Lee Barry Composition Diary

I was going for something evoking a prehistoric beast in a tropical landscape. I think I did it. Basses always make things heavier. Play Me The original bass parts in the alternate tuning are still there but mixed low and have lots of effects on them. Their interaction with the fretless makes for some sour clashes at certain points, and sounds interesting that way. Here is a picture of our subject:

I sampled each natural harmonic at frets 2, 4, 5, 7 and 12 and set them looping Eno-style beginning at 0:00. Since each sample is of a different duration, there are some occasional rhythmic collisions, which I softened with a long reverb. Again, I collaged in atmosphere, and played an additional synth part with pitch-bend. Play Me

Virga was initially conceived as an improvisation in the altered tuning E-F#-B-F# on a 1962 Jazz Bass. My experiments in this tuning so far have been with the natural harmonics, which gravitate towards extended B Major and F# Major tonalities. Play Me The chiming quality of the harmonics somehow suggested rain. I already had Virga on my list of titles and used it as a springboard. (Virga are the wispy sheets of rain that fall from clouds, and is an acronym for Variable Intensity Rain Gradient Aloft ). As with all my ambient pieces, I often collage in various samples and sound files, in this case samples of held notes and field recordings. In many ways, this has developed into what sounds like a knock-off of 'Portrait of Tracy'. This is a bit different from Jaco's piece in that while he used lower open strings and fretted notes in a bottom-up fashion, I am playing melodies on the top string, and hitting harmonics below it in a top-down fashion.