Improvisations

This piece is played on the electric mandolin (a five-string Mandoblaster) with minimal effects (compression and reverb). The gentle quietude of the piece suggested something ethereal; this picture of Maitreya Buddha (the next Buddha), seemed perfect to accompany the music. The 30-foot statue of the Maitreya Buddha is in the Thiksey monastery in Ladakh, India. I tuned the mandolin to CGDAE and used a scale based on the overtone series of the note C (C, D, E, F#, G, A, Bb, C). The opening harmonics outline the notes in the series. -William Bradbury

I discovered this photo by Hamed Saber while looking on Flickr.com for a photo for the Quiet Day improvisation. Until now all photos have been attached to the improvisations after the fact. I thought this beautiful picture and the accompanying text were truly moving and decided to do a piece based on them. Hamed describes the picture as: "This door (window) is a praying room of a historical house which Ayatollah Taleghani born and grew in. It's located in a village near Taleghan." Below the picture he wrote:================Death is to fly ...A friend passed away last night...Wish her be in heavens now, in paradise. She was in a hell till last night, which at last she flied away...=================I spent a lot of time looking at Hamed's wonderful photos and reading about his life in Iran. I was stuck by the universality of his experience and how similar we are in our feelings about friends, family, life. Would that our governments weren't so at odds with each other... When does that insanity end?I improvised the music on the mandolin while looking at the photo and thinking about Hamed's words. The faster section with the synthesized drone was done late last night, I improvised the opening slow section early this morning. Digital editing and mixing and addition of the drone part (using Digidesign's Structure) completed the piece. I tuned the mandolin differently than normal, DDAD. Thank you, Hamed, for the inspiration. Maybe one day we will meet.-William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

I played this variation of Quiet Day immediately after I recorded the original. The opening is similar to the first version... then I played at a faster tempo and improvised new material as well as developed the old melodies. Kind of fun! Again with this piece I used limited effects (same settings as Quiet Day). I also took Ben Pollard's picture and manipulated it digitally (this is allowed under the picture's Creative Commons license). I hope this is okay, Ben!-William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

This piece felt like a quiet, autumn day in the Northeast (where I grew up). It is simple. Straight forward. Gentle. I used only compression, EQ, stereo imaging and reverb. The photo by Ben Pollard seemed perfect for the music.-William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

This piece conjures up cold, dark images for me. It feels like the emptiness of space. Europa is one of large moons of the planet Jupiter; incredibly cold and covered in ice (the image shows huge canyon-like cracks in the ice on its surface). The process for this improvisation began with one take on the electric mandolin using the Ebow which allows me to sustain notes indefinitely. The Ebow operates magnetically and causes the string to vibrate without being plucked. A wonderful way for us mandolinists to pretend we can bow our strings... I took the recording and doubled it with itself at the lower octave and with itself in reverse (similar to what I did in Mandolin Improvisation 7). Then I added one track of synthesized sound (using Native Instruments Absynth 4). The recurring synthesized sound first appears as the high, sighing sound you hear just after the opening note; all else is sound created on the electric mandolin. Once I relax into listening to this piece, I find it very meditative, though others might find it a bit unsettling...-William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

This is a remix of the Whole Tones improvisation (#5). I took the original track and made a copy of it, stretched it to make it longer and slower (but kept the pitch the same) and reversed it. Then I doubled it at the lower octave and in other ways... I mixed this vastly modified track and with the original melody (also doubled at the lower octave) and aligned them so that there was an interesting interplay between the parts. Of course, a number of digital effects are used. A very different result! -William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

This improv is in G dorian (a scale close to the minor mode). It has a blue feel to it (not a blues but a bit bluesy?). I used an electric mandolin (a Mandoblaster) and, for the first time in this series, I did an overdub of a second part. I also doubled each part at both the unison and the lower octave and added some delays and reverb. Sorry about the pun in the title...-William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

For this improvisation I limited myself to the whole tone scale beginning on G (the lowest string of the mandolin). A recurring motive, a few harmonics, a “cathedral” reverb setting. Kind of quiet. In the middle of the improv I did hit a couple of notes outside the scale (by mistake); see if you can hear them...-William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

Last night I had the incredible experience of performing with Katsura Kan, a Butoh master. He was on campus (Cal State, San Marcos) for a three-week workshop with our students; I was invited to play with our student gamelan ensemble to accompany his performance. Kan is an amazing performer... it’s impossible to describe his focused, expressive, moving work. Suffice it to say the audience was enthralled (as was I...). His work incorporates lots of improvisation and stylized body and facial movements and is influenced by the work of playwright Samuel Beckett (as is Butoh in general). The music ensemble improvised in response to his performance. It was a great night... I brought my electric mandolin (a Mandoblaster five-string), an EBow (a magnetic device that lets you sustain notes forever..) and my computer, using Pro Tools and various synth and effects plug-ins. This morning I woke up early and had to do an improvisation based on last night’s experience. It was recorded in one take on the Mandoblaster using the Ebow and delays and effects in ProTools. -William BradburyPlease feel free to add comments on the Feedback/Contact page

“Slapback” is an improvisation using a slapback effect (a longer delay time that feels like the sound is “slapping back” at you). I set up the effect in Pro Tools first (using the CSR Inverse plugin from IK Multimedia). After recording the improv, I duplicated the melody at the lower octave by using AmpliTube 2 from IK and adding a pitch shift pedal to the Detuned Jazz preset (you hear this effect alone at the opening). It’s fun to hear my instrument as a “bass” mandolin... When you hear two instruments playing, it is the original signal plus the octave transposition effect.-William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

“What if...” is a simple improvisation with the initial idea of making a piece out of three notes (D, E C# with octaves). As I played through, it spontaneously developed into something a little more elaborate... I will try the three-note idea again soon. The title comes from the questioning sound of the opening motive.-William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.

This brief improvisation for mandolin made me think of the composer Edgard Varèse. He was one of my early influences; I was a big fan of his music when I was in undergraduate school at Hamilton College. Many wintery evenings were spent listening to scratchy records of his music in the drafty old Listening Library. The sounds are all made directly on the mandolin (with lots of reverb added in the mix!). I also added some scratchy record noise to the final mix using Nomad Factory’s RetroVox. I imagine this as a long lost recording from Varèse’s Blue(grass) Period. :-) I’m in the photo playing a Summit F-style mandolin. The lighting effect is created by using a slow camera exposure with me sitting VERY still while quickly moving a multi-colored light “box” in my right hand. Photo by my talented son, Chase. -William BradburyPlease feel free to add a comment on the Feedback/Contact page.