Tribute: The Recording

Two weeks passed since the day of the last recording session of my Tribute project. All that was planned has been finished, as well as the new ideas that appeared during the process fixed in digits. Some stuff was filtered out, another got sense. The process of creation indeed contains some magical ingredient. We could talk many hours through about it, but for this Journal I am going to limit it to just a few flashbacks.

From the first day of recording (8^th of July last year) through to the last one I felt as if I was diving into some adventure. Probably, it is about the responsibility taken when one wants to record a tribute (whoever it is going to be dedicated to) – someone might be judging about the original performer having heard your version.

They say you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, so I just had to start doing something. This principle worked even when I didn’t want to go out into cold and dark night (very often we set up our meeting time in the studio to take place at 1:00AM) – you just walk out in the street and the road takes you there. So, step by step, we have reached "today".

The first five songs were finished in late Summer 2014, and their destination point was the group Tribute album (on which I shed some light in my previous posts). After everything was done I’d got a feeling which can be described as “I want more!”, so after the real candidates had been selected and necessary test-rehearsal done we started the "second season" of recording. Same studio, same sound engineer, same basic set of instruments, but different approach and direction. I wanted to escape possible repetitions, so some portion of the “new” material passed through metamorphoses. There is a point of view that changing the form of the songs that we are “accustomed to” may affect their “adequate” perception. But as for me, I would prefer to hear from my stereo what is currently playing in my head. I can do nothing about that – this is my perception of those songs.

Many ideas arrived in real time; I even got some answers to my questions on my way to the studio, and some of the solutions lied in denial of my initial ideas. I suppose, the material with justified factor of unpredictability will win in the end.

Of course, the result will highly depend on the successive mix, and this important process is currently at its initial stage. I hope I will be able to share the final list of the songs that will enter my personal Tribute album after two months or so, and to talk about each of them.

And at the end of the year of recording I’ve got a new feeling already, something like: “I want to work on something that is mine!”

Have I acquired a taste for the process of creation? Has it ripened? Have I ripened? Only when I start doing something I will be able to give any answer. But this will be (at last!) something that is mine!

I'm still with Kronos Quartet....

Most likely I won’t be able to describe in a worthy manner what I was feeling during the Kronos Quartet that happened in the Yerevan Opera Theatre on 29^th of April this year. I won’t be able because, as someone said many years ago (and they are still trying to find out who exactly and when) – "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture". One had to be there to feel it. I succeeded in describing concerts in the past, and maybe I will in the future, but this specific one was different.

To find a way out of this situation I decided to bring in the list of the works they performed that night, supporting them with short comments and some YouTube links. Some of them are studio recordings, others played live, sometimes even played by previous line-up. With this I am hoping to create at least some idea on what happened on that night.

1. Bryce Dessner - Aheym (Homeward) (link)

Nerve from A to Z. Basically, that was enough for the audience to understand who they deal with.

2. Laurie Anderson (arr. Jacob Garchik) - Flow (link)

Honey to one’s soul. So quiet, so calm.

3. Nicole Lizee - Death to Kosmische (link)

The audience expands not only their sights on Kronos Quartet, but on music in general.

4. Geeshie Wiley (arr. Jacob Garchik) - Last Kind Words (link)

They introduced this title as a “song”, but damn!, they performed it like a song!

5. Ramallah Underground (arr. Jacob Garchik) - Tashweesh (link)

This piece is still somewhere in my sub-consciousness.

6. Clint Mansell (arr. David. Lang) - Lux Aeterna (from Requiem for a Dream) (link)

I could not even dream to listen this live performed by them! This theme takes me by the throat each time I hear it, starting from the very first time, although it did not deal with “Requiem for a Dream” movie (that was a trailer to “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”).

7. Terry Riley - Good Medicine (from Salome Dances for Peace) (link)

I listen to it and I see myself running down the green fields and up the hills, then don in the valleys, butterflies around me.... Good Medicine – the title speaks for itself!

Intermission

8. Vladimir Martynov - The Beautitudes (link)

Relief, peace, tranquility, light... This is the music one would want to listen to in his or her last minutes.

9. Mary Kouyoumdjian - Silent Cranes (World Premiere, hence no link for this one)

i. Slave to Your Voice

ii. You Did Not Answer

iii. [With Blood Soaked Feathers]

iv. You Flew Away

As it was mentioned above, it was world premiere of “Silent Cranes”. Her author Mary Kouyoumdjian is one of those who were selected through the Kronos: Under 30 Project. This 35-minute long composition in 4 parts is homage in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. A special video has been prepared for it – collage of photographs, ornamental patterns, drawings. The performance was also supported with the voices of the eyewitnesses telling about those tragic times.

Maybe the first piece of the second half (see above) was perfectly chosen, maybe it was due to the video, maybe our history speaks in us, or maybe something else, but this composition was something bigger that just something played by Kronos Quartet. Many people later told me that there were moments when they were forgetting about some four people playing something on the stage, and that those are them who flood the huge hall with music and emotions with their two violins, alto and cello. By the way, our audience has significantly grown up as compared to what I saw eleven years ago. Today there was no noise, no distracting chatter, no indignant snobs, no cynical jokes.... There was no place for that here!

And when the last fourth part of the “Cranes” ended I witnessed the Magic, on which I nevertheless wrote a comment on Kronos Quartet Facebook page, wrote all I could the next morning. Those were my pure emotions, which I am not going to rewrite now, four days later.

1,200 hall was packed.... in the end the lights went dim, the music echoed away, darkness fell on the stage and in the hall.... 5 seconds... 10 seconds..... 20..... SILENCE! not a single breath was heard.... not a single breath!.... a few more seconds..... lights slowly came back.... the Quartet frozen, and so are we...... not a single breath!..... The Quartet is gradually coming back to reality, and so are we..... SILENCE!.....

..............

And then the hall burst in standing ovation......

A True Masterpiece!

Just like it was the last time, we got an Encore. They performed mournful but so important at that moment “Wa Habibi”, thus bringing us back to the world from which we entered this hall.

But we were already different when we were exiting it.

Many many thanks to Lilia Margaryan for her “without whom it would never be” kind of help.

Tribute: The Process

Almost seven months passed since I posted my first post describing the work on my Tribute project. Some part of what was planned is being successfully materialized, some things had to be corrected in course of time, and some ideas abandoned. Nevertheless, the result tends to be even more interesting than it was expected in the beginning.

One of the most important achievements is discovery and consolidation of my own vision of the idea and choice of the way it is materialized. I had to make decisions several times. At such moments doubts do not leave me alone, but my brain works due to their existence. Who knows, maybe in different situation, in different time and place I would resolve those problems differently, but today it is this way of working that gets me closer (significantly closer) to my goal.

Sometimes it is sudden “aha!” that helps. It is pretty possible that that is just a result of brain work, aimed at resolution of the above-mentioned task, but when it happens its nature is not that important. Not that important when you go forward on the wings that you feel behind your back.

The amount of “a few more songs” which should be added to the group project has now exceeded a dozen. Fortunately, sense of limit helps me to resist the temptation of doing more and more. After all, the songs that will enter (let’s call it) “the album” must prove to have the right to live. And I have lot of work to do to make this happen.

Given that the frequency of my coverage of the “album” creation process does not change, the next post has all chances to describe the accomplished work. We’ll see....

P.S. The Group Tribute album has not yet been finished as well, but it also grows up to become Something Big!