Way back when I first started blogging, I posted some Musical Experimentation Thoughts. Innovation and experimentation in music is what I'm all about. I'm constantly looking to do something out of the box.
Not to be a gimmick. A gimmick is something that's done to wow people. It's smoke and mirrors for the sake of being smoke and mirrors. Sure live looping and guitar percussion can fall into that category, but with my playing, I use those elements because that's how I think.
I play guitar, but it's been a long time since I've looked at a guitar as a strummed instrument with which you can play pretty chords. And the more I play like this, the more I see other instruments having greater potential.
Like the piano. The post I mentioned earlier briefly talks about how I've prepared a piano. It was a lot of fun to prepare, as well as to write for. This past semester, Mark Hunsburger, Matt Wagner, and I have written for prepared piano. We've got a 3 piece suite consisting of guitar, percussion, and prepared piano.
As we're practicing tonight, I got to thinking. Has this ever been done before? Has anyone ever written for this arrangement? If it has, I doubt it's been done too much. Nothing on youtube with all three...
Then at one point Matt leaves. It's just guitar and drums - a typical pairing. I start to play with some delay and then some looping and then Mark joins in on drums. It's reminiscent of Russian Circles and Red Sparrowes - post rock icons. Then Matt gets back and joins in.
And then I realize - we just had the first post-rock jam to include a prepared piano. Ever.
The first ever. That's innovation. That's creativity. That's what music is about.
If you want a taste of it, Musica Nova is tonight (Tuesday) starting at 7:00pm in Climenhaga at Messiah College. It'll blow your mind.
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