Music

Peter & Roland and other noises :

Peter & Roland and other noises [dbl. CD]

Landscape II (13:40)
30 Oct.'81 - Chingford.
I must have been listening to Brian Eno when I did this one. I remember the bemused look on the faces of a couple of friends when I played this to them - I knew I was on the right track. This later turned into the bones of Beach ('85).
Peter & Roland (part one) (61:11) 11 Nov.'85,
Peter & Roland (part three) (56:26) 28 Jan.'86 - York.
In collaboration with John Godfrey.
The original idea for this was for percussion and synthesiser, to be played by the composer and percussionist Peter Garvey - hence the name, but that didn't work out and we realized it to tape. Although
there are a few minutes recorded on the end of part 1, there is no part two. Having decided to realize the piece we recorded parts 1 & 3 and then found that we couldn't recreate part 2 to our satisfaction
and so it was shelved.

Part one was first performed on the 15 Nov. '85, and the complete piece (1&3) first performed 15 March '86, as part of the York Spring Festival of Contemporary Music.

Drone (1.2) (excerpt for CD) (19:58) 17 Feb.'91 - Chingford.
Originally recorded as the backing tape for Cairn ('86), a sort of Bagpipe concerto, this is the '91 CD remix of the revised version re-recorded for Son of Cairn ('90) for the ensemble Icebreaker.
Although a more or less single pitch, this has 16 tracks of thick lush sound. A pleasant noise.

Peter & Roland and other noises
RW-1-03-017.1/.2

RW-1-03-017.1 :

01 Landscape II
    (part 1) 6'54"
02 (part 2) 6'46"

03 Peter & Roland
    - part one (part 1) 8'48"
04 - part one (part 2) 8'47"
05 - part one (part 3) 8'45"
06 - part one (part 4) 8'44"
07 - part one (part 5) 8'43"
08 - part one (part 6) 8'42"
09 - part one (part 7) 8'42"

Total time 75’01“

RW-1-03-017.2 :

01 Peter & Roland
     - part three (part 1) 9'27"
02 - part three (part 2) 9'26"
03 - part three (part 3) 9'25"
04 - part three (part 4) 9'24"
05 - part three (part 5) 9'23"
06 - part three (part 6) 9'22"

07 Drone (1.2)
    (excerpt for CD) (part 1) 9'59"
08 (part 2) 9'59"

Total time 76’32“

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Wallpaper Music #5 :

waterFall
(13 Dec. ‘02 - Pyhra) was originally created for a Wiener Klang Manufaktur concert in Heunburg, Kärnten, Austria, as pre-concert background sound in July 2001. It was then remixed for this CD in
December 2002, mainly for duration and computer-memory reasons (very unmusical). The source sound was a novelty house-plant container with a small built-in fountain (you know the kind - a little rock with a hole in it sits in the earth and spouts water).

Endrip
..... is just a means to an end.

An accompaniment to watching paint dry. Water falls three octaves during an hour and eight minutes. Aural wallpaper.

Wallpaper Music #5
RW-1-03-018

01 waterFall (part 1) 9'45"
02 waterFall (part 2) 9'45"
03 waterFall (part 3) 9'44"
04 waterFall (part 4) 9'43"
05 waterFall (part 5) 9'42"
06 waterFall (part 6) 9'41"
07 waterFall (part 7) 9'40"

08 Endrip 3'09"

Total time 71’19“

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Rise & Fall :

Fall 18'43"
15 July '92 - Chingford.
F# drops to F over twelve minutes - with an introduction and an accompaniment. The introduction noise is in fact a 120 voice choir, all the voice of one Amanda Sherwin, recorded in 1980 for a (12 part) choir piece called 'Asylum #9'.

Rahab 14'43"
29 Apr.'03 - Pyhra
This was created for this CD from two of the original studies for Fall : Fall Choir Variants (13.7.92) [06'31"] and Fall Study (29.6.92) [08'17"].
As part of the artwork for the CD cover I used engravings from an old family Bible (published by Cassell. Petter, and Galpin - no date but with a signed entry dated 1851), and the one I used for the back is
captioned 'Falling Down of the Walls of Jericho'. It was while reading the story of Jericho I was given the title of the piece. Within the artwork are framed details of a naked woman, these are a reference to a lady named Rahab, of whom (so the story goes) it was said, 'only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with
her in the house'. [Joshua, VI.18] (by the way, I'm not actually religious but it's a great Bible.)

