Piece for Ned underway…
Ned McGowan in his home studio, Amsterdam, September 2024
Well, Laura and I arrived in Amsterdam on September 2 and are digging into work and life here. It’s a beautiful city and we’re lucky to have worked this out, but international travel and relocation obviously has its less-glamorous parts, including getting over jet lag, adjusting to a new home/neighborhood/grocery store/currencty/etc., and generally feeling humbled by the fact almost everyone around me speaks two, three, or more languages while I barely speak one. I’m so glad we’ve been here before and have some good friends here, which is making the transition much easier.
One such friend is—drum roll and trumpet fanfare (duh-duh duh-duh)—Ned McGowan. I made it to his home studio last week for a nice rap session that included him playing his cool contrabass flute transcription of Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Clarinet for me, and then him giving me a private tour of the contrabass flute, including showing me some of the unique features of the Pearl company model he plays :). What a great instrument!
Fast forward to today, MONDAY, the beginning of week three here in the Netherlands and probably the first day I feel fully rested and ready to dig into some work. The flat we’re in has a nice separate office space with an external monitor, standing desk (though I’ve mostly been sitting) and window. Add to that a Korg keyboard Ned hooked me up with and I’m all set, ready to go. Here are a couple pics—my desk and monitor revealing me firing up ye olde Universal Music Machine (UMM…again? still? Why not…just had to download the latest Windows compiler that can help me use the .exe file on my Mac LOL), and then the nice view out my window.
Office in Amsterdam...YAY
Out my office window at Eerste Nassaukade in Amsterdam
Ned had a lot of good ideas about this piece/collaboration during our meeting, including some interesting descriptions of my work…words like “Cubist” and “circular” and “humorous” (I think?) were used to describe me and my work, and it got me going in the right direction, I think/hope. At present I’m focusing on exploring some ideas related to identity—cultural and other types. Next session in a couple days so I’m actually getting some notes on the page and into (GASP) Finale for now. No time this fall to learn a new notation program :). Planning also to mess with some audio I recorded at Ned’s in Kyma and Max and do some audio “sketching,” as it were. OK…now it’s time for the Dutch version of Orangina, Sinas