Trios For One: an experiment, a classroom and a recording

I forget I have a website most of the time, and I forget I need to post on it with some regularity in order to maintain some sign of digital life. Writing about myself and my work has never been the easiest or most fun thing, but I feel I owe it to my work and anyone listening to explain what I’m up to from time to time. When reviewing my blog I noticed I hadn’t written a lick about any of the three recordings I made and released over the height of the pandemic - something that’s not a best practice as suggested by those who know about these things. A bit tardy to the party, I decided I’d remedy that today by filling in some blanks starting with Trios for One, the first of the records. 

Trios for One was a classroom, an experiment, and a proof of concept all built out of the disappointment that flowed from the onset of the pandemic. I think it’s good to start with the initial idea as it came to me in 2019: I wanted to record with two viol players I’d met and whose musical company I’d enjoyed. When I was living in Los Angeles I invited Arnie Tanimoto and Malachai Bandy over for an afternoon of reading music for bass viols, and to fill out the music we’d assembled for the session I printed out Thomas Morley’s Canzonets to Three Voices. The afternoon zipped by with the three of us making quick work of all the music set before us. After they left I felt a lot of wind in my sails, and put a pin in the idea of developing a recording project with Malachai and Arnie in 2020 when I wrapped up touring with Radical Face. Needless to say, none of that happened. 

Flash forward to a few months into the pandemic, and I was fortunately sitting on a hill in a house with a recording studio and a producer/engineer inside it. After the initial shock and disorientation started to pass, I had to get to work. And while I had a hefty amount of experience as a recording artist on one side of the microphones, I was going to use this project as a way to teach myself how to record in total. My partner, Ben Cooper, was a gracious and knowledgeable in-house teacher who helped when I ran aground, and showed me how to mix sound, set up mics, and refine recordings further in both pre and post production - something I’m still learning at his feet. So Ben set me up, helped me get my bearings, and closed the door. Now what was I going to record? 

Luckily I had started another project prior to the pandemic with my other recording teacher and colleague on and off stage, Jeremiah Johnson. That project was an early exploration of the question “Can I perform with myself in a convincing way?” To pursue the issue I used John Ward’s three voice works from his First Set of English Madrigals. With the Ward demos as a starting point for my new project, I immediately thought of that afternoon with Malachai and Arnie and the fun we’d had playing the Morley Canzonets. To finish out the record I chose two three-part fantasias by Thomas Lupo. With the microphones set, the music selected, and the world at a near-stop, I got to the work at hand. 

“O fly not” by Thomas Morley, the lead single off of Trios For One.

When it comes to playing chamber music with yourself, you learn a lot about yourself in a hurry. You learn about your idiosyncrasies: how you breathe loudly before this sort of passage or that sort of shift, how you like to play certain types of passages in a particular(i.e. repetitive) way, a recognizable swish of clothing that only happens when you play on the G string, sometimes you whistle when you play (!!!!), etc. Add to that quandaries like: do you use a “click” to synchronize the parts together? How freely do you edit the parts? How close to “perfect” do you reach before the result is lifeless? And this just scratches the surface, staying well away from more artistic questions about purpose, emotional intention, impression, and impact. I was delighted that I had selected repertoire that, while not technically difficult, provided music of satisfying depth to work this through.  

Once I found my process and rhythm within the studio, the work went faster than I expected, but I don’t mean to make it sound like it just flew together. Frankly I was surprised that having one mind playing each of the three parts didn’t lend itself to immediate musical coherence, leading me to record and re-record the parts until I found the right dynamics between them. I quickly discovered I had to work to make the music as conversant as possible, with each part taking speaking to the other despite being alone in reality. Sometimes this led me to performing some passages in surprising ways that might not make sense when heard in isolation, and other times it led me to record and re-record the parts in different orders before I found the combination that brought my intentions to life. All in all I found it a fascinating way to study each of these polyphonic works as dynamic and responsive vignettes, where musical rhetoric is front and center. Putting my musical ideas to the test so thoroughly was a real blast, and by the end of the project I felt my understanding and appreciation of late 16th/early 17th century polyphony had deepened in ways I doubt would be possible in more typical circumstances. 

After finishing Trios for One I went on to make two more records: another overdubbed record called Portrait of Melancholy and the solo recording Unaccompanied: Volume Two. These subsequent projects built and expanded upon the things I learned while crafting Trios for One, while providing a great avenue to expend pent up energy during those first years of the pandemic. Now with some time between me and wrapping Trios for One and Portrait of Melancholy I can say that overdubbing is no replacement for playing and recording music with collaborators in a shared space. Conversely I cannot say that recording music with a live ensemble is in any way superior. Both have advantages and problems, and each offers possibilities of expression and performance that the other precludes. Like most things we attempt to split into good or bad, these are neither; they are simply different modalities towards legitimate musical expression and study. And while I’m looking forward to recording and performance projects with collaborators in the near future, I don’t think I’ll ever close the door on exploring music for many players on my own. The process of overdubbing and working in isolation allows a broad space of artistic indulgence an ensemble could and should never tolerate. I noticed that not only could I be as repetitive and narrow in focus as I cared to be, but I could be as loose and fast with my process as I wanted. Sometimes that meant deleting whole sessions and beginning again when I felt the result was lacking, sometimes it meant single takes on every part every take - no matter what - to force spontaneity of reaction and interaction, sometimes it meant playing a B natural to get it to sit right in the chord too many times to count and you forgot to eat dinner and shower until far too late in the evening. These things might test the limits of fellowship and goodwill in even the most experimental ensembles, but I’ve found recording in isolation an unparalleled space to study ensemble repertoire because all the debates are internal.