There is nothing more reassuring than having a plan. Stepping into a studio space is a daunting task. The possibilities are limitless but time is not. Anything can be done, but only a few things will be. That’s why little notebooks are so amazing. They hold ideas and possibilities. I keep a pile of them. I re-read them weekly. I look for plans and see how solid they feel after some time has passed. It’s also good to see how much progress I’ve made. But the best thing about a plan as it relates to artistic endeavors is that they all go out the window when something cool happens. So my belief is that the plan exists to get me into the studio so that cool things can happen – whether or not they agree with any stated objective.
At the beginning of the year I said that I wanted to release three collections of tunes in a combination of solo and collaborative efforts. In the middle of some very heavy work in February, it occurred to me that smaller collections with a wider variety might be cooler than the traditional album format. Something not quite an EP was attractive. With a pile of work in place, it is easy to see where some things might fit and where there are still gaps. As I was noodling with something to use as mortar for a collection, I had a pretty good improvisation session. By the end of that night, I had three tunes that stood very well on their own. The next night, I took some other things and did one of my exercises where I make a piece of music in a sitting. But I did two. By a wonderful twist, the five pieces worked together in a series. The collection sort of completed itself. Not at all what I had intended and yet exactly what I wanted. Nifty!
These are improvisations composed and recorded over two nights. There is no editing of material and very little processing for tracks that are solo guitar. The tracks are arranged in a particular order and it would be great if folks would play them in order just once. I’m old fashioned like that, but not enough so to make them all one long mp3 and force the issue. It’s also the first time I’m exposing the world to what that guitar I built sounds like. This is it.
Please download, enjoy, and share Thought Music. Thanks!
Thought Music – J.C. Wilson
1. A Kind of Theme
2. Interlude
3. First Variation
4. Transom
5. Another Variation
The entire collection in one pile: ThoughtMusic.zip
All songs written, performed, engineered, and produced by J.C. Wilson. All instruments built by J.C. Wilson!
Thought Music by J.C. Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.othertime.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://othertime.com.
0 Comments.