Rise (F mix) 45'59"
9 Jan.'97 - Westcott
This is the grand-child of a short percussion piece called 'MX
Rise' ('92) [04'36"], which itself was a version of a set of studies called 'Rise Trials' ('92) [3 x 06'29"]. Then in 1996 a version of this became 'Rising Fugitive' for harp & TV [17'30"], a 1999 CD mix of which [18'24"] can be heard on my 'Television & The Bomb' CD.
Also in '97 there was a version for Irish harp quartet called
'Q3' [14'06"] (not to mention Q1 and 2), a guitar version, and a planned set called 'The Seven Sisters' which to date has not been finished/realized (but you never know).

Then of course there is the miniature version, 'Wanted' ('02) [04'09"] created for the 'Details' CD. As to this version, the F in 'F mix' refers to the original idea of creating a Morton Feldman-like piece, but as is usual with my work the piece evolved into something else. I think there might be another one in there somewhere - I like to rework stuff.

Rise & Fall
RW-1-03-019

01 Fall (part 1) 9'54"
02 Fall (part 2) 8'49"


03 Rahab (part 1) 9'01"
04 Rahab (part 2) 5'42"


05 Rise (F mix) (part 1) 9'08"
06 (part 2) 8'18"
07 (part 3) 9'04"
08 (part 4) 9'30"
09 (part 5) 9'59"

Total time 79’43“

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Dreams from Oblivion :

Most of the pieces on this CD were originally on a cassette I produced way back named '912' (work from 1991/92).

01. Groggy Intro (17 July 1992 - Chingford)
A short introduction. Actually a study for the
start of Herb's Jump.

02. tick (V3.1) (6 Oct. 1992 - Dorking)
The first of two studies for an unfinished collaboration with the film-maker Mireille Chan, this was to be our third film (V3).

03-04. Piano T'Nidos (13 Aug. 2001 - Pyhra)
Several years ago a friend of mine, Damian, gave me a CD of piano samples for my studio. I can't remember anymore if he challenged me or it was my suggestion that I make a piece from it.
Either way here it is, a tape piece for piano and voice.
First performed: 19 Aug. 2001, Heunburg "Jazz5burg" concert, Völkermarkt, Austria, as part of a Wiener Klang Maufaktur performance.

05-07. RDC I (11 Aug. 1992 - Chingford)
This was created from a short study, Random DC I (4'32") from July 1980, reworked and generally messed with. The name means Random, dice (I) (there was also a II) and refers to what you think it does.

08. ECTB33 (13 Sept. 1993 - Westcott)
This was created from a study for the piece Brush Work, a soundtrack for a short film by Clive Walley. Cleaning paint brushes.

09. Red Fix (OR II) (24 Nov. 1992 - Dorking)
This piece 'grew' out of a two-minute video
soundtrack I composed in 1991 for the film 'Orientation' by Mireille Chan. For me composition has always been the musical representation of visual images (the greatest influence on my work has been the artist Robert Rauschenberg), this visual approach to music obviously affects how I work - from how I see/hear the selection and 92#treatment of sound to the way I regard the structure and the composition process itself. I produce mainly graphic scores.I have collected together a sound library of 'images', ranging from the usual few-second samples to forty-minute blocks of sound which are not in themselves pieces, but from which sections are used and
re-used as collage material. This piece is an example of that
process, returning to the original sounds used in the soundtrack, reworked, retreated, and expanded with additional material.[program note for the Bowling Green Festival brochure - June 25, for Oct. '93] First performed: 8 Oct. 1993, Fine Arts Center, Ohio, USA.

10. tock (V3.2) (6 Oct. 1992 - Dorking)
The second of the two studies for the proposed film by Mireille Chan.

11-12. Herb's Jump (30 July 1992 - Chingford)
I very seldom write for live instrumentalists,
preferring to work and play more directly with sound. This piece was prompted by a desire to write for the sound world of the orchestra, an activity I have only tried twice before. This and the chance to work towards a finished form from various sketches and dabblings with samples and loops I have been playing with for years.
The piece is in three continuous movements, and for those who want to know what images the music represents for me, they are: Go on then (4'22"), Herb's thoughts as he steels himself; Time to count (7'41"), on the way down; 42 (Oh dear) (3'06"), second thoughts and the meaning of life.
This a very Hollywood view of suicide as luckily I have never been seriously tempted.[program note for SPNM concert - Nov. 3 '93 for Jan '94] First performed: 30 Jan. 1994, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

Dreams from Oblivion
RW-1-03-020

01 Groggy intro 1'36"

02 tick (V3.1) 2'14"

