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Wednesday 2 May 2018

Lisp, Jazz, Aikido, 10 years later

10 years ago, I published a short blog entitled "Lisp, Jazz, Aikido", barely scratching the surface of what I found to be commonalities between the 3 disciplines. At the time, I had the intuition that those ideas were the tip of a potentially big iceberg, and I ended the blog with the following sentence: "I'd like to write a proper essay about these things when I find the time... someday."

Well, 10 years later, I did. The essay, which is 50 pages long, has been published in the Art, Science, and Engineering of Programming Journal, and actually received the Reviewers'Choice Award 2018. I'm not the bragging type, far from it, but I had to mention this because this essay is so personal, and I invested so much in its preparation (more than 300 hours) that I am as deeply touched by the award as I would have been hurt, had it been negatively received...

The live presentation has unfortunately not been recorded, but I took the time to make a screencast afterwards, which is now available on YouTube. Just like the essay, this presentation is not in the typical setting that you'd expect at a scientific conference...

If you've got an artistic fiber, if you're sensitive to the aesthetic dimension in what you do, you may enjoy this work...

Saturday 20 February 2016

Yet another review of Roots and Leaves on All About Jazz

And a third review of my CD Roots and Leaves from Edward Blanco just appeared on All About Jazz. "A dynamic voice in the Jazz world today", "obvious mastery of the guitar", "the firm roots and foundation from which to develop the international recognition he so well deserves", I'll leave the rest for you to read !

Thursday 26 November 2015

New review for Roots and Leaves on All About Jazz

A new review of my CD Roots and Leaves from Chris Mosey just appeared on All About Jazz. "Dazzling guitar lines", "Pat Metheny tradition, but sunny and melodic", I'll leave the rest for you to read !

Friday 5 June 2015

Sounds and Patches from the Album "Roots and Leaves"

This article provides some information about the setup, sounds and patches that I used to record the album Roots and Leaves with the @-quartet.

General Setup

This album was recorded with my usual gear at the time: a Fractal Audio Axe FX II, a Roland GR-55, and this pedalboard for remote MIDI control. I used 4 different guitars: a Godin LGX-SA, a Godin Freeway-SA, a Godin ACS-SA and a Godin Multiac Nylon Fretless SA.

The album was recorded without any amplification. The Axe FX II was plugged directly into the console, and I used various amps and cabs simulations to get a realistic guitar sound. Note that this is also what I do on gigs nowadays (I don't use actual amplifiers anymore). Either there is stage amplification, in which case I plug my equipment into the mixer, or I use a couple of Matrix Q12a FRFR active monitors.

The GR-55 was used on several tunes for synth or COSM sounds only. I would be silly to use it for guitar sounds when you own an Axe FX II anyway! However, note that the GR-55 was not recorded separately from the Axe. It was plugged into the Axe's effects loop. This has two advantages: first, you get far better effects from the Axe, so even the synth sounds can benefit from those, and second, when mixing natural guitar and synth sounds (especially on lead and improvised parts), the whole output is much more coherent, as if a single source actually produced the sound in question. This, however, has an important consequence for those of you who will download the GR-55 patches provided below: all these sounds are "dry", meaning no leaking effects such as delays or reverbs. These are all generated by the Axe. There may be a slight chorus effect here and there, but that's basically it.

Sounds and Patches

Here are the Axe and GR-55 patches that I used on the album. Note that these patches won't necessarily work out of the box for you. Many parameters are dynamically controlled via MIDI. This includes Axe FX scene and effects selection, tempo, volume control, GR-55 PCM tone activation etc. The resulting sound also depends heavily on your input volume and the kind of guitar / pickup you use, not to mention the obligatory tweaks that took place in the studio. In general I find it silly to release patches without all that information, so I will try to be exhaustive. Also, for more details on my guitars, strings and picks, see this page.

Old Times and Monday Morning

  • Axe FX Patch
  • Godin LGX-SA, neck pickup, humbucker position

This is a Scofield-like sound with a slight overdrive (scene 4) or a more important distortion (scene 5). Amp setting is Y.

Circulocentrique

This one is based on the one above, with the addition of a GR-55 synth sound plugged into the Axe's effects loop.

Vert de Blues

  • Axe FX Patch
  • Godin LGX-SA, neck pickup, humbucker position

This is a very dark and dry, Metheny-like sound. Picture the Metheny / Holland / Haynes trio rather than the PMG. Very acoustic, not much reverb.

