Libero Mureddu's blog

New Chant blog and Newtone2060 mix

2009-02-12T04:16:00.001-08:00

In the last weeks I've been very busy mixing the Chant trio recording in Helsinki, the Newtone2060 record (that will be soon published by "Setola di maiale" label, and I made yesterday a new blog for the Chant trio, that will be our new official website, here.
I'm quite happy about the feature of using google docs and calendar inside the blog.
Ah, hopefully, if I find some tickets, this night I'll go to see Emiliana Torrini gig here in Milan.
ciao

This sounds nice!

2008-12-29T06:28:00.000-08:00

Wow, yesterday I found this video. It's one of the few things that really impressed me lately. The idea is really simple, the visual and the musical content go hand in hand, and the result is expressive and not obvious.
Of course it sounds a lot like a pipe organ improvisation, of course it is based on a major scale. But the result is really beautiful and expressive

SVG to OSC from Bill Orcutt on Vimeo.

Soler delirium

2008-06-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Soon it will be possible to hear my composition "Soler delirium" in the cd called "Soler: Fandango and Sonatas". Check the col legno website on the Forthcoming releases for more about that.

In the meanwhile I decided to publish here the first radically different version of the piece. I like it much more (and, anyway, first versions are always the beloved ones for me, especially if it's not me who decides that something should be changed...)

But then, I'm really happy about that publication, "col legno" being really a great label, with a lot of wonderful music (please check Bernhard Lang stuff, one of my favorite composers).

Here is the original version: the idea was to somehow explore the serious side of Soler, under the surface of the keyboard virtuosity: Soler music rarely explores a really deep musical thought, even if its output is of an extremely high level. So I wanted to create a ironic dramatic short composition, using only the piano tracks as material (and an awful lot of effects :-)

Ah, in the cd there's a very interesting article about Soler by Peter Cossé, and the program notes of the piece by your humble composer...

P.S. Little detail: this version was realized in 4 days, while the second one in 2 days, that's was the timetable, so I apologize for some unrefined details here and there... but you can call them "glitches", if you like!

Soler remix

2008-05-28T02:37:00.000-07:00

The Austrian label "col legno" asked me to compose an electronic elaboration using as samples the tracks of a recording of Soler's music that will be out soon.
In 5 days, I had to present two different versions, I think I never been that fast in my life... :-)

However, I'll soon publish here the version that was rejected (that, incidentall, I love more than the other... of course!)

Ciao

Trip to Helsinki

2008-04-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

Hi,
I came back last night in Berlusconi's Kingdom, but still with so beautiful memories from Finland, luckily.

Here are some pictures.

ciao

My Jazz

2008-02-28T10:33:00.000-08:00

I'm still composing this new music for "my" new trio, and it looks quite clear that I'm less and less interested in writing something in which improvisation has a big role.
There are sections that need a solo, but only for the overall structure of the piece, not per se.
Is just a bit boring for me to spend a lot of time writing a theme, and then start to improvise on it: the care that I take in the composition, cannot be really outperformed by a solo (my fault of course :-), however the way of playing this music and the attitude towards what is written down has to be completely jazz-based.
At the same time, this music is really written having in mind the players, so that I can somehow predict (or not) what they are going to do: this still gives me a cohesion that I find necessary in a composition.
I'll record next rehearsal and post something here.
ciao

About music

2008-02-02T14:10:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, especially in period when I am composing, I spend lot (probably, surely too much) of time, thinking about which music compose, analyzing my ideas with the lens of the music critic "... is this enough modern, acceptable from a contemporary composer?...", to which I reply with my musician voice "... well, it is just my music, I would like to be happy with myself, first!", and then again the musician in me is asking what I should compose, give more clarity, order...
Sometimes this dialog can be frustrating but quite often, I reach a kind of "sweet spot" in my musical ideas when finally the idea itself is enough strong to survive to all those critics.

But then, there are moments like today, in which I think "Wow, this piece is really good, I just want to put it on a paper and play it", and then I think, well, this stuff sounds all but modern or contemporary, where is the necessity to write this stuff now, in 2008. But maybe today I have found some clarity on my thinking about this: I realized that there are some musical thoughts that need a certain kind of music to be clearly expressed, and that the modernity of music is less important than necessity. I want to say, that modernity should be a necessity but I suffer, and I think quite fellow composers agree on that, the need be represented by a certain box, small, sometimes even unpleasant but "it's MY box", or rather "our box", and this makes things sometimes easier.

Of course, creativity (and especially the first moments of conception of a music), is a very delicate matter, one can feel really on a sea, and thanks to the lost of a common language, quite often we don't even know which kind of sea this is going to be!

But I should remember once again the words of my composition teacher, when he said that at some point, one just have enter into the water, and find THEN the maps, condition of weather etc. Otherwise the risk of observing the maps, and then discuss about weather reports, and thinking, well, maybe NOT today, are too big and can cut the creativity.

Being our prison, we should at least try to make this prison enough comfortable, at least!

Then, all those words, to say that I decided to compose and finish this tune (for my trio), despite what I can think (in bad moments) about it!

