New Music

M. Ramirez arrived at my house with an Edirol R-09, and recorded Jon and me playing some licks.  I chopped the session into tracks; my favorite is the final track (#6).  You can download the session here:

The Mike Ramirez Sessions, 01.2009:

1. Yoga: tuning and warmup (4:08, 3.8 MB)
2. Five Taken (6:14, 5.7 MB)
3. Blues Interlude (1:18, 1.2 MB)
4. Jon’s Song (3:03, 2.8 MB)
5. Seas Too Far To Reach (an Okkervil River cover) (3:29, 3.2 MB)
6. B Minor (7:36, 7.0 MB)

Piano: Victor Hanson-Smith
Violin: Jon Lidbeck
Vocals: Victor Hanson-Smith and Jon Lidbeck

Music from the Cat Haus

Some friends were traveling and briefly entrusted me with the epicurean welfare of Otis and Iggy Pop. These same friends also have a not-crappy piano, which I extensively used. Here are some MP3 files. Please excuse the high-frequency noise from the refrigerator, and the occasional cat meow.

(1) Mozart Piano Sonata in F Major, K 332, opening movement

(2) “Alpenglow” from “The Sierra Cycle,” one piece from my six-part piano suite

(3) 5:27 of controlled chaos

Playing with new themes

More improvisation. The MP3 file is here.

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Voices in my head

Two minutes of improvisation. . .

A high-quality piano, but a low-quality microphone.

Click here for the MP3.

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Piano sketches, 2 of 6

Piano sketches, 1 of 6

The recording quality is suboptimal, but I need to externalize this so I can move on to other projects. Otherwise it will become “brain crack.”

“Sketches of the Sierra, Part 1 of 6: Alpenglow”

The MP3 file is here.

A blurry (and slightly incomplete) version of the sheetmusic is here.

It sounds like this…