Coconette and Hints, Tips, Tricks'n Cheats

  • Axe FX Patch
  • Godin ACS-SA, flat EQ (Coconette)
  • Godin Multiac Nylon Fretless, flat EQ (Hints, Tips, Tricks'n Cheats)

This is a sound suited to acoustic nylon guitars, with very little processing.

Petite Mort

  • Axe FX Patch
  • Godin ACS-SA, flat EQ, for the first theme
  • Godin LGX-SA, neck pickup, humbucker position, for the chorus and the final theme

This is a double patch actually, since I use two different guitars on this song. It merges the acoustic nylon sound above with a Metheny-like, warm Jazz sound (think PMG this time). This is also a nice example of how to use scenes for making two very different patches in one.

Minor Nuisance and YYAB

This sound is in the vein of Metheny's mix of natural and GR-300 narrow sound. The natural sound is close to the dark Jazz one, and the GR-55 provides a trumpet background. MIDI controller #77 pitch switches the PCM tone on the GR-55.

Mister Crusoé

This is a classic Metheny-esque GR-300 Horn-like sound, although a pale imitation of it. The GR-55 is not very good at it, especially with piezo-equiped guiitars. And yes, I do have an embedded filter in the GR-55. Anyway, as this is a GR-55 only sound, the Axe is only here to provide effects. MIDI controller #77 pitch switches the PCM tone on the GR-55 and there's also a pitch shift block on the Axe (at some point, I was comparing both methods to shift by one octave).

Maroc

  • Axe FX Patch as above
  • GR-55 Patch
  • Godin Freeway SA, bridge pickup, humbucker position

This is also a synth-only sound, with two different synth tones for the themes and the chorus. In fact, I think that I actually merged with the natural guitar sound slightly in the studio (on the themes, not the chorus), but I'm not sure that the settings here are up to date. MIDI controller #78 switches between the two PCM tones on the GR-55.


That's it I think. Enjoy!

Thursday 5 February 2015

JazzActu interview

For the release of my new album Roots and Leaves, Bob Garcia invited me to a video interview (in French) for JazzActu, his online Jazz magazine. Thanks Bob !

The interview is here.

Friday 28 November 2014

The @-quartet, live at the M8 Live Club, Mainz, Germany

Here is a video with excerpts from our gig at the M8 Live Club, Mainz, Germany. Songs from both our albums "@-quartet" and the newest one "Roots and Leaves".

Saturday 1 November 2014

Roots and Leaves officially released!

After more than one year of hard work, the second album of the @-quartet, my band as a leader, guitarist and composer, is finally out!

The album offers 11 brand new original compositions brilliantly served by a dream team rhythm section: Laurent Epstein (piano), Yoni Zelnik (upright bass) and David Georgelet (drums).

The album is now for sale on my website and has also reached Amazon and iTunes already. There is currently a special offer for the purchase of both @-quartet albums.

I hope you will enjoy the music!

Sunday 9 March 2014

Accouchement

Entendre jouer ses compositions pour la première fois, par de vrais musiciens (talentueux, qui plus est), c'est un peu comme un accouchement.

Une composition latente est un bébé qui grandi dans le ventre de sa mère. Elle mûri lentement mais sûrement, on interagi déjà un peu avec elle. Il y a l'idée que l'on s'en fait, mais en même temps, on sait que cette idée est floue, imprécise. Comme un bébé, cette composition a déjà sa vie propre. Lorsque l'on n'y pense pas, elle continue de grandir toute seule dans son coin et par moments, elle se rappelle à nous, sans que l'on ne s'y attende. Comme un bébé, une composition n'est pas tout à fait visible. Elle conserve une certaine part de mystère, bien cachée dans son ventre, et l'on ne sait pas vraiment comme elle va sortir...

Et puis un jour, elle est jouée pour de vrai, elle montre enfin son vrai visage. Entendre jouer sa composition pour la première fois, c'est un émerveillement. Le même que celui de voir enfin son bébé au grand jour. Elle vit, elle est aussi belle que dans nos rêves, plus belle encore, mais pourtant différente. Elle n'est pas seulement notre produit. Elle n'est pas seulement à nous. Elle a quelque chose de plus, qui vient d'on ne sait où. Un mystère. Un peu comme si elle existait déjà avant que l'on ne l'écrive.

Alors, on la joue, on l'écoute, on se remémore la grossesse, son histoire, et l'on a envie de recommencer...

Monday 30 December 2013

The @-quartet's 2nd album is on the way. Please help crowdfund it !

