Ben’s Blog

I’m really excited to be playing a brief set with the Tufts Early Music Ensemble before the Dido & Aeneas performances this week. Thur/Fri/Sat at 7:30PM (opera starts at 8), then Sunday at 2:30 (opera at 3PM). More information at http://www.tufts.edu/musiccenter/events/calendar.html

We’re playing some really pretty music. I’m doing about half the set on this awesome renaissance lute that I’m trying to learn how to play (my first gig on lute!), and then the other half on bass gamba.

Some of the masquing ayres that we’re playing are really great two hand exercises for bass actually. I’ll post back to this thread or another one with a few of them that I’ve been working on for 6-string down the road.

bentorrey :: Feb.27.2008 :: Gigs, Repertoire :: No Comments »

As I’ve gone back to an active life in music (somewhat active anyway), I’ve been amazed by the power of the unconscious. I’ve had a lot of music dreams lately. Some garden variety anxiety stuff, including a (kind of) funny one where one of my bass heroes was at a show of mine and I made him leave, stopping the performance to shoo him out (LOL).

But, the more interesting one to me was one I had a few weeks ago where I was playing soprano sax. That’s funny because I’ve never played soprano sax. Although I played tenor intensely for 4 years in junior high and high school and loved it, I never even once tried a soprano. So, it’s funny that I ended up having a dream that I was playing soprano really well. It’s always fun to think, OK, what came together to make that dream happen. This one was fairly straighforward to figure out:

The Avishai Cohen live album features a great soprano player, Jimmy Greene. I’ve been really digging that album and DVD of late. Also, Ben Allison’s Peace Pipe record has some fantastic soprano playing, especially on the title track, by Michael Blake. Listening to those two records inspired me to break out some Coltrane and I listened intensely to A Love Supreme for about a week straight.

Also, I’ve been thinking about wind instruments a lot. I think the key concept of “having to take a breath” is great for myself as a string player to keep in mind. Breath man. As I’ve been working my recorder chops back into shape just a bit on the Van Eyck variations and things, it’s been really fun and reminded me how great singing or playing a wind instrument is.

Anyway, so I had this dream that I was rocking it on soprano and it was incredibly vivid. I woke up and that morning and got on MusiciansFriend.com to check prices on a low-end soprano. I thought, cool, I might get one in the summer or the fall, and see where it goes.

Later that same day I emailed my good friend Ben, a multi talented pianist/composer/reedman, about the dream and told him I was considering a cheap soprano. He emailed me back, “What’s your address man? I’ve got a nice Yanagisawa soprano that I never play, I’ll send it to you man!”. Wow, I thanked my good friend for his incredibly generosity. “Definitely man, after the Bach thing, you’re the best.”

I like when dreams go from the unconscious into the conscious realm. I’ll continue to listen to mine, because I think they’re letting me know what I need to deal with or think more about with music. The other thing I take from that is that sometimes it’s just great to let the universe know what you’re thinking of, sometimes things just flood in in response.

And, it’s great to have great friends and family. I am most truly blessed.

bentorrey :: Feb.15.2008 :: Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »

I’ve always loved Sor # 6, which I did on Music for the 6-String Bass in 1996. This is a “really hard” (for me anyway) arrangement though, and I’ve always had trouble pulling it off live.

Last week I had a late night lesson with my lute teacher. After an 11 hour day at work though, I figured I needed some good dinner so I stopped by the best Tibetan restaurant in Somerville. While I enjoyed a hot cup of kushu chankul (hot apple cider with cottage cheese) and listened to the chanting monk music, I read over and meditated on one particularly brilliant page, page 100, in Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner.

“The apex of impressive artistry is the ability to perform technically advanced music with the same ease and inspiration as a simple folk song.”

Wow, that’s a great quote. I decided right there that I’d like to try that with some of the solo bass arrangements that I have. I have it in my head that they are “so hard” and can’t be played easily. Here’s an attempt at practicing this piece with some insight from page 100.

bentorrey :: Feb.03.2008 :: Books I Enjoy(ed)/Will Enjoy, Repertoire :: 1 Comment »