Duck and Cover

www.myspace.com/jonathandalton

Kinda sketchy and all that, but I uploaded two tracks there (1st and 2nd improvisation - both same key and sameish start, end up in different places) and, yeah. Comments and all that welcome. I can never work out if I should just go and learn pieces of music instead of improvising, which comes complete with plenty of off-sounding bits.

NB The third track up there I recorded in 2005, nothing to do with the first two which were recorded together yesterday.

Anyway, enjoy or laugh mockingly, whichever you prefer.

u broke teh myspaces teabag!


Sorry! an unexpected error has occurred.

This error has been forwarded to MySpace's technical group.

Meh, keep trying the link and it should work. Don't use 'refresh' or it'll just keep refreshing the error page, heh.

?

I got the same error, maybe the republicans hacked into your site :dissonance:

Well it works for me Keep hitting the link?

You've got skills (unless you're ProTooling all this to shit). I would recommend learning some sheet music and recording that to compare it to your jam sessions.

I'm currently listening to your second improvisation, it sounds tres awesome :jazz:

quite good, teats, even though i don't really know that kinda music. if i still had myspace i would have left a witty comment on your thing

Subhuman wrote:You've got skills (unless you're ProTooling all this to shit). I would recommend learning some sheet music and recording that to compare it to your jam sessions.

It's all completely improvised. If I could be bothered I guess I could go through and edit it all, but all it is at the moment is me playing my keyboard and my PC recording it.

MySpace don't allow uploads of stuff that isn't your own material (I don't think, anyone know different?) but I'll do a cover or two over the next few days and put it on DaC for your enjoyment

Anyway, the point of all this is to see if I can't make some money, get some shows, out of it all. Apparently Myspace is the place to be for all of this. Who knows, I'm not entirely sure where to start, heh.

atoga wrote:quite good, teats, even though i don't really know that kinda music. if i still had myspace i would have left a witty comment on your thing

Being witty is prohibited on myspace

and here apparently OHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Aww shiiiit, boyeeeee!

You got skills, Mr. T., but couldn't you have thrown some screaming into your recordings to... I don't know... spice them up a bit?

"Reflections in 74" is pretty fucking awesome! Sounds sort of like Tangerine Dream. What kind of keyboard are you using? "1st improvisation" made it sound like you were using a crappy little Casio, but "Reflections" turned me away from that idea.

Also, get a haircut.

your melodies are magnificent, your chords are kingly, your tunes are terrific

i especially like reflections in 74, it reminds me of a moody vangelis piece, you are quite the pianofficianado

yeah, reflections in 7/4 is the guttest

frederic chopin, franz liszt, duke ellington, keith jarrett, and now jon teatime

Wierd you should say that (and thanks for the positive comments), I was figuring of having reflections the first track that played when you visit the page but figured it was too downbeat and moody and might put people off... even though generally I end up playing like that more than the more upbeat stuff. Reckon I might put it to the top of the list, if others like it, then. Incidentally, the full thing is about 20 minutes, heh. I'll host it on DaC if people :dig: it. I don't know if you noticed the stereo effect on the track - the voice I used kept going from left to right, and I was trying to mess about with the rhythm of that oscillation and the playing, if that makes sense.

Anywa it's all on the same keyboard (yamaha p250) though, the electric piano sounds are more realistic as it's actually an electric piano I'm playing. I should have a place to live in London in a couple of months so hopefully will be playing live as well... never quite sure how to market myself though, as it's not really background/hotel lobbey type jazz, but I'm not sure if you can get gigs the way a new indie band would (with an audience there to listen and all that).

So, anyone know how I'd go about actually getting paid for this stuff? I guess playing live is the way to go then hoping some suit goes 'yeah i want to give him lots of money!' - i.e. don't count on it.

My knowledge of the music industry isn't great.

Mr. Teatime wrote:guess playing live is the way to go then hoping some suit goes 'yeah i want to give him lots of money!' - i.e. don't count on it.

with that - for lack of a better word - "beard"? no, i wouldn't count on it. great music, though

just let people know you play piano. eventually youll get someone saying OH JAH I KNOW SOMEONE WHO NEEDS A PIANO DUDE LOL and then the rest is future history. just keep at it and push it as hard as you can. you can push string after all, you eventually reach the object alright. dont matter about skill or owt, just willingness to...patriotism

Mr. Teatime wrote:I was figuring of having reflections the first track that played when you visit the page but figured it was too downbeat and moody and might put people off... even though generally I end up playing like that more than the more upbeat stuff.

Absolutely, focus on stuff like "Reflections." However, you need to find more to do with it: you can't *just* keep playing exactly the same piece.

Personally, since I'm into industrial and early electronica, I'd be interested to hear music like "Reflections" overlayed with non-linear rhythm patterns, ala Suicide et al, and recorded noise from machinery.

Mr. Teatime wrote:Anywa it's all on the same keyboard (yamaha p250) though, the electric piano sounds are more realistic as it's actually an electric piano I'm playing.

So, I'm guessing you're using the built-in recorder that this unit has, right? If you wanted to make more complex music, either get a cheap multi-track (4 minimum) recorder or use a computer with recording software so you can start multi-layering stuff. That is, unless the keyboard itself allows you to record from outside sources.

Mr. Teatime wrote:...I'm not sure if you can get gigs the way a new indie band would (with an audience there to listen and all that).

So, anyone know how I'd go about actually getting paid for this stuff? I guess playing live is the way to go then hoping some suit goes 'yeah i want to give him lots of money!'

I'd go the abusive performance-art route. Find someone in your town that likes to do light-shows / video-art, and perform live with this person during > 10-min. songs in which the audience is blasted with so much sensory information that they go into seizures...

I'm totally serious here, I'd pay at least $25 for even just 20 minutes of that stuff. I like extreme music, however, so I don't know if this is the best *commerical* route. It's the coolest *artistic* route though.