Dear readers,

it's been a while since I gave any musical news, but that was only the calm before the storm... The year 2014 is going to be particularly lively, as the @-quartet is brought back to life, with:

  • 11 new and entirely original compositions,
  • a team renewed for one half (*),
  • a first concert scheduled for the end of March in Germany, and I hope the first of a long series,
  • and last but not least... a second album currently underway!

This 2nd album project is also for me the opportunity to experiment with a modern form of auto-production: crowdfunding. You can help bring this project to life by contributing in advance to its funding. In exchange, you receive various rewards (the CD in avant-premiere, 2 CDs "packs", alternate takes that won't be on the record etc.).

If you want to know everything about the project and contribute to make it a reality, let's meet again on the funding site, at the following address:

http://www.kisskissbankbank.com/en/projects/quartet-the-second-album

This new album will be entitled "Roots and (then he) Leaves", and it needs you to grow! Thank you so much, and happy new year celebrations!

Footnotes: (*) 3 exceptional musicians form the rythm section in the quartet: Laurent Epstein, piano, Yoni Zelnik, doublebass, and David Georgelet, drums.

Friday 19 April 2013

Resistance is futile. You will be jazzimilated.

This morning, I played a little with the Gimp 2.8...

DVLBorg.jpg

Thursday 6 September 2012

How to rack-mount a GR-55

Plate.jpgThis article demonstrates a nice trick to rack-mount the GR-55 by Roland. The idea is to do this in a non-intrusive way, that is, without drilling any new holes in the GR-55 or even removing the rubber pads. In order to do this, we will first manufacture (thanks dad for the actual manufacturing :-) a small metal plate that will serve both for holding the GR-55 and for fixation on the flight-case rails. See the picture on the right. The plate need not be very thick, as the overall rigidness will be provided once everything is in place. This particular one is less than a millimeter thick.

Fixing the plate to the flight-case rails is pretty straightforward. What might be less obvious is how to fix the GR-55 to the plate, in a non-intrusive way. If you look at the GR-55's underside, you will notice that there are six screws on the border, but also two other screws more in the middle of the device. These are the ones we are interested in. Indeed, if you open up the GR-55, you will notice that contrary to the other screws, these ones provide a solid grasp right into the chasis. This is illustrated by the pictures below.

Underside.jpgInside.jpg

So we can just use those to fix the GR-55 to the plate, and that will be enough. We need to replace the original screws with longer ones though (4mm diameter). Here are some pictures of the GR-55 fixed on that plate, and a final one with the whole thing rack-mounted. As you can see, the plate is narrow enough to fit between the rubber pads. Pretty cool huh?

Fixed_top.jpgFixed_side.jpgFixed_bottom.jpgRack_mounted.jpg

If you are interested in doing this, here is the schematics of the plate that I've designed. The exact dimensions should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt, as there were some variations when the plate was actually folded into shape. Enjoy, and happy tinkering !

Oh, one more thing. Maybe you're wondering why the hell we would want to rack-mount a pedalboard... here is the explanation.

Thursday 29 September 2011

10 steps to a new pedalboard

This article describes the construction of my new MIDI floor control setup. With a bit of tinkering, you can get a pretty solid rack-style board for a rather cheap price (nota bene: the devices are expensive, the board is not). You can click on the pictures below to get a larger view.

The 10 steps

Step 1

1.JPGLet's start with the pieces: the board's brain is a Gordius Little Giant Module. There's going to be a Behringer FCB-1010 MIDI foot controller attached to it, plus one Boss FS-6 dual footswtch and 3 Boss FS-500H expression pedals. The devices will be fixated on a plywood board, covered with Skaï and consolidated with U-shaped aluminium bars. The plywood board is only 8mm thick, but that's more than enough because rigidity will come from both the devices screwed on the board, and the aluminium bars riveted around it.

Step 2

3.JPGFirst, we need to remove the rubber skates from some of the devices. The whole thing will already be high enough without them. Next, we need to position the devices at their exact place and put down some markings.

Step 3

4.JPGHere's the clever step. Some people do complicated things with velcro straps and what not to fix their foot pedals in some way or another. My idea is to simply use 4 already existing screw holes under each device, and simply screw them back through the board itself (with longer screws). The only difficulty is to drill the board in a very precise manner. The trick is simple: put some fresh ink on the 4 appropriate screws under each device, put the device back into place and press it slightly on the board. You'll get the exact markings where you need to drill on the board !

Step 4

5.JPGNext step: prepare to cut the Skaï for both sides of the board. Note that the board has already been drilled.

