From Spikes to an Easter[n] Bunny – the Sound-In event – 3/28 – 30

The Sound-In camp assembled at it’s usual virtual time and home on Thursday, March 28th at 4pm PST and the musical thread that connected 16 global musicians for their publishing of 48 new musical works never before heard or planned.  Often with the weekly event participating members creative works are created from just a couple days before to during the 2+ day event.

With this episode here is a piece from each artist who participated this weekend.  For the complete 48 track listing go to the Sound-In.org listening archive.

James Bailey
Silence
Bruce Hamilton
neeoos
Steve Moshier
Cautionary Reflex
Johnny & Faith
Waiting For Keyser Soze
Norbert Oldani
Budda Boy
Glenn Smith
I Got Pigs in my Goat House
Jim Goodin
The Forest for the Trees
William V. Newbold

Paul Mimlitsch
Gbrimpx32913-2
Shane W. Cadman
Piece032913 (an unused track)
Paul H. Muller
Short Fugue
Kavin.
ele voltou
Benjamin Smith
Ben.improv.Mar.23.2013
Roger “ErocNet” Sundström
Drifting Angel
Steve Moyes
MGE 1
Steve Layton
The Scribe Draws a Dancer in the Margin
The Eastern Bunny(feat. Chris Vaisvil x 2, Benjamin Smith, Paul Muller, Norbert Oldani)
Chris Vaisvil
Facebook, the Window of Basal Ganglia

Sound-In is a ‘new music’ online music community located at
http://sound-in.org
.  The weekly event begins each Thursday at @4pm PST and runs through 6pm PST on Saturday, inviting participating member musical and sound artists to post work(s) under Creative Commons agreement for public listening and downloading.  Consider joining us if you are a ‘new music’ musical artist.  View the site FAQ for information.  Sound-In was founded by Seattle based composer J.C. Combs.

Soundingly yours -

Jim Goodin, Wood and Wire Music

Strings, horsehair and ‘new music’, from Wood and Wire Music

Though i’ve been remiss in keeping things going on the blog the music goes on and on with me, redefining and rediscovering and just continuing the muse as I can.  Two recent recordings both share a connection with the electric violin, an instrument I’ve felt driven to spend time with the last 4 years but at the same time have had yen/yang with it.  I am a guitarist of many years and that core I defined rather intensively pursuing a solo fingerstyle approach for many of those years driven by the stylings of the late Michael Hedges, who though left the planet sadly much too soon, influenced many as he did me.  That said since about 2005/6 I’ve been expanding, feeling some that the solo fingerstyle path I had sown needed a ‘rest’.  I was feeling the need to grow, to expand, to experiment as my musical tastes and influences have always been wide.

So with that going on the violin, fiddle as I often call it entered my psychy on Fathers Day in 2007 when asked what I wanted for ‘my day’ I suggested to my wife a cheap electric violin from eBay and so it happened.  I had a bout previously with the violin while I was living in my native Arkansas, experimenting with it in the mid80′s.

Well like most things it’s tough for me to acknowledge being a beginner at something when I had years of musical experience.  That was of course the insecurity of the ego talking.

I began working with it, self teaching, trying to get consistent sound, getting bouncing bows and squeaking all the way to a few months later when doing a gig for someone at a craft fair who had been a ‘fan’ of my guitar work, when I decided to pull out the violin and use with some looping tools, she came up to me after a few minutes and said ‘would you please stop! it’s getting on people’s nerves!’  And when playing in the subway one time I was playing this thinly toned not meant to be acoustic electric fiddle and I came to a stop and some admiring ‘fan’ screamout from somewhere on the platform, ‘you are the worst fucking violin player I’ve ever heard’!  So it’s been a struggle despite my popularity and ‘fan’ support.

I have however continued to experiment and grow with the instrument, staying at it for awhile, then feeling some backslide and then retiring it and then again getting inspired and out it comes again.  I’ve in the process acquired 2 more violins, a cheap ebay acoustic and a hand-made curly green maple electric that I love and as I like the exotic in most instruments am drawn to this one on eBay.

One thing that I will say that has been encouraging with the instrument however is that with each put it down/pick it up two months later, I find that I’m not losing what I know and manage to gaina bit more momentum.

Another element is both and interest is that in now way do I try to approach the instrument as a trained or traditional player in the trained sense.  I do like ‘traditional’ Appalachian style fiddle playing however and spend some time researching the old tunes.

The most productive energy in this last chapter has been through using the instrument with more effects and another tool I often use, phrase sampling or ‘looping’ as better known.

For last few months I have been enjoying a re-emergence with it after being asked last summer by an influence who knew I was spending some time learning the violin asked me ‘how’s the violin coming’.  I was embarrassed sad to say as I had been a period of ‘putting it down’ but when I got home that was haunting me.  I ‘rosined up the bow’ as the saying goes and had at it again.  This time it’s stayed with me in a more defined way.

This story post blog has all been to set the stage to announce two CD and digital download releases I did in February of this year, participating in the online event known as the RPM Challenge.  This event calls musicians to create and release a CD of their music all created and produced in the month of February.  There is no prize or competition it’s all a ‘challenge’ with the prize being the personal satisfaction and then taking the recording where they wish.  I’ve participated each year since 2007.

Since the violin was figuring so much in to my time and current interests I decided for this event I would do a solo violin CD and do it in my own style which is playing sometimes plucked sometimes bowed and on two tracks using two violins in sequence.  Effects and looping were employed and i’m rather proud of this record affectionally titled, ‘Hack’ which is available as a free download on Bandcamp at
http://jimgoodin.bandcamp.com
.

