I had not planned on doing another piano mix so soon after the last one in November 2015. Then Piano Day happened. On March 28th of this year a group founded by Nils Frahm celebrated the piano and everything around it. This was the second year for the event.
In addition to music released for Piano Day and live events, the Piano Day website, pianoday.org, has this awesome random note generator. I highly recommend playing around with it. You can record your noodlings and play it back on the site. It works great with a tablet where you can hit several notes simultaneously.
The website piano player is what got me started on this mix. I made an audio recording of my random notes and then messed with it by mixing it with a backwards version and a slowed down version and adding a bit of reverb. The result is very listenable. Not an exact composition per se with now structure but it works pretty well as an ambient piano track.
That's a long winded way of saying that is where this mix started. Next I stumbled across an amazing recording on SoundCloud here... https://soundcloud.com/hey-exit/every-recording-of-gymnopedie-1
Brendan Landis, recording as Hey Exit, took every recording he could find of Satie's Gymnopedie #1 and played them all at the same time, layered on top of each other, timestretched to the length of the longest recording. The 60 plus recordings combine to create an ethereal, phasing shifting version the famous Gymnopedie #1. I knew immediately that I had to include this in any piano mix.
A couple of quick notes on other tracks...
The mix starts of with Fleeting Smile by Roger Eno. A cut that owes a lot to Satie's Gymnopedies but is still beautiful on it's own. It had been years since I listened to this track and after hearing it again I immediately added to a playlist I have called The Most Beautiful Recordings Ever.
There is another sort of random notes type of piece in the mix and it's from Akria Rabelais. The tracks full name is "Every Tone Is the Prism as Words, Any Unexpected Corners Must Be Slipped Away." It's a 42 minute piece with LOTS of dead air in between notes. I decided to remix it a bit by layering it to eliminate much of the silence. I know this goes totally against the original intent of the track but I was just experimenting with the randomness of rearranging the notes and ended up liking how it sounded.
I hope you enjoy these piano moments. Maybe next year I'll have a piano mix ready on Piano Day. In the meantime go visit the site... pianoday.org
Enjoy
[ s t r e a m ] [ d o w n l o a d ] [ i t u n e s ]
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Roger Eno - Fleeting Smile
- 02:24 Hey Exit - every recording of gymnopedie 1
- 06:50 Hey Exit - every rec of gymnoedie 1 slowly
- 08:23 pianoday.org + Low Light - Piano Day web player remix
- 15:15 Steve Roach & Robert Logan - Moments Notice
- 20:30 Akira Rabelais - every tone is the prism(layered remix)
- 28:30 Harold Budd - Templar
- 37:30 Roedelius - Roedelius plays piano part 11
- 40:05 Nils Frahm - Mi
- 43:54 Unknown - random pno
- 47:27 Mark Lyken & Emma Dove - fishing for rigs pt. 1
- 49:05 Howard Skempton - piano piece 1969
- 50:30 Roedelius - Roedelius plays piano part 1
- 52:33 Chris Walla - Introductions
- 60:14 Hey Exit - every recording of gymnopedie 1 slowly
- 62:20 end
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