Harmonitronica
"Harmonitronica" is a combination of harmonica and electronica, the place where two seemingly divergent interests of mine have finally started to keep company. I've played the harmonica for more than half my life, mostly in traditional American music (old-time, traditional blues, country and bluegrass). And for even longer than that, I've loved certain kinds of electronic and experimental music.
Harmonitronica fuses the organic and vocal nature of the harmonica with the layering and atmospherics of ambient music, the beats of electronica, and the unpredictability of found music, noise and chance. Harmonitronica is not computer music. It is not carefully constructed with software, but improvised live and recorded direct to two-track. Some of these pieces were edited for length, to remove boring or repetitive spots, or improvisations that didn't work, but everything you hear is exactly as it was performed.
Harmonitronica is harmonica like you have never heard it before.
Recent Harmonitronica Pieces
- Epyphony (Three Kings Suite)
- I was always fascinated by the legend of the kings, and by the modal monotony of the holiday song, which probably presages my love of old-time music.
- So Many Morning Coffees
- I know it's hard to understand the words. That's the point.
- Fried, A Night
- The end of a long week. This simple piece began as an experiment with my recently acquired Moog ring modulator. I built a drone up by layering the same note on a low F harmonica. The ring modulator was more or less tuned to the note, and the rest of the modulation is just my attack and embrochure. Then I kicked up the modulator frequency quite a bit, and played some very gentle riffs on the same harmonica, up higher, varying the LFO amount with an expression pedal. I sampled the drone, and some of the riffs, into the Kaoss Pad, and use one of its nicer delay settings. That was then looped into the EHX, still my most frequently used looper. I like the textures of this piece, and the combination of very gentle playing on a low harp with the harsh edge of the ring mod.
- In Between Airplanes (Part 2)
- I was interrupted while recording this, not long after beginning the repeating harmonica loop with the overlay of feedback-heavy delay. This is an excerpt of what I did after I resumed work.
- In Between Airplanes (Part 1)
- Live harmonica improvisation over a drum loop, recorded while the kids made and threw paper airplanes.
- Requiem For Reason (II)
- Chatter and noise. Makes me wanna holler. My January 15 contribution to ImprovFriday, using Kent Jolly's iPad application AudioPalette.
- Nine Sticks
- In honor of this special moment: 1/11/11 11:11.
- Egads
- I've spent the entire day in E minor. This last piece is based on four of the five notes in the E pentatonic minor scale. Guess what the four notes are. Hint: I left out B.
- The Use Of Violence And Intimidation In The Pursuit Of Political Aims
- An improvisation in Em, overlaid on a bass-harmonica drone. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson as I was making this recording, and its uneasy tone and threatening atmosphere exactly matched the feeling in the pit of my stomach after hearing about her shooting.
- Subjunctive Tension
- A very un-pretty piece about the anxiety of making big choices, taking one path rather than another.
- Midnight In E Minor
- This twelve-minute piece began as a brief melody phrase that I played as I was testing a new setup. I started hearing harmonies to it and trying different things and twelve minutes later I wrapped it up and uploaded it. I'm not entirely sure I like how it develops, so I'll work more on it, but I like it very much.
- Morning #3
- Post-coffee improvisation. I'm returning to my drone studies, now that I've got all this new equipment. Building a good drone is actually harder than you think (well, the bagpipe players probably know this). It's long, but you don't have to pay attention to it.
- Waning Gibbous
- This week's contribution to ImprovFriday, built on a short harmonica riff and an answering synth line, is named for the phase of the moon today.
- Derangement (Blues In 1/e)
- Harmonica loops, in and out of sync, perhaps relating to the mathematical problem of derangement.
- Discreet Harmonica VI
- Another in the Discreet Harmonica series.
- Never Enough Time
- My first contribution to ImprovFriday, combining microphone percussion and looped harmonica.
- Discreet Harmonica V (The Very Long Black Veil)
- The beautiful country classic, played simply, with some harmonies overlaid on loops of different length, which are then allowed to drift.
- Discreet Harmonica IV (More Music For Housecleaning)
- Several minor-key loops, allowed to drift while I did some housecleaning.
- Why Are You So Far Away (Why Are You Not Here With Me)
- Sometimes instrumentals do have words, even if you don't realize it until afterwards.
- Low Blood Sugar
- Started playing with this loop late in the afternoon and kept going way past dinnertime. This is lightheaded (rather than lighthearted) improvisation. All live.
- So. Not. OK.
- You know the feeling. Enough said. This is looped blues harp, microphone percussion, and a granular synthesizer for the iPad called Curtis.
- Cheap Harp Bounce
- Cute and silly, unlike most of its siblings, this began as me testing out some effects settings with the first harmonica at hand, an old E harp.
- Green Street Breakdown #3
- One of a series of pieces composed and sequenced on a vintage analog sampler.
- Enjoying the Rain
- A mashup of "Ode to Joy" and "Joy to the World" with more rain samples.
- Monday Morning Rain #1
- An environmental piece built on recordings of the rain.
- Monday Morning Rain #2
- An environmental piece built on the same rain recordings, but with a very different harmonica part.
- God Bless America (No Mosque Here)
- Recorded on the true 9/11 anniversary (Tuesday, September 14), in reaction to the protests against the proposed mosque near the World Trade Center site.
- Holland Tunnel Blues #1
- An overlaid blues harp riff. Diatonic harp in G.
- Muggy August Night #1
- Very quiet ambient piece, standard C harp.
- Sunday Go To Meeting (You Must Unload)
- This is an old gospel song by the wonderfully quirky Blind Alfred Reed (best known for "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live," which Bruce Springsteen covered on his Seeger Sessions album). I started by recording the entire harmonica part you hear at the start, then overdubbed a low harmonica part (using an octave generator), then sang the vocal and sampled the chorus, and just kept overlaying some parts and trying harmonies. Doesn't always work (a couple of false starts and one really ugly vocal moment) but I love gospel and gospel harmonies, and this song is more apropos now than when he wrote it (during last century's Great Depression).
- I Am So Proud To Be An American (That Hopey Changey Stuff)
- The sound of jackboots coming...
- People Will Not Realize the Peril
- Watching the snow late one February night.
- Correctness Is the Goal
- Mend your speech!
- Unreal #3 (Pachelbel's Changes)
- A deconstruction (or desecration) of Pachelebel's Canon in D.