Eigenharp Google+ Community Archive

I'm afraid I won't be delivering an #eigenchallenge2014 piece this month. I didn't get to put in the hours required and when I played what little I had the feedback was "it's a bit of a dirge". Which, really, was true. So I'm binning it and will start again on something else for June. This note is to say I've not left the challenge behind.

It's a well-established fact that every great classical musician secretly yearns to play the accordion. That's why my contribution to April's #eigenchallenge2014 is an accordion piece. The least interesting thing about it is the tune - "What shall we do with the drunken sailor" is simple even by my standards. What's more interesting is that I've used my newly-acquired Workbench to create a new setup and (also new to me) Omnisphere for the sound. The setup allows the Eigenharp to simulate an accordion, and the tune is really just a simple demonstration of the setup. The setup creates two keygroups on the Pico. The top hand has one keygroup that plays chords - one key for each chord. Each key press runs through three fingerer agents, one for each note of the chord (root, third and fifth). The bottom hand has the other keygroup which plays the melody notes (the piano keys on an accordion). The setup requires the player to use the breath pipe to trigger the ...

Here's my contribution to March's #eigenchallenge2014 . Inspired by Mark Harris's piece last month I decided to see if I could compose a tune myself. In the end I found it difficult to do the bits I thought would be easy, and (relatively) easy to do the bits I thought would be difficult. I found a basic six-note tune fairly quickly, and then played with the rhythm to create something a bit more interesting. Extending it to more than 3-4 bars, though, was challenging, particularly when I got some way in and realised there need to be a break or some other kind of change. Another difficulty was adding the bass part. I had originally wanted to create a melody that underscored the main part, but couldn't manage to create anything that didn't clash. I thought it would be straightforward, but was very wrong. Due to constraints of time I instead used pairs of notes (two notes from chords) on the bass line, which was a bit of cop-out. The whole was composed with a piano so...

Unsure whether to post this or not, but I've decided to throw caution to the wind!  Last minute entry for February's #eigenchallenge2014   My first attempt at improvisation, with a backing track I found lying around.  It goes a bit scrappy in the middle, and the ending is a bit "hacked" as the backing track had another 10 minutes to run, and I've run out of time for clever editing! Played on Eigenharp Pico with Sample Modelling's Tenor Sax.  Backing track credit is unavailable, I'm afraid, sorry! (PS. I created  an EigenChallenge2014 tag on Soundcloud if others want to add it to their uploads :) https://soundcloud.com/mijiti/sax-improv-ec-2014-feb

#eigenchallenge2014   Clavia Nord Modular G2 + (all sounds and effects, edited patches) + Eigenharp Double Pico  Two Strip controllers, one breath Pipe, right hand 16 playing keys, 2 octave keys same for the left hand, recorded 5 tracks  https://soundcloud.com/palaires/02-february-himalayas

Here's my contribution to February's #eigenchallenge2014 . I'm not particularly pleased with the result, but I was getting fed up with working on it, so just wanted to get shot of it. This month I wanted to use the Eigenharp's live looping capabilities. The track is a live recording, with the only non-live edits being a few seconds of silence chopped of the start and end. Lessons learned... Learning to play broad in sync with the drum track took a while, but I got it quicker than I thought I might. Trying to find appropriate melodies to mix against the main tune was surprisingly difficult - I spent ages trying to find a 4-bar melody that worked under the main 8-bar tune. Selecting the right sound for each part also makes a huge difference. Playing technique is more important than I'd imagined, and it becomes especially obvious when it's recorded and you hear it played back. (I realise it's not great in the recorded version here.) This tune is a whole lot mo...