Frozen Moments

Released on October 18th, 2019.

The Frozen Moments project was inspired by the discovery that I could create new sounds from instruments played by the wind and water and by a new baritone guitar.

 

I’ve been inventing string instruments based on the guitar but played by either water rushing over the strings or by the wind whistling through them. I first started experimenting with these new sounds on my RIVER cd. Since then I’ve built two new instruments excited by water. The sounds made by these instruments is all over the Frozen Moments project. The sound is meditative, introspective and feral. 

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Playing a guitar that is tuned much lower than a standard guitar requires a very different approach to playing and composing. When I pick up a guitar for the first time she tells me what to do. And she told me to play slowly and to seek out melody; to savor the moment and not be afraid to linger in the moment. Low pitches need to breathe; they need more musical space. 

 

River Speak 1 and 2 feature the water guitar sounds. I wanted to write some music that would be like a conversation between the river and myself. 

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There is a soothing and meditative quality about these sounds, but also a lot of dynamic and tonal variation - very organic.

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I played a really low tuned baritone on a recent trip to Germany.  That experience triggered emotions I didn’t know I had. It was like someone unlocked a secret door into my soul and I knew then that I had to have one. Composing and performing on a baritone requires a different approach. Strumming doesn’t work and many of the traditional chord forms just sound too muddy. The instrument lets you know right away what is going to work and what isn’t. 

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Nearly everything on this project is singable, even the improvisational sections. I’m a sucker for melody. It’s a gift that you can take home and live with and that is what I look for in music. What does it make you feel and what sticks with you? 

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The Backstory

The collection of music on Frozen Moments was inspired by a new baritone guitar I had commissioned from a German luthier, Max Spohn. While visiting him in the spring of 2018 I had a chance to play a baritone (tuned a perfect 5th lower than a conventional guitar) and I was shocked at the floodgate of emotion that this instrument released in me. This guitar unlocked some rooms in my soul I didn’t know I had. 

 

There is something about low notes that suggests a deep sense of calm, majesty, truthfulness, and grandeur, like an Ansel Adams landscape. You can bask in the richness and all is well with the world. Low notes need more space and have to breathe more than high notes. I found myself overwhelmed by the richness and depth of sound, which suggested songs that are on the slower side. 

 

The other instrument that is used extensively on Frozen Moments is another baritone guitar. It differs from the other in that it isn’t tuned down as low; a major 3rd lower than a normal guitar. With this instrument I was able to play denser passages as heard in cut #2 Shadow Crossing. 

 

All instruments have limitations from a compositional perspective and that’s a good thing. During the writing process I found that many of my “normal” guitar chords didn’t actually work on the Spohn baritone. Why? Well, playing low notes close together produces musical mush. The clarity is gone and with it the emotion of the sound; like over cooking cauliflower. Give those low notes some room to move and add one or two higher notes and you’ve got a perfect musical landscape to explore.

 

Over the past couple of years (2018-19) I’ve been creating guitar-like instruments that can be partially immersed in a fast flowing stream or held aloft and “strummed” by the wind. The water courses over the strings and causes them to vibrate. The sounds produced are sometimes eerie and haunting and at other times extremely languorous and peaceful. It has been incredibly refreshing and inspirational to work with these sustainably harvested new sounds. I’m stimulated and challenged to find new ways to use the sounds and given the ability to modify them if needed in the computer further multiplies the options. Another benefit is that I get out into the treasure trove of wild waters we have here in Oregon. 

 

The motivation for creating these instruments lies in my desire to have the water and wind speak to me other than through the normal sound of water-over-rocks and wind-in-the-trees. I needed some translators. Since I’m a guitar player my first thought was to modify a guitar to be able to translate the sound of wind and water. (Like the carpenter who sees the world through a hammer, I see it with a string.) I’m not opposed to hitting the things as well. I build them in my basement worksop which is outfitted pretty well from a primitive mechanics perspective. As the saying goes, I know enough to be dangerous.

 

Sometimes I bow the instruments with a modified section of bicycle inner tube. This produces a more conventional cello-like sound and is great for creating a warped string quartet type of sound. 

 

The water guitar sounds are featured on River Speak pt.1 & 2 as well as on The Dawning Moment. With the two River Speak pieces I was really thinking of how I could compose in a way that would create a kind of conversation with the river, leaving lots of space for the rivers sounds to evolve. Most people will think these “pads” were created by a synthesizer, but there are no synthesizers on any of these songs. The sounds created by the water coursing over the strings have a wonderful organic sense: dynamic in volume, pitch, and overtone content. 

 

Triggering the strings with wind produces an entirely different sound. Overtones abound, which creates a much brighter sound than those created by water. The hydraulic stimulus tends to dampen the overtones and softer sounds result. The wind guitar was featured prominently on cut #8 The Falls from my River cd (Heart Dance Records 2018).

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