Fulc

Over at Another Forum At Which I Post, every so often we perform a collaboration experiment, wherein people sign up to be placed on a team with six or seven other people-- people sign up to write, to play an instrument, to mix, and/or to project-manage (i.e. be a point man). The teams are then allowed three months to produce a song. The wrinkle is that everything gets conducted over the Internet-- in rare instances are teammates within actual geographic proximity to one another. Well, our fourth and latest experiment just completed (sign-ups for the next will be just after the start of the New Year), and sixteen of the seventeen teams this time out turned in a song apiece. I was only supposed to be on two teams, but wound up working with four. Have a listen... Team Mercury, for whom I played unobtrusive ambient synths, shouted backing vocals, and served as point man. I was explicitly selected for this team. Our mix engineer is in Finland, but the rest of us are scattered hither and yon across the States and Canada. Team Solar, for whom (at their point man's request) I stepped in with Rhodes and a Hammond when their original keyboardist had to bail out. Team Progression, who had a song lined up but no lyrics. Their point man turned to me for those, and their lead vocalist massaged them in order to fit the song a little better. Team Womb, which produced the theme song for the lead moderator's internet radio show (to be broadcast shortly). I was explicitly chosen to play keys (and a cunning tamboura sample) for this team. (The team's name comes from that moderator's pet term for the control room-- specifically, one which further enhances the on-the-job experience of engineering a record.) You're not likely to get the joke unless you also post there and know the three hosts of the show (at least their online personae), so just enjoy the music in that case.... May I also humbly suggest that the rest of the music is worth your while too. Gifted amateurs, semi-pros, and people who actually do these things for a living all rubbing shoulders and making some damn beautiful noise.

Talking of modal harmony, has anyone gotten around to these texts? Modal and Tonal Counterpoint: From Josquin to Stravinsky by Harold Owen Modal Music Composition by Stephen M. Cormier

I completely forgot to mention Jazz Composition and Orchestration by William Russo. Pretty much any of his books are full of good practical information and more than a little opinion, but this one ties it all up quite nicely. Not just for the big band arranger, although that's the target audience.

Vincent Persichetti's Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice should give you ideas from now till about five minutes after they lay you in the ground. Contemporary Harmony: Romanticism Through the Twelve-Tone Row by Ludmila Ulehla was a pretty good read too. Persichetti trumps Ulehla in the amount of techniques he covers, but Ulehla trumps Persichetti in the real-world examples provided for those techniques she does cover. I have not read Materials and Techniques of Twentieth-Century Music by Stefan Kostka, but it comes highly recommended.

OK, I'll play. I've been a musician since I was six, so I have about thirty-mumble years of experience at it. For all those years I've played some form of keyboard (six yerars of lessons, the rest on my own) and for all but maybe the first five I've played drums as well, and it's only in the last fifteen that I've been confident enough in my own voice to belt out a tune or two. As far as all that goes, it's all just stuff that I do. However, what I am is a composer. This includes things that follow standard pazz-and-jop forms as well as longer-form pieces that might be performed by an orchestra or a choir. Not that any of my stuff has ever been performed by an orchestra... though my church choir has done one of my pieces and asked me to write more for them. The neo-orchestral stuff winds up getting arranged with various synths both real and imagined (I mean, soft), and I usually reach for a rock rhythm section somewhere along the way, so I guess you might say that what I do sounds a hell of a lot like progressive rock. It just... comes... out that way. In no particular order, these are the giants upon whose shoulders I totter like a drunken flagpole sitter: Bach, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Copland, Bernstein, Gershwin, Porter, Zappa, Ellington, Brubeck, Metheny/Mays, Lennon/McCartney, Pete Townshend, Joe Jackson, Keith Emerson, Tony Banks, Dave Stewart, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Hornsby, Kevin Gilbert, Becker/Fagen, Difford/Tilbrook, Trey Anastasio, and Dave Matthews. I have dedicated a bedroom in my house to be The Project Studio That Would Not Die, in which I am producing the first Fulcrum album, partaking in various inter-not collaborations here at musicplayer.com and elsewhere, and gearing up to enter the business of composing for computer games. TPSTWND consists of me, an old Carvin desk, a Kurzweil K2000, an Ensoniq EPS (used more as a controller than as a sampler these days), an original Layla 20-bit card, and a Frankenstein (i.e. self-spec'd and built) Pee Cee flying Cakewalk Sonar and hosting a plethora of soft synths and effects. I don't have a web site that is hosting any of my own tunage, but you can hear me yelling over some industrial music on an internet collaboration here . Enough people have expressed positive interest in the tune that we're now committed to an album.

Well... since you asked... portions of this CV were pre-recorded (i.e. on Another Forum). Significance of handle: Fulcrum is the current name of my project a/k/a one-man band. Physical location: Connecticut, whose major exports are tobacco, smog, sleet, and corporate yes men for New York City big shots. Recent accomplishments: keyboardist on one online collab at the aforementioned Other Forum, vocalist on a second, further work on the Fulcrum album... and contributing to KC 10 if I can help it. Axes: composer, keyboards (oh hahahahaha really?), voice Influences: (a tragedy in two acts) Composers and songwriters from whom I have tried to learn something: Bach, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Copland, Bernstein, Gershwin, Zappa, Ellington, Brubeck, Metheny/Mays, Lennon/McCartney, Pete Townshend, Joe Jackson, Keith Emerson, Tony Banks, Dave Stewart, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Kevin Gilbert, Becker/Fagen, Difford/Tilbrook, and to infinity and beyond... Keyboardists I have tried to understand (and largely failed to, thanks to rusty technique and lack of discipline): Emerson, Banks, Stewart, Mays, Brubeck, Bruce Hornsby, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Count Basie Equipment: (a comedy in three acts) --currently under hand-- -- hardware -- Kurzweil K2000 Ensoniq EPS Carvin FX 1244 desk Echo Layla 20 home-brewed Frankenstein PC (P-4 2.8GHz (800FSB), 1 Gb DDR SDRAM, 60Gb hd, etc. etc.) -- software -- Cakewalk Sonar 3PE Native Instruments Absynth, Battery, Reaktor, FM7, and B4 Arturia CS-80 V, Moog Modular V, MiniMoog V numerous other VST and DirectX plugs and instruments -- waiting in the wings -- old kit such as a MicroMoog, Chroma Polaris, Yamaha DX5, SPX90, RX11, QX21, and other fiddly things I can't remember now. Age: forty-grumble Hair: none Eyes: hazel weight: 13 stone Scotch: shyeah right, I drink Makers Mark. Edited (1) because on second thought I decided that me trying to emulate my heroes was the tragedy and having all that gear was the comedy; and (2) because I spaced and forgot to shout out Steely Dan.