My Week…

For several weeks now I have written and maintained another WordPress blog for publishing brief reviews that Paul Muller and myself do of the music produced each weekend by the ImprovFriday experimental music community.

Each weekend @30 member artists come doing and produce between 50-70 new musical compositions and post them publicly under Creative Commons license for the world to peruse, download from the ImprovFriday home portal. The work ranges from subtle and delicate to intense and raw but is always outstanding. I would like to invite you to read each weeks posting of this review blog which is published by each Thursday at WhatsNewAtImprovFriday.

In addition to the blog, Paul and I host the ImprovFriday Radio podcast series published monthly, subscribable via iTunes and our podcast channel ImprovFridayradio.podomatic.com.

The weekend open call for new music submissions for the ImprovFriday forum event begins each Thursday afternoon at 4pm PST and concludes on Saturday at 10pm PST. I generally contribute 3 to 4 pieces each weekend. Last night I posted, By Random Chance, a solo acoustic guitar piece based on an improvisation in Phrygian mode.

Additionally this week I was inspired by the work of a guitarist in China, Domina Catrina Lee, who responded to a video performance piece of mine. In response to the inspiration I made this video, doing the track, imagery, editing and posting on Monday. It’s titled CrossTalk.

Also managed to spend a little time doing some Finale engraving (notation) for an upcoming book with Mel Bay Publications, Inc., that will focus on traditional harp music arranged for acoustic guitar. I’m behind on this project but trying to catch up. It will include traditional American and Celtic tunes. I have two other works out with the publisher, DADGAD Encyclopedia Book/CD published in 2008 and Master Anthology of Fingerstyle Guitar Solos, Volume 2 Book/CD Set published in 2001.

Not to be overlooked, DigItSignal, the international virtual quintet that I am part of with Peter Thörn (Sweden), Steve Moyes (UK), Jeff Duke (USA), Ray Istorico (USA), began the week with a live video concert streamed over our channel on Livestream last Sunday from 12pm EST to 1pm EST. As we often do, we perform to film and for this show we performed to the 1920 Fritz Lang film Das wandernde Bild. The archive recording of that show is available for viewing at DigItSignal Aug 1 webcast. DigItSignal performs 1 to 2 times monthly. Our video channel is www.livestream.com/digitsignallive. Find us there and be sure to ‘friend’ us on Facebook, search DigItSignal.

And beyond all that there was some hanging out time with my kids after day work. They have had a busy summer themselves but are enjoying a leisurely August.