Pieces for Piano & Tape (Basement Tapes 103), by JP

Pieces for Piano & Tape (Basement Tapes 103)

by JP

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	1.	Piece for Solo Piano I 22:18
	2.	Piece for Solo Piano II 22:00
	3.	Hermaphrodite (for Julius Eastman) 22:56
	4.	Two by Two - Solo Self-Accompaniment (for Cecil Taylor) 23:10

about

Basement Tapes 103: J. Peterson "Pieces for Piano & Tape"

Initial recordings were improvised on pianos at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester, and the Rutland Free Library in Rutland City, winter 2022 and spring 2023. The piano at the Rutland Free Library is a 105-year-old Steinway grand piano, and the manufacturer of the Arts Center's grand could not be verified, but is probably similar in age and condition.

The improvisations were recorded using high quality audio settings on a cell phone. The original recordings and many others were later lost during a relocation.

Selected melodies were chosen after the recorded pieces sat awhile in limbo. They were eventually copied to tape using a Yamaha 4-track and then cut or dubbed to loops of shorter length, roughly eight or ten seconds. They would then be played back in indefinite duration, both accompanied and alone, to compare how different groups of notes interacted and the tape itself responded to playback.

The loops were played back through a crude tape echo system, using a second Marantz player looped into the Yamaha four-track before running out to the mix. The depth and rate of the echo was shifted alongside the pitch of the loop, both of which occupied two stereo channels. The cumulative addition of echoes and feedback allowed new details and subharmonics to arise from the existing notes, similar to the way in which the simultaneous playback of two stereo loops in the later finished tracks would create new melodic interactions. Ideally, a sort of self-accompanied call and response.

JC Peterson, November 2023

Special thanks to Jacob Deraadt/Basement Tapes for the gorgeous artwork and opportunity

Downloads include full PDF text of the above excerpt, recording location photos and work process videos

credits

released August 29, 2023

Piano and tape by JC Peterson

Rutland Free Library and Southern Vermont Arts Center, recording locations

Cassette artwork and design by Jacob Deraadt

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Granite City Recordings Vermont

Outsider experimental music made with magnetic tape

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