit of a chamber work). As a child, I first heard the n-word, directed… Continue reading Black on Steve’s Birthday!
A Juneteenth Musing
The northern Great Lakes steel town took a big fat eraser to my Blackness. The adults had no way to acknowledge it because it exposed the cognitive dissonance of my existence in their world, and thus had no way to deal with the bullies, the rednecks and the N-wordage that swarmed around me like black… Continue reading A Juneteenth Musing
EL MAHBOOB 