live guitar action

from solo set @ Nip and Tipple, Whalley Range, Manchester on 13th September.

Also playing at a couple of gigs this coming week:

Thursday 23rd September ‘Centrifuge 6′ @ Kro Bar, Manchester

Sunday 26th September ‘St Lukes All Dayer’ @ St. Lukes Church, Liverpool

Then following Friday 1st October really excited to be promoting this as well as playing as part of a trio opening up the night…

John Tchicai Tony Marsh Manchester 1st october 2010

Performances of ‘One’

One is the piece for music and dance I’ve been working on over the summer with Rebekka Platt. We have two performances in Manchester at the start of October.

2nd October Emergency @ The Greenroom, Manchester

4th October Akemi Arts present ‘Live Art’ @ Contact Theatre, Manchester

Acoustic Guitar tracks

All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.

(This track is only acoustic guitar and guitar steel, lots of natural harmonics singing. Saw that Bill Hicks biography yesterday and was fitting moved and inspired so went with this as a title for the minute. May not stick with it but it certainly beats “untitled drone”)

Paintbrush

(This one is acoustic guitar and preparation with paintbrush, egg slicer and I think there’s maybe some goat bell and voice in there too.)

Tortu

(just hands and guitar on this)

These are easier to hear versions than the previous posting bravely entitled “new acoustic guitar tracks” of the tunes I did with Karl at the Queens Arc over Easter.

New Acoustic Guitar tracks

A couple of selections of new solo acoustic guitar I recorded with Karl @ The Queens Arc studio in Levenshulme over Easter. We did 6 tracks altogether which should hopefully appear in the near future, watch this space!

track 2

track 4

‘Spoke’ Scores for Ad Hoc

 Above you can see the hermetic  graphic score I drew for the Ad Hoc dance performance I wrote music for earlier in the Autumn. The score was performed by me with the Ad Hoc dancers at the Lowry Studio Theatre in Salford on the 11th of November. Some of the music I wrote for this performance has since been recorded for solo guitar and will hopefully see the light of day sometime next year on a longer release.

Below are the open scores, hopefully understandable to anyone with a familarity with a guitar in open tuning, some extended techniques and graphic scores. These are the tidied up versions of the documents I worked on with choreographer Ruth Tyson-Jones and the dancers to create the finished score.

 

Ad Hoc performance

a couple of pictures below from the performance with Ad Hoc dance on Monday at the Lowry Studio for which I composed and performed the music for…

note that as ever i cant keep still and am blurred…more pictures to follow, hopefully with some blurred dancers rather than stationary ones, as well as video. Im going to get the score online soon too…

Ad Hoc Dance Performance

This coming Monday…

SPOKE

NOVEMBER 9^TH, 2009

SPOKE is a new contemporary dance work created by Ad Hoc Dance, directed by Ruth Tyson-Jones. It has taken creative writing, either found, gathered and/or authored as a starting point. The spoken word is skillfully interwoven into the choreography. A specially created score has been created and will be played live, by David Birchall.

Ad Hoc Dance is The Lowry’s in-house adult contemporary community dance company

The evening’s bill will be shared  – The Lowry’s in house youth dance company, Commotions will present a new contemporary choreography. This work has been created alongside dance artist, Debbie Milner.

The Studio Theatre, The Lowry, Salford Quays

Time: 7.45pm

Price: £5

Date: November 9, 2009

Book through The Lowry Box Office on 0870 787 5783 or Lowry website

 

 

Manchester Ship Canal

Picture taken heading from Trafford Bridge towards the Lowry along the promenade on my way to rehearsal last night with Ad Hoc dance. There’s a lot of incredible open views in that part of town; the expanse of water pushes the horizon way further out. Im not surewhat it’s like in the day time but theres a real desolate end of the world feel at night.These long quaysides totally devoid of people, only the scale gives a hint to the original purpose and labours of the place.

With the music im writing with Ad Hoc ive been trying to isolate fragments from improvising along with the dancers as they put the piece together and then to use this as a more solid base for improvising out of. Refining and refining. Guitar is tuned to D/A/D/Fsharp/A/D Some notes below:

• Paintbrush (point 5) under 9th fret playing on either side with left and right hands. So right hand pulls out rhythmic pulses and some rhythm from guitar body. Left pulls on strings behind brush on guitar neck, can also fret some notes here to produce really clipped chimes.

• Guitar flat in lap brush end 12th fret; percussion on front and sides played with hands and soft mallet; totally open rhythms; timing in response to dancers; they all have individual moves at this point; really open and improvised.

• Sparse slide guitar around the words “aching, arching, anchoring” and their connotations. Added words form dancers own personal writing.

• Piece in Em7 and pulling to D for a duet. Really flows in a welcome energetic way; as with flamenco. This is interspersed with slowly, gentle, mournful passages of making sadness, waking up and remembering the flow from before.

• Interaction of rhythm and movement; not so much finding pulses but watching to find peoples place and individual timing. There’s something with the brain and juxaposition so you start seeing patterns and making sense of whatevers happening?

Performance is on 9th November at the Lowry Studio theatre.

Didsbury Arts Festival

I’ll be playing some new tunes of steel string guitar. Hopefully be joined by Kelly on flute for one tune! Come down should be great.

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