Rand Steiger: musings

musings

April/May, 2020.

Unable to compose after three weeks of social distancing, I came to realize how important performing with friends and colleagues was to my creative practice, and decided to try an experiment to make music in a new way (for me) that would restore a sense of connection and hopefully get me going. I reached out to a group of my friends and asked them to send me a fragment, anything from a single sound to a phrase, and emphasized that fidelity wasn't important to me, and that mobile phone recordings were fine. Many responses followed, and the ability to hear (and in many cases see) them was both comforting and inspiring.

I am going to start posting a series of collaborative compositions I'm calling musings where I worked with the fragments that came my way to create little pieces from them by applying digital signal processing and cutting and pasting. I'm starting with some audio only projects, while also working on a bigger mashup of all the many videos that were contributed. Eventually I hope to post a group audio/video composition.

I can't thank my collaborators enough. This has been incredibly inspiring and uplifting. I hope these provide some interest and comfort at this difficult time.

video:

10. collaboration with 21 friends and colleagues in 5 countries

collaborative composition: Mixed Musings

The last piece in the series, mixing together independent fragments sent to me in March 2020, featuring:

Mark Applebaum (piano, mousketer), Brian Batchley (guitar, Harmonica), David Bithell (piano),
David Borgo (hose, saxophones), Claire Chase (flutes, pan pipes), Mark Dresser (bass),
Aiyun Huang (percussion), Jeff Kaiser (trumpet), Ross Karre (percussion),
Philip Larson (voice), Albert Liang (cello), Alex Lipowski (thundersheet),
Daniel Lippel (guitar), Mark Menzies (violin), Ryan Muncy (soprano saxophone),
Christopher Otto (violin), Joshua Rubin (clarinet), Steven Schick (percussion),
Kathryn Schulmeister (bass), Rand Steiger (drumset, garage door),
Samuel Steiger (violin), Wilfrido Terrazas (duck call)

7. collaboration with Claire Chase and Wilfrido Terrazas

improvisation: Telephone Musing

An evolving mediated improvised musical conversation between Chase and Terrazas, with editing and signal processing by Rand Steiger.
Check back again on this one as it keeps growing.....

6. collaboration with Applebaum, Bonilla, Huang, Karre, Lipowski, and Schick

collaborative composition: Percussion Musing

video of pecussion fragments, with editing and signal processing by Rand Steiger

5. collaboration with Claire Chase

collaborative composition: Claire Contrabass Musing

video of contrabass flute improvisation by Claire Chase, with editing and signal processing by Rand Steiger

4. collaboration with Mark Dresser

collaborative composition: Dresser Musing

video of extended bass improvisation by Mark Dresser, with signal processing by Rand Steiger

audio:

9. collaboration with Claire Chase

Our version of 13 Changes by Pauline Oliveros for flutes and signal processing

text score by Pauline Oliveros

8. collaboration with Claire Chase

collaboration: Fantasy on Fantasy 1

Performance of Fantasie #1 by Telemann, performed by Claire Chase, with signal processing by Rand Steiger

3. collaboration with Claire Chase

collaboration: Danny Boy Musing

improvisation on Danny Boy by Claire Chase, with signal processing by Rand Steiger

2. collaboration with Jacob Greenberg

collaborative composition: Jacob Musing

original material: Indian Harmonium for Rand, by Jacob Greenberg

1. collaboration with Austin Wulliman

collaborative composition: Austin Musing

original material: A Short Message to Rand, by Austin Wulliman