Guitar Stuff
In addition to my profile as a musicologist and researcher, I am also an active musician. I regularly play gigs as a solo classical guitarist and constantly expand my repertoire for my own enjoyment. I also often play new works for solo guitar or chamber ensemble. This page mainly includes videos and audio recordings of my solo work, but will also feature chamber music when the guitar is central.
EP Three Hockets with Marguerite Brown
My most recent guitar project benefited from a collaboration with composer-guitarist Marguerite Brown. When we were both living in Santa Cruz, CA we began playing duets together and worked up three pieces that fit together so nicely we decided to produce an EP. Three Hockets includes James Tenney's Harmonium #2, David Mahler's Only Music Can Save Me Now, and a new composition by Brown entitled Duet. Each piece is composed for two guitars, but not the same two guitars or even tuning systems! Harmonium is now a kind of standard within new music and microtonal circles. It's written for two electric guitars tuned a sixth tone apart. This tuning creates interesting harmonic possibilities explored throughout the piece. The guitars consistently interlock throughout to maximize the possible tonal make up of a given harmony seamlessly. Brown's Duet similarly explores the mis-matched tunings of two guitars, but uses unconventionally fretted instruments to do it. I played on a Lou Harrison Just Intonation Resophonic Guitar, tuned to a seven-limit Just scale famously designed by Harrison. Brown plays a classical guitar she refretted for a new tuning she designed called "Daisy." The guitars share just one tone, an equal tempered "E" (low open string), and the rest are all unique tones. Mahler's Only Music Can Save Me Now is a minimalist classic from the 1970s composed for solo piano and arranged here for two classical guitars. In the original the left hand holds down a ground bass while the right hand moves through different cells, interlocking with the left hand to create interesting (and beautiful) composite melodies. We arranged these two hands parts for two guitars and detuned one guitar to approximate the fullness of a grand piano. margueritebrown.bandcamp.com/album/3-hockets
Solo Album Songs and Dances
Songs and Dances was released in 2012 and includes an eclectic range of music from Baroque dances to the 20th century. Click the image to be directed to an online store to purchase the digital or physical CD release. Here are a few choice tracks as a sample:
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Piece for Guitar (For Stella) by Cornelius CardewThis project shows one intersection of my performance and scholarship. Investigating Cornelius Cardew's little piece for solo guitar guitar, I created four different methods of realizing the composition paired with a historical narrative about the piece. Cardew's score consists of 16 phrases, labeled A–P, and the instructions "Play with these pieces. Over and Over. Change anything. Add and take away." These open ended instructions pose intriguing questions and possibilities for the performer. Each of my four realizations represents a different level of performer control, ranging from a strict score created by change operations to a free improvisation/meditation on the material Cardew provides. Included here are recordings of my realizations made in 2014 along with the text of my research paper providing historical background and details about how I made these realizations.
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