Improv Friday is an online musical event where composers of all stripes gather to write and improvise every Friday. These are not “songs” as many are used to hearing from me, but improvised works or as the website says, works “with strong improvisational elements,” for those who have ears to hear. It’s a way to stay busy, sketch, experiment, generate ideas, keep creativity flowing, hear others’ work, learn more about my software and hardware, explore. Here’s what the website says about the event:
ImprovFriday - An online new music event. What first started out as a two hour event now spans three days (its a world time clock thing)! The rest of the time is for listening to music, hanging out and sharing ideas. Each week the music will kick off between 2-4 pm Thursday, PST, concluding at 10 pm Saturday, PST. It’s very easy to join in, all you have to do is post an improvisation or a piece with strong improvisational elements. We put up this site to serve as a home for your creativity.
The theme this week was “Space,” which
… can be ‘space – outer, inner, open and closed, distances between, silences, personal and public, secret, pitch space as in black, spatialization, space out and in’.
My contribution, “Isla” unfolded in one sitting and was my first attempt at putting anything coherent together in the new music production and synthesis software I’ve been using, Reason 6, by Propellorhead Software. The manual for the thing is 1,110 pages long and I’ve spent what seems like months just working through the different chapters on all the various synthesizers, drum computers, effects, sequencers, processors, and all the rest. It’s an intimidating tool at first glance, and there’s a learning curve! I finally decided it was time to actually get something done. Headphones recommended.
Isla
This work by Ojo Taylor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