Step 5

6.JPGIn order to stick the Skaï onto the board, you can buy a special glue for this in spray. This is very convenient to use and also much faster to do.

Step 6

7.JPGYou need to put some weight on the board and wait for some time in order for the Skaï to be firmly sticked to it. Do it on both sides, by the way. And while we wait, be sure to take a good look at the new building that is being constructed right in front of my apartment.

Step 7

10.JPGOK. Now that the glue is dry, it's time to saw the U-shaped bars, put them around the board and rivet them once and for all. This thing is beginning to look nice...

Step 8

11.JPGLet's leave the board alone for a while. Before fixating the gear on top of it, we have some work to do. The first thing is to turn the FCB-1010 into a dumb slave for the Gordius Little Giant Module (as if the FCB-1010 wasn't dumb enough already). This is done by replacing the original ship with the one supplied with the LGM.

Step 9

12.JPGWe also need to mount the FS-6 on a couple of flat angle brackets. That is because it is going to be positioned behind the FCB-1010 (on top of the power plug) so it needs to be raised a little.

Step 10

16.JPGAnd voilà! Cherry on the cake: let's install a couple of black handles on both sides of the board, for easy grabbing and transporting.

Some final pictures

Here are some final pictures of the whole thing. I enjoyed myself like a little boy !

14.JPG 15.JPG 15bis.JPG 13bis.JPG

Sunday 25 September 2011

Taming Harmony: an example

Printemptation ScoreThis article comes from a Guitar Live challenge on my composition « Printemptation » from the album @-quartet. It was an improvisation challenge that some people found difficult (to be honest, it was !). In this article, I'm transcribing some advice I gave on the occasion as well as my personal view on the way to approach delicate scores and on the fundamental ingredients that make an improvisation worth listening to. This is mostly about the semantic aspects of improvisation (Cf. the article The (natural) Language of Improvisation). You can click on the icon on the right to download the score of this tune. You can also download the tune itself from tyhe album's page.

General presentation

Printemptation is an interesting composition from the perspective of improvisation because, although based on very common harmonic figures in Jazz (as a matter of fact, in the whole occidental music), it comes with two major difficulties.

By reading the score, you will notice that this tune is almost exclusively built on top of II V I's, either major or minor. II V I is indeed the most frequent harmonic progression in Jazz, and is actually the unavoidable grounding for all occidental music (the well know principle of tension/resolution). To play with this figure is probably the first thing that you learn when you begin improvisation. So, if the Occident is so familiar with II V I's, where are the difficulties ?

The first one is that this tune moves a lot. If you sequentially "unfold" it, let alone the "reprise" (what's the word in English?), you can count no less than eleven different keys. The second one is that the rhythmic figure changes at two different places, introducing 3/4 bars.

Approaching the harmony

As far as the harmonic progression is concerned, and given that improvising on II V I's is not very challenging, it is more important here to master the key changes than the different keys themselves. By the way, this is one of my musical creeds: what makes the quality of an improvisation is not so much the phrases than how they are articulated together. A sequence of "correct" but unrelated phrases is uninteresting. On the other hand, a logical link that makes your phrases relate to each other turns your improvisation into a true musical story, with an opening, a "middle" and an ending. That's where musicality is found.

You will also notice that the tune's theme is representative of this idea by itself: the pattern expressed in the first 3 bars is almost constantly repeated, only under different shapes (different harmonic contexts), that contribute to unify all the encountered keys, by giving them a common logic...

Approaching the rhythm

As far as the rhythmic subtleties are concerned: in occidental music, we are more accustomed to key changes than rhythmic ones. One should then pay attention not to be destabilized by the incursion of the 3/4 bars. Besides, the improvisation must be sufficiently in "harmony" with the rhythm changes so that those bars do not sound like a fifth wheel. When you listen to the tune, these measures don't sound weird (at least I hope not!). They sound natural, and that must be the case while improvising. In other words, they should be well integrated in their 4/4 environment.

However, those are indeed 3/4 bars, and should stand as such. A gross mistake would be for instance to consider bars 13, 14 and 15 (3/3, 3/3 and 2/4) as two 4/4 bars ! Although it amounts to the correct number of beats, this is definitely not the spirit of the tune...

Harmony and the notion of transition

After this general presentation, I think it is interesting to give more details about my personal vision of how to approach harmony, and above all, the notion of transition which is to me at the heart of the improvised discourse.

Taming the tune's harmony

First of all, don't be too frightened by the complexity of the chords (at least in a first step). In a Jazz score, the embellishments are often here to provide hints about the spirit of the theme, and because the theme is itself embellished at the melodic level.

