(Song above is “Song for my Mother. Song 3-6 of the Tarragona Piano Sessions)
On July 31, 2017 I recorded four sessions of piano improvisations at La Casamurada recording studio in Tarragona, Spain. Most of the improvisations are light impressionistic pieces that some might call neo-classical or new age piano style.
Continue reading “The Tarragona Piano Sessions – Conrad Askland”
“Alberti’s Dream” is a piano improvisation by Conrad Askland. Recorded July 31, 2017 in Tarragona, Spain.
For this piece, I started with a simple Alberti Bass in Bb and then just followed where it led me.
Session 3-8 of my “Tarragona Piano Sessions” improvisations.
Alberti bass is a particular kind of accompaniment figure in music, often used in the Classical era, and sometimes the Romantic era. It was named after Domenico Alberti (1710–1740), who used it extensively, although he was not the first to use it.
My Bachelor’s degree from Berklee College of Music is now complete. I graduated with a B.P.S. (Bachelor of Professional Studies) in Interdisciplinary Studies. It was an amazing experience.
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Unless you are completely tone deaf, it is often not difficult to tell when a musical instrument is out of tune. This is because the pitch sounds wrong — it’s either too high or too low. To the trained ear, the instrument will sound a bit flat or sharp. For this reason, musical instruments need to be tuned before they are played, particularly if several instruments are being played together. If you are just beginning to learn how to play an instrument, this might seem like a complicated task, but it is really quite easy once you know how.
I am thrilled to be joining Cirque du Soleil’s show Varekai as bandleader and keyboardist on their world tour. The show has been on a world tour since 2002 and I will be joining them on the final legs in Europe and ending in the United States in 2017.
Skagit Impressions Three from the Gary Brown and Conrad Askland project. Farmland photos of Skagit County, WA by Gary Brown with music by Conrad Askland.
This third impression includes my composition “Adaptive Layer Battle Theme One.” This is a five layer composition for use in video game adaptive scoring. Each of the five layers are complete unto themselves, but also layer to create different levels of tension. In a gaming environment these different layers would be triggered in and out by player actions and states of being.
For the Skagit Impressions Three video, each layer builds sequentially. Starting with layer one – then layer one plus layer two – then layer one two and three and so on until all five layers are playing together.
In the video below, I show how this same music might be used in a gaming environment. The layers are used for the different states and actions of a character in the video game Uncharted 3.
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Skagit Impressions Two – Music as Water. Photography by Gary Brown. Vocal by Leisha Skinner. Music and Melody by Conrad Askland (ASCAP).
This is the second in the series for the “Gary Brown and Conrad Askland Project” where I take the photography of Gary Brown and create music to accompany his photos. We do this to express our impression of the natural beautiful landscapes and farmlands of Skagit County, WA. This is also the are famous in the spring with tourists for the Skagit County Tulip Festival. There are many photographers that take photos during the tulip season, but Gary Brown takes photos of these landscapes all year long so you get to see different hues and variations of the landscapes.
ON THE MUSIC
The music I wrote for this, which I call “Music as Water” was part of a weekly assignment for a class on Songwriting for TV and Film that I took with Berklee College of Music. The assignment was to write for the least number of instruments possible, with the option of adding a vocal. I chose a piano and vocal arrangement. There is an original piano track and then I added some light fills in the top octave in between the vocal lines.
The music stays in Cm (natural minor) and floats in a 12/8 time signature. When we recording the vocal, we experimented with several different vowel sounds. At the final mix I found myself enjoying the natural “Ah” sound, so that is what you hear in the final mix.
Here is the music as it could work as sync placement in a television series:
“Where None Would Go” (Gettysburg Memorial Song) is a piece I wrote to commemorate the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863. This song released July 4, 2016. Words and Music by Conrad Askland. Vocalist: Leisha Skinner. To a variation of the melody “Shenandoah”.
I was inspired to write this song after spending many hours of discussion on the Civil War with my friend, Joe Bowen. He is a scholar of American History where he studied the Civil War at Harvard College. He will setup battle tactics and battle strategies on tables using napkins, playing cards, cups – whatever is around – to really immerse me in details of the Civil War. The conversations usually start with prose, then get into historical details and facts of the battles and politics of the time, then end with philosophical musings, anecdotes and quotes from soldier’s letters.
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Truth is a variable in it’s definition that relies on the cultural glasses worn by the observer. Maybe part of what this discussion is really about is honesty. Artists can be the honest ones to give voice to a found truth when others see the Emperor’s new clothes.
Perhaps part of the reason artists can give voice to honesty and truth is that they often have nothing to lose. The struggling singer-songwriter who can barely rub two pennies together is extremely sensitive to observing the world around them. In some ways the struggling singer-songwriter is in a very powerful place because they have no corporate or record label responsibilities to be “marketable.” Janis Ian says the world needs artists because artists tell the truth. Truth is honesty. The singer-songwriter is compelled to write about what is important to them and they hunt for the truths (and untruths) they see around them and then report this in song as honestly as they can.
In Gerd Leonhard’s book “Music 2.0 – Essays by Gerd Leonhard” he mentions the concept of “Music Like Water” and writes: “Music is no longer a product but a service….for the future, think of a ‘record label’ as a ‘music utility company’.”
I have seen this gradual shift over the years and his words seem to have become prophetically true. We are so incredibly immersed in music now. It has become normal to dial up any song at the drop of a hat and to have access to more music that a single person put even physically listen to in a single lifetime.
With the seemingly infinite access to music has also appeared a reduced interest or need in user ownership. Gerd Leonhard also says “Access to Music Will Replace Ownership.” Also a trend that has become true.
I am old enough to remember cassette tapes and how naughty we were to record to tape directly from the radio. But we had our physical collection and were proud that we “owned” the music. Somehow making our custom mixtape brought us into the creative sphere of the songwriter or composer. We could play the music which was really a customized performance brought about by our uncanny ability to find the perfect mix of songs and segue them together as never before. Our Radio Shack tape recorders transformed us into analog rocket scientists.
Continue reading “Thoughts on Gerd Leonhard and “Music as Water””