Iain Cameron's Diary
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2002-09-19 - 10:21 a.m.

I am listening to a second version of the Boulez 3rd piano sonata movement with additions. This time with two flute parts. The procedural algorithm is:

a) select a patch from the sound card for the original Boulez part

b) make some gestures with an instrument against that part

c) use that gestural material for a relatively simple formal development of parts two and three of the �trio�

This particular version � the second is done with a �wind noise� patch which I haven�t use before � it sounds a lot better than the name might suggest.

There is a Boulez �foray� on Serious Music � it�s the track between the Shakesonnet and the Wasteland fragment � based on one of his �Notations�. These are very short pieces written in 1945 for the piano. The version on SMfHv has a Dhorn part and has also been put through an overall gestural process.

I really enjoyed reading Andrew�s report of the protoKC gig. I couldn�t avoid wondering how it was that I�d met three of the members. I suppose it puts me in my box. I thought Andrew�s comment about �that generation� relying more heavily on jazz was a good one. One of the �patterns� that I have been thinking about was the fact that I spent the last two thirds of the 1970s playing straight ahead jazz. (I did some other stuff but jazz was the main activity which has left the biggest mark.)

I don�t especially regret that � it gives me a basic area that I can come back to. But there are always opportunity costs � getting embedded in that tradition was at the cost of following other directions especially in terms of the experimental tradition.

Andrew is also right when he says that the eruption of punk marginalized that whole paradigm. I see that very clearly when I watch, say, film of Little Feat or the Average White Band. Their groove is very different from the punk edge and aggression.

Gilbert directed me to the WBTG site which has some really good MIDI files of John Maclaughlin pieces. The files are well done and the pieces are great. We have been chewing over the question of the influence of JM. Reading some of the interviews on the site I am wondering whether I don�t have a similar set of determinants � he talks about Giant Steps, Milestones, Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme. The albums of his that I have liked for longest are Extrapolations and Jack Johnson. His rhythm/lead playing on JJ are extraordinary and he pushes Miles to one of his absolute peaks.

I have put one of the MIDI files from WBTG up on my FORUM diary at www.kwase-kwaza.org - with just a slight rejigging of the patches. The lead instrument is now a Hammond � which sounds just fine to me. I have always like the wildness of the Jimmy Smith playing, say, on the the two albums that he did which were arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson. That stuff never seems to go out of fashion. I have also added a few thoughts on how this track can be used for practice.

I have decided its pointless wasting any more time on DTI especially after the move � it is just a black hole � utterly backward looking and pointless. I have asked someone to get my boxes of papers moved to Birmingham.

The long article from today�s Guardian about Mandela�s stance on the current world political scene has been posted on the KK site.

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