Another project that I’m excited about which created the second release for the RPM event was a NinJam based trio with two great fellow musicians and friends in Florida, that we dubbed kOss pHactor.  kOss pHactor’s make-up is live, experimental, improvisational, textural, sometimes noise, music and our CD dubbed kOss pHactor is also available for free download on Bandcamp at
http://kossphactor.bandcamp.com
.

kOss pHactor includes Jeff Duke (electric guitars/electronics/master control), Ray Istorico (electric drums/waveDrum/Florida sunshine) and myself (electric violins/electronics/Brooklyn chaos or ‘kOss’).

Thanks for following my musings and for checking out the releases!

Jim

ImprovFriday – Mash Blue released

Wood and Wire Music is pleased to announce the Internet release of ImprovFriday – Mash Blue. 17 New Music works from the ImprovFriday online music community produced by Kavin Allenson, Jim Goodin, Steve Layton, Roger “ErocNet” Sundström and Chris Vaisvil through the technique known as ‘mashing’.

ImprovFriday – Mash Blue

A mashup or bootleg[1] (also mesh, mash up, mash-up, blend and bastard pop/rock) is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs together in a layered or multi-track approach. (paraphrase from Wikipedia).

ImprovFriday member artists featured in this Internet distribution include Benjamin Smith, Bruce Hamilton, Chris Vasvil, Diego Monroy, Fabio Keiner, Glenn Smith, Guenter Glaeser, J.C. Combs,Jerome Poirier, Jim Goodin, Kavin Allenson, Lydia Busler-Blais, Norbert Oldani, Paul H. Muller, Paul Hertz, Paul Mimlitsch, Peter Thörn, Roger “ErocNet” Sundström, Shane W. Cadman, Steve Layton and Steve Moshier.

The music on this release shared a common theme in original inception of ‘blue(s)’.

ImprovFriday – Mash Blue is freely available for download in a variety of popular audio file formats at WoodandWireMusic.Bandcamp.com

ImprovFriday – Mash Blue track list

1 The Blues is a… Feelin’ – Kavin Allenson, producer

2 Stay, What Remains, Ben!? – Jim Goodin, producer

3 In the Hall of the Blue Voices of the Old Loam House – Jim Goodin, producer

4 Fractured ZoobbooZ – Jim Goodin, producer

5 Kind of Blues – Roger “ErocNet” Sundström, producer

6 Sitting at King and Depot Streets – Steve Layton, producer

7 Beyond the Blue Sky – Jim Goodin, producer

8 India Blue – Jim Goodin, producer

9 Blues for a Black Dahlia – Steve Layton, producer

10 Portrait in Retro, Mr. Combs – Jim Goodin, producer

11 Greetings from the Loams – Jim Goodin, producer

12 No Blue Turtles in this Dream – Jim Goodin, producer

13 Blue Dragon – Roger “ErocNet” Sundström, producer

14 Too Cool Blue You – Steve Layton, producer

15 The Blues and the Greens of This Valley – Steve Layton, producer

16 Blue Rider – Steve Layton, producer

17 The Metaphysical Evaporation of Wells Street, Chris Vaisvil, producer

Download ImprovFriday – Mash Blue now for free!

Space…

This weekend on ImprovFriday, our theme for our music event of recorded work is ‘space’. Outer, inner, open and closed, distances between, silences, personal and public, secret, pitch space as in black, spatialization, space out and in’ and wherever the creative muse shall take the participating composers.

All work produced each weekend on ImprovFriday is done under Creative Commons agreement. Any musical artist interested in ‘new music’ is welcome to join us. Each weekends event goes from Thursday afternoon at 4pm PST through Saturday at 6pm PST.

I recorded this track earlier this evening as one of my first contributions to the event. Looking in to the Stars. Come join us, to listen or participate.

Jim Goodin NYC May Performances

I will be performing during May doing my blend of ‘acoustic guitar renaissance,color blue and repetitive minimalism’ at…

Mon May 14,9pm, Goodbye BlueMonday, Brooklyn/east Williamsburg

Sun May 27, 6pm, COMA series, ABC NoRio, 156 Rivington, lower east side manhattan

For info on my music visit
http://jimgoodin.com
. Hope to see you at one or both the above!

Down Under

I have had opportunity all week to perform in a neighborhood metro station. I used to do this regularly and with other recent directions, I’m in a return to this as well. The energy of playing there, people passing by, improvising on them in a sense, occasional by chance connection, noise and the environment are all inspiring.

Took video cam along and strapped to the gate to document this appearance. This sequence is an improv on a piece of my titled Hypnosis that I was originally playing in 2003. The piece was published by Mel Bay Publications, Inc. in my book DADGAD Encyclopedia in 2008.

Additional note for those in New York area I will be appearing at Goodbye Blue Monday on May 14 at 9pm (and at this subway stop as time permits!)

Thanks for watching, following, being you!

Day,

Jim

A New Video and more!

I have been going back and revisiting several of my earlier guitar pieces in plans to bring them back in to my current set list. Since @2006 I have focused on improvisation which has had a got of importance and advances to my playing but at the same time I’m realizing that some of my earlier, ‘song form’ material needs to emerge again.

In a previous post I mentioned one piece Transportation Suite, written in early 2000 reflecting on my sense of day to day commuting life in New York though this piece on a broader sense can be about any metropolis experience.

Earlier this week as the weather was nice I went to a neighborhood part and shot several video sequences of my playing. I just got this one edited and posted. There are a few more to come as I have time to edit, including some footage from downunder of a return to subway performances.

Also with this post I wanted to let you know that I have a new website located in your Internet browser at Jimgoodin.com.

My music downloads and newest CD Burst from the Sky Take Flight are all available at Jimgoodin.bandcamp.com.

Thanks for checking out all and to that are following me here on WordPress, thank you!

Have great rest of the week.

Jim