03 Piano T’Nidos
    (part 1) 6'43"
04 (part 2) 8'54"

05 RDC I (1.1)
    (part 1) 8'07"
06 (part 2) 7'52"
07 (part 3) 7'50"

08 ECTB33 6'13"

09 Red Fix (Or II) 9'25"

10 tock (V3.2) 1'52"

11 Herb's Jump
    (part 1) 7'40"
12 (part 2) 7'36"

Total time 76’15“

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The Relativ Violin Night :
(WKM: with Ernst Zettl, aka eZe)

The two tracks on this CD consist of a copy of the live radio
transmission from Austria’s OE1 and a recording of a rehearsal made in the WKM (Wiener Kleng Manufaktur) studio a few days earlier (edited by eZe).
Ernst Zettl (eZe) plays a Zeta electric violin and his ‘Virtual
String’ - a midi instrument he designed some years ago. More info at: http://members.tiscali.at/zettl/
Mel (I D Mellish) ‘plays’ various tape machines, mixing pre-recorded material made from eZe’s violin sounds and other related bits and pieces.

JON ROSE: THE RELATIVE VIOLIN
VIENNA - VANCOUVER
on line- on site- on air
Dec 7th, 1999
7:30 p.m. (CET) / 10:30 a.m. (PST) - open end.

Read this article in Magazine Reviews

The Relativ Violin Night
RW-1-03-021
(WKM: with Ernst Zettl, aka eZe)

01 RVN studio (part 1) 8'45"
02 RVN studio (part 2) 8'28"
03 RVN studio (part 3) 8'18"
04 RVN studio (part 4) 8'42"
05 RVN studio (part 5) 8'16"


06 RVN radio (part 1) 7'42"
07 RVN radio (part 2) 6'09"
08 RVN radio (part 3) 7'18"

Total time 63’48“

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Music Press Reviews

The Relativ Violin Night
WKM: with Ernst Zettl

JON ROSE: THE RELATIVE VIOLIN
VIENNA - VANCOUVER
on line- on site- on air
Dec 7th, 1999
7:30 p.m. (CET) / 10:30 a.m. (PST) - open end
This small festival juxtaposes the sound and technique of real (excelling) violinist with the ubiquitous sound and more and more
accessible technology of contemporary music: the sampler, the record, the radio and the internet; as it is networked with the radio and the
Internet, the traditional site of the concert hall expands into new spaces, technologies and sounding-possibilities; the performers work
partly from geographically very distant locations; their music changes in (re-)mixes and becomes recontextualised at each location
by visual elements as well as by voices from far away.
"Just to confuse the issue, amongst all this simulacra will be thrown some state of the art interactive computer systems running real time
MIDI controlled string samples and string images. So in this violin- event there is a whole mix up of the real, the fake, the
virtual...not to mention the good, bad and the ugly.. .or just plain noisy."

(Jon Rose)
--------
"No matter that someone maybe able to down load the entire content of their brain into a computer 25 years from now (anyone who wants to do
that won't have much to download anyway), the last thing that a computer will ever be able to simulate in real time is the sound of a
violin being played left handed for the first time by a trained violinist (I'm serious)....that amount of indecision, unreliability,
envelope malfunction, unrepeatability, awkwardness, variation in every agonising millisecond takes just too much computation. So as
with most music practice, in this mini-festival it could well be the differences between musicians and their sonic resources and locations
that tend to create the moments...rather than the similarities."

(Jon Rose)
---------
"The Relative Violin - Vancouver-Vienna" takes place in the framework of a museum (databank) of the violin/violin-music/violin-images/
violin-objects and all the cultural notions related to this instrument-turned-icon.
(In Vienna pieces from the collection of the Rosenberg Museum at Violin in Slovakia will actually 'frame' the on site-event).
"The Relative Violin - Vancouver-Vienna" is a temporary networked on
site-on line- on air -set-up, which propels material from the "museum = history and present of the violin" through different media
and spaces, constantly recombining and recontextualising the pieces/ fragments/samples and thus producing/adding more material to the museum.
Each piece/mix/web- and broadcast produced in this night at any of the real and/or virtual sites is fragmented, recycled, recombined at
one of the other sites and/or contains mixes, fragments, recombinations produced at the other sites.
The different - networked - producing/processing sites are:
a) Vienna Radiokulturhaus
b) Vancouver Grand Lux/Western Front
c) http://kunstradio.at & http://front.bc.ca
d) Österreich 1 - the cultural channel of the National Austrian Radio
(ORF)

(Jon Rose)