Jazz musicians like to embellish, and even modify the chords at will, but then, you have to pay attention to "clashes" with the melody, when it is written (hence in particular with song themes). For instance, say I have a CM7 to play, but I'm bored, so I decide to add a 5b (I often do that, in fact). However, that's too bad for me but the guy playing the theme has to play a natural 5th, or worse, a 5# at the same time. There, we have a clash. In order to avoid that, it is important to note these embellishments in the score because they appear in the melody, and hence writing them down will prevent your accompanist from taking too much liberty. In the Printemptation score for instance, you may notice that I felt the need to write down some minor 7 chords as minor 7/9. No need for a high school grade to know that the 9th adds up nicely to a minor 7 chord, but I still wrote it down because the theme plays with it a lot. Another example: on bar number 7, the Db-7 is noted 11. Why ? Because the theme plays this 11th note. So that is an important embellishment.

Now, when you go from theme accompaniment to improvisation, that is another story. Everyone embellishes, substitutes at will... that's the whole point of Jazz. Of course, there is a risk of harmonic clash, but that risk is part of the game, and when there is a real complicity between the musicians, harmonic (or even rhythmic) ideas might come collectively. In other words, for the improvisation part, don't bother sticking to the "official" embellishments too much; that is not the point. Besides, as already mentioned by one of the participants, the chords played by Guillaume Naud behind my solo do not exactly match the score... but who cares ? What's important is the overall idea. Again, it's like a conversation actually: most of the time, you can remember the general sense of a conversation, but you wouldn't remember the exact words people said. So in a first step, make your life simpler: consider a sequence of II V I's and play with them. Your work shall then begin with spotting them in the score.

When a chord is embellished (but thought as part of a particular mode), there are two kinds of embellishments: internal and external ones. External ones are very important because they change the nature of the original chord. Hence you must respect them. The others are inherently obvious. You can use them anytime.

Example: if you see a C6/9 coming in the II V I in C, there's nothing new under the sun, really. Why ? Because in this II V I, you'd play Ionian C (C D E F G A B) as on a CM7, and the 6th and the 9th are already part of this mode. So a C6/9 in this context is just a CM7 that's showing off. All the notes are usable (read: do not change the spirit of the chord). There's one exception though (otherwise, there would be no fun): the F clashes a bit. It belongs to what's called "avoid notes": a note that you'd rather not play, or only transitionally. In the same way, a D-7/9/11 as the second degree of a II V I is nothing else but a basic minor 7 because both the 9th and the 11th belong to the mode already.

However, if the chord is now a CM7b5, the harmony suddenly gets more subtle because the b5 does not belong to the mode, so the "idea" behind the chord changes radically.

Taming a transition

Here is one last piece of advice. This is a trick I use a lot when I work on key changes (recall that I consider that very important). Between two keys, there are what I call "fixed points" and "semi-fixed points". Fixed points are notes that are common to both keys. Semi-fixed points are notes that move by only one half-tone. In order to master a key change, you must first play with the fixed points, and then the semi-fixed ones. These are true logical links in your discourse. So when I have a hard time with a particular key change, I sequence the transition, write down the modes, figure out the (semi-)fixed points, and play on them for hours until they become natural, completely digested.

In the end, improvising is simply like speaking a natural language (Cf. the article The (natural) Language of Improvisation) in which you need logical links in what you express. For instance, if I say: "I went to the store yesterday, and Resident Evil is really a crappy movie" you will have a hard time understanding what I meant or why I said such a thing, although both parts of the sentence are correct (and true BTW). However, if I say: "I went to the store yesterday; there was this big Resident Evil poster on the wall. Oh boy, what a crappy movie !" Then, everything becomes clear: you have explained how you got from point A (the store) to point B (a comment on a film). That's because the poster is a fixed point: it belongs to both contexts (keys).

That's it. And remember: Resident Evil is a crappy movie.

Friday 23 September 2011

The (natural) Language of Improvisation

Continue reading...

Thursday 7 July 2011

The Roland guitar-synth con

Note: Godin Guitars (OFFICIAL) censored me on Facebook for this blog. I do not "like" Godin Guitars (OFFICIAL) on Facebook anymore.

Roland Canada recently launched a guitar synth challenge. The idea is to make a 5 minutes video exhibiting a Roland guitar synth product in action, and the top three winners get an admittedly neat price (Godin guitar + Roland GR + Cakewalk software product).

