And what's more... my Perry Project recital is tomorrow! Check out the program below, or even better, come and see us. I've made my usual batch of fudge (although it's a little crumbly).
Concert season is in full swing! Lots of stuff going on between Swing Memories, Silveridge Pops and the Mesa City Band. I've updated the swing band's webpage with a YouTube clip of music and still-shots. Check it out here. And what's more... my Perry Project recital is tomorrow! Check out the program below, or even better, come and see us. I've made my usual batch of fudge (although it's a little crumbly).
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I've had three gigs with Swing Memories in the past week. Here's a collage of photos taken of our Veteran's Day event and a snippet of a recording from the same. I have finally finished preparing my New Guinea music web pages. Even after making web-pages for a little over a year now it hasn't gotten any easier. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with them, but I'm certain that I'll be correcting things and adjusting things as they occur to me. Take a look and let me know what you think!
The Music of Papua New Guinea In other news, all of my performing groups are up and running again: • Swing Memories has our first gig at the VFW this coming Saturday (11/5). • The Mesa City Band has another concert coming at the end of the month. * The Silveridge Pops is rehearsing and getting ready for our first concerts in December. • The Sunland Singers are off to a good start and working hard for our Dec.15th concert. • I'm writing & arranging music for St. Mark's next Taize service on Dec. 18th. • And, of course, I'm getting students & colleagues ready for the next Perry Project rectial, on December 10th. I'm sure there's some other things that I should post here, but I won't think of them until later. Keep making music! Well, the Fall season has begun which means lots of rehearsals and concerts not far behind. I've started rehearsals with the Mesa City Band a few weeks ago and just today I had my second rehearsal with the Sunland Singers. It's definitely fun to be involved with a choir again! Swing Memories has been rehearsing every other week during the summer, but starting next week we're back to every Monday. Finally the Silveridge Pops will be up and running by the end of October.
Meanwhile all my other little projects are chugging along. (Sometimes slower than I'd like, but always progressing little-by-little). I've begun getting music ready for the Winter Recital. I've got some neat stuff I'm writing that we'll include: a piece for the Tempe Guitar Trio as well as a few for the Woodwind Quartet. And, of course, my students are working hard on their own pieces as well! Just to follow up on a previous story: The Happy Birthday 'flash-mob' went really well. We gave her a BIG surprise at the school where she teaches. She had no idea we were coming, and to top off the fun experience, several of her family members showed up from out of state. Anyway, I gave her a framed copy of my ragtime Happy Birthday arrangement. What's more is several of the band members said that we ought to use it at our concerts when we know someone in the audience is having a birthday. It could be a Mesa Band 'signature' piece. Now I just want to touch it up some more... add some more parts... maybe another section... My one-year mark has come and gone with little fanfare. I have thought about this fact in the past weeks, even if I am only now just writing about it. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with what has happened since last September when I first put this site together. First of all I have been blessed with lots of musical opportunities; I have met and worked with some great musicians in the past year. I love all the groups which I direct and play with. What's more, I've had the chance to write dozens of compositions and arrangements. I've had the opportunity to arrange and record tons of pieces (67 and counting) for St. Mark's... Anyway, I couldn't be happier with the way things have gone this past year. Most of all, I'm grateful to everyone who has stood with me as I figure out this new phase of my life. I love that my friends and family have been so supportive. (Thanks!) Anyway, enough looking back. I like to keep looking forward. Here's to another great year! I was recently asked if I could arrange "Happy Birthday" for small band to be performed 'flash-mob' style for a friend. At first I made a simple, basic arrangement. But then, I couldn't help wanting to do something more fun. Here's the result: A basic birthday song, with a bit of ragtime thrown in. :-)
Today I posted another piece for my student jazz album, Rubber, Meet Road. I really enjoy writing these short pieces. It's very satisfying to begin and end a project in a relatively short period of time. They're also fun to play.
On a personal note, it's good to get back into a working rhythm. We travelled a lot this summer and just returned from our latest trip this past Friday. Anyway, no more trips planned for a while (at least until October). Now I can finally start checking things off of my to-do list. One of the recordings that I'm digitizing is of a New Guinea musician known as Blasius to Una. He even has a (very) short Wikipedia entry (here). He seems to be a bit of a character. He sings and speaks in Pidgin, so sometimes English words pop up in his music. He also is quite fond of talking in the middle of his songs--very much like an American folk musician might make jokes and talk as a part of his performance. Anyway, his songs are a bit more "Westernized", if I may use that term. Here's one that I particularly like titled "Kunai Dumdum".
My aunt and uncle deal in art from New Guinea (link to their website), and recently they have asked me to digitize some New Guinea music that they have collected on cassette tapes. This process requires that I listen to the recordings several times as I first digitize the music and then edit it. It's pretty neat stuff; sometimes strange, sometimes beautiful. All of it evokes a culture very different from our own. Listening to this makes me appreciate the study of ethnic music a lot more (I have a friend who is an ethnomusicologist). Anyway, I'm including two tracks here. As I continue to finish the editing of the material (several hours worth) I may post more.
I've posted two new pieces in my album of jazz piano for students (RUBBER MEET ROAD). I wanted a picture of Maggie for the "Fat Cat Strut", but I didn't have any that were suitable. Maybe Anali can find one for me?
This was a particularly fun piece to write because, no matter what other music I play and enjoy, there will always be a little part of my musical heart that beats to a heavy metal riff. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to write the next Mars piece in a 80s rock idiom.
I'm very pleased with the way I got the raw image data to fit into a groove. Aside from the opening, which is just me vamping a few steel-string arpeggios and playing an opening electric guitar solo, the rest of the guitars you hear in the piece are all from the image data. Even the drum solos you hear are the image data mapped onto a set of tom-toms. The vocals are all me. :-) Go check it out! You'll have to scroll down to the bottom to see it: RETICULATED DUNES |
Chris PerryMusician & educator Archives
March 2015
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