Dialogues II - Behind The Songs - Chapter III VIRTAUKSIA I: UNDERCURRENT - with Jarmo Saari link: https://soundcloud/joakimberghall/undercurrent From the moment I began composing to this record I was hoping to come up with something that would turn into a song in three movements. Why? Its difficult to explain. But Im happy that it worked out and that I managed to get such musicians as Jarmo Saari, Timo Kämäräinen and Marzi Nyman to perform the piece together with me. Part I, Undercurrent, was recorded as the very last track of the sessions in the beginning of May 2014. We had some challenges fitting out schedules together with Jarmo, but we found out that we could record on the night of mixing day one, just before Jarmo would leave to tours around Finland and Australia. Everything worked out well and we met at Jarmos workspace, which he has, with lots of effort, turned into a peaceful place very comfortable to work at. Anyone who knows him would easily agree that theres a generally good vibe surrounding Jarmo and his multiple, highly unique projects. I put up my saxophone mic and a couple different options to record his Versoul amp. We were standing just a few feet away from each other. Placing figure 8 pattern microphones with some thought allows me to record duets in small spaces without much bleed where unwanted. I had begun composing Undercurrent using a capo on the 2nd fret of the guitar and applying the same kind of voicings I used making the other two parts of Virtauksia. This time I started out fooling around with a chordal picking Idea. I guess you always tend to get ideas out of whatever youve played in the past. Ive by chance encountered chordal picking challenges quite many times even though guitar has always been a secondary (or thirdary, or however the hell you say it) instrument to me. 15 years ago I took a summer course in Joensuu as a student of Raoul Björkenheim, which led into playing Birds of Fire by Mahavishnu Orchestra in his ensemble. Later my guitar teacher in Kuopio, Risto Toppola, gave me a chordal picking etude by Al DiMeola, and I also began working on the great Étude No. I composed to classical guitar by Heitor Villa-Lobos - something Raoul had also told us students about. That makes a great chordal picking etude too! Anyway, I never used the technique to compose anything before, and now it happened, thinking of how Jarmo would perhaps feel comfortable playing. I was, for once, really happy with the song and Jarmo had modified the original guitar idea a little, making it work even better. By composing a guitar solo chorus repeating the same chords I was able to give him room to apply his superb looping abilities in case he wanted. He did take advantage of the possibility given, and plays a mind-blowing solo on this last take, take three or four if I remember right. In the guitar solo Im trying out some new, self-invented techiques to be able to sort of play percussion at the same time as saxophone. The percussion is just saxophone pads pressed down with force - brought in front in the sonic image with some extra compression to make the high frequencies of the saxophone mic more audible. In the first takes I was exploring the potential of finger shot shakers attached to middle fingers while playing, but I soon found out Id need more time to make it work properly. It sounded funky, but didnt work funky enough, not yet at least. This was also the very first time us two ever played anything together, but most definitely not the last. Hope you like it! More stories behind Dialogues II tracks coming up! I Think! JB
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 17:05:21 +0000
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