Even if I were a Canadian, I wouldn't participate in this challenge. This is not a challenge but a con (and this is not the first time Roland does something like this).

If you read carefully the contest regulations, you will find this:

By entering the Roland Guitar Synth Challenge, entrants agree to grant Roland Canada Ltd., its affiliates, partners, subsidiaries and authorized representatives worldwide the right to capture and use their video entry, name, likeness, image or voice in photographic, audio, video, digital or other forms of media (the Media). They also recognize that the Media shall remain at all times the sole property of Roland Canada. They understand and acknowledge that the Media may be used without restriction by Roland Canada Ltd., its affiliates, partners, subsidiaries and authorized representatives worldwide for commercial promotional purposes and acknowledge that they shall receive no compensation of any kind for the use or non‐use of the Media. They also acknowledge and hereby waive any right to inspect or approve the Media or the eventual use to which the Media may be applied.

So in essence, what this means is that every participant is kindly invited to offer Roland the best advertisement video clip they can come up with, for them, and for free of course. The first top three will get a modest compensation and the others will have Roland's eternal gratitude for their hard work (that they will be able to use aggressively without any restriction whatsoever). This is a hell of a marketing campaign. And a cheap one for sure.

The other contest regulations are just as aggressive as this one. For example:

Entries that contain prohibited or inappropriate content as determined by Roland Canada, in its sole discretion, will be disqualified.

Obviously. I wonder, for example, what would happen to an entry exhibiting the use of a clever pedalboard (such as the combination of a Beringher FCB-1010 and a Gordius LGM) instead of an FC-300. I wonder what would happen if in your video, you made a zoom on a rack containing not only a GR product but also an Axon 100 MIDI converter...

So thanks but no thanks. I won't be enrolled into free marketing for a company from which I need to buy products. And for those of you potential participants who think they could get some notoriety out of this, think again: in which circles do you want to be notorious? Amongst other geek musicians or amongst your audience that knows squat about musical instruments?

Roland is in fact well known for this kind of perverted "have your cake and eat it" trickery. Roland is also known for explicitly not doing endorsement deals (no surprise here). When you go to a concert and see a synth with its brand name blacked out, you can bet pretty easily which brand is hidden behind the rubber tape. Remember folks, Roland is not friend with musicians. Roland is a corporation. No matter what, Roland is, and always be... the BOSS. :-)

Thursday 14 January 2010

Computers in Music

What's most important in music is the human emotions and interactions in it right ? There is a side of so-called "contemporary jazz" where musicians end up doing more loops and sequences than actually playing something. This makes music boring and cold to me.

But perhaps not after all. I've just had a glimpse at Pat Metheny's Orchestrion project. I find this absolutely fascinating, and also somewhat worrying. What happens when you remove human interaction from music, especially Jazz ?

Perhaps what's more intriguing is this kind of music being successful (in terms of people actually enjoying it). I got the same sort of feeling when I heard an incredible piece of classical music composed by a computer generated virtual mix of Mozart and whomever else, at the MIT's media lab.

If computers can be as successful as humans at creating music, then it sort of shakes the ground on which I built my passion for this art.

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Pick Longevity

Yesterday, I blew my favorite pick. For good this time. A Dean Markley H. And I suddenly realized I'd been playing with it for... 15 YEARS !!

15 years. Who can beat me at pick longevity ?

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Paul Brochu

So, after more than 25 years of being a fan, I thought I knew everything about Uzeb, including the more technical aspects of their performance (synth control from the 3 of them etc).

And then, here am I, watching the "Last Concert" video, and suddenly noticing that on one of the tunes, Paul Brochu also triggers some "Orchestra Hit"-like synth sound with the elbow !!

Amazing. I'm almost upset...

Thursday 12 February 2009

Master Class section on didierverna.com

Today, I eventually took the time to do something I've had in mind for months: I opened a "Master Class" section on the website.

This section will collect various thoughts, essays, or technical advice about music (my own or other's), jazz, improvisation or any other topic closely or remotely connected. I've already had many occasions for talking about these things, so I thought it would be a good idea to gather all this material in one place.

The section has already started with a first article entitled "The (natural) language of improvisation". I hope you will find this of some interest !

Thursday 22 November 2007

@-quartet CD review in All About Jazz

From the review:

Verna is a force of nature. He has the technique and talent to take it to another level.

That's the best part of it. The rest is... well, not all reviews are bound to be good, right? On the other hand, eventhough I find it a bit severe, I must admit that I mostly agree with what it says... At least, somebody speaks of the album on this important site.

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