While in Switzerland this July 2012 to perform two concerts at the Braderie [city festival] in Biel/Bienne [and 3 weeks of much needed rest] i again managed to spend days at my beautiful Burger & Jacobi acoustic upright piano. For the past few years i have been recording with it, using a Tascam Dr1 stereo portable digital recorder. i sit the recorder on a box behind the piano, between it and the painted concrete wall in the garage, which gives a natural reverberation.
on the days i am compelled to create, i never plan anything but TO create. i get coffee and my cigarette rolling machine, my notebook and pen- go to the piano, turn on the recorder, sit down and only write down the date of the session, then a key to play in, and let the journey begin. when one piece feels finished, i write down a different key and begin again with no preconception. this usually goes on for hours, whole days into nights, as long as the spirit moves me. when i finally get tired, i stop.
everything played is off the top of my head. nothing is planned except the key. nothing is structured, nor do i want it to be. it's during these moments that i am almost in a trance like state. i feel like a radio; that the omniversal cosmic soul, the great creator, channels through me, moving my fingers. i've always felt this even when i first began playing piano AND began improvising in my pre-teens. i record everything i do, and never fix anything. i believe there are NO mistakes in ART. a lot of what i do is melodic but sometimes also atonal, and even if i hit a note that sounds out of scale [to someone] @ 1st- it usually corrects itself, by my playing another note/chrod, or building on it until it IS synthesized into the pedaled drone/over/undertones.
i almost always do VERY long pieces- between 6 to 9 minutes, changing patterns, going in and out of keys, changing tempos, letting the music evolve and unfold into what it wants to be. i can feel when IT wants to end.
as some may or may not know, despite the fact that i was raised in a household where john lee hooker, jimmy reed, slim harpo, elvis and chuck berry were played, my first love was classical music. my aunt Clara gave me a compilation classical LP she got at Safeway for buying a certain amount of groceries; when i first heard Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Wagner, it blew me away! it opened me up to a whole new world. i wanted to be a classical pianist! i did take lessons, studying and playing classical music for a few years- then came my teenage years, and when my mama brought me a 45 of the isley brothers "twist and shout" from atlanta [or somewhere] that blew my head off! then came the British invasion, so i stopped, fool that i was, to join a band! duh... hindsight is 20/20. the so many years that i was in bands i always played keyboards, but
jumped at the chance to play acoustic whenever i could.
There is something special between man and instrument, when one plays an acoustic instrument, alone, and in total solitude. it's magical, hypnotic, and transcendent; a spiritual and physical communion; a musical religious experience.
Below are the 'covers' and 'album notes' for both the new cds- which should
be online [all online musical outlets] and available for download [only] within a few days to a week:
"Moments In A Day"* is an improvisational, experimental, and minimalist work, recorded as it was created on July 8, 2012 in Lengnau (Canton Bern) Switzerland. It was recorded using a Tascam DR 1 portable digital recorder placed behind my 200+ year old Burger & Jacobi acoustic upright piano. It is totally organic, au naturel; the pieces were improvised/created/recorded in a one day long recording session, back to back. There are no effects, no fixes, and no editing, other than editing the recording into individual tracks, trimming the beginnings and fading the endings of each track. All music created, performed, recorded, edited and produced by Doug Duffey ©2012; all songs published by Doug Duffey Music, BMI (P)2012. Photos, graphics and design by Doug Duffey (c)2012
also "Rain Songs"*- as the process was the same, but on different days.
[C]2012 DOUG DUFFEY