Enough now of speaking ABOUT music, it is better to do it (as my friend Mario Dobernig would probably suggest!)

good night

Pictures of Berlin

2008-02-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

I came back yesterday from this wonderful town and I'm putting some pictures that I made. Those are really "touristic" pictures, I'm afraid, but I spent most of the time working with Susi, and I went out just a couples of time to visit the town.

Well, I AM in Berlin!!!

2008-01-28T15:23:00.000-08:00

Finally, I took a train, it took 14 hours but I am in Berlin since Sunday.
Berlin is just the best town I ever been!
Cheap, friendly, beatiful, artistic, alive...

I am working here with recorder player Susi Frölich to ind out new ways to play a particular model of recorder called Paetzold (picture will follow soon).

We are experimenting and recording, it is really a good time, here!
ciao

no Berlin :-(

2008-01-25T14:21:00.000-08:00

Well, for the first time in my life I lost the plane, there was a quite small bus strike, but enough to make Milan crazy!
Plus friday afternoon, plus everything.... Government gone....

Let's see if Italy will survive...

I will :-)

Tomorrow Berlin!

2008-01-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

ciao,

tomorrow I'll go to Berlin for a week, to work for few days with an amazing recorder player to whom I'm composing a piece.

It is my first time in Berlin and I'm really looking forward to be there.
ciao

A gig in Rovereto

2008-01-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

from my hotel window:
The real Italian north-east,
factories and mountains.

Last friday, I played a gig in Rovereto, with actor Mario Cei. We played a short version of the show called "Boum! Je chante Trenet", dedicated to the great singer Charles Trenet.

It was a lot of fun, Rovereto is a lovely town, with one of the best italian museum of modern art, the MART. I saw for the first time "live" some futuristic painting and I was really impressed, and I'm not (well I wasn't) a great fan of futurism...

The gig was in a very good restaurant called "La brace". I have to say that the attitude of Rovereto's people towards jazz is just great: they are so respectful and enthusiast.

Great to be there!

ciao

PWGL

2007-07-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

Soon I will start to put some order in all the PWGL patches that I did, comment and clean them, and then publish here as a kind of on line tutorial.

Libero

Improvisation sur Écho video

2007-07-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

Again, with the help of Keijo Lahtinen (also author of the video editing part for my videos), I have uploaded an improvisation that I did with the Yamaha disklavier using a Max/MSP real time patch by Jean-Claude Risset originally made for its composition called "Echo" (the patch is used with his permission).
The patch implements a very simple process: it provided two "echoes in canon" of the input, with a prescribed delay and a transposition in pitch (lower or higher) and in tempo (slower or faster).
The live video is by Egle Oddo.

Enjoy!

libero

Video of "Déploration pour la mort de G. L."

2007-07-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Keijo Lahtinen, I´ve managed to compress and upload the video of my compositions "Déploration pour la mort de G. L.". The live video has been made by Egle Oddo.
The piece is an 88 part canon, in which every voice has a slightly different speed.

Enjoy!

Libero

Jean-Claude Risset's Duets at the Sibelius Academy

2006-11-22T07:04:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
I just finished to lead a seminar (with pianist Elisa Järvi), about the music that Jean-Claude Risset wrote for the Yamaha Disklavier played by a real pianist, and a live interaction (played back on the same instrument) programmed with Max/MSP.
There are so many interesting topics that I'd like to analyze in deeper details!
And Risset's music is also very charming and full of details that I could not see at first sight!
It has been also challenging for me to explain to a non-expert audience (pianists and composers) what Max/MSP is...

I'll post soon (after a short revision) the pdf file of the presentation.
It contains also a list of publications and links to web site that I've been using for my seminar.

ciao

Libero

György Ligeti dies on 12 June 2006 in Vienna.

2006-06-12T20:04:00.000-07:00

Una notizia tristissima, György Ligeti è morto stamattina, 12 giugno 2006 a Vienna. La notizia mi è stata data da un caro amico, la conferma è sul sito delle Edizioni Schott, http://www.schott-music.com/.

Era, semplicemente, il mio compositore preferito: da quando ho scoperto la sua musica, non ho mai smesso di adorarla, di commuovermi, di ridere, di stupirmi, di imparare.

Buon viaggio.

A very sad news: György Ligeti died this morning, the 12th June 2006 in Vienna. I thought it was not true, because the new was sent to me by a dear friend, but the confirmation is on the website of the Schott Editions, http://www.schott-music.com.

He just was my favorite composer.

Inizio: ciao a tutti!

2006-06-10T03:54:00.000-07:00

Benvenuti!

In questo blog mi occuperò principalmente di questi argomenti:

- Musica contemporanea, di ricerca, elettronica, e in generale di tutta la musica che mi interessa!

- Software libero, in particolare i softwares che utilizzo di più: Pure-data, Lilypond, Ardour.

- Progetti vari, probabilmente legati ai suddetti argomenti.

Il blog sarà sia in italiano che in inglese.

A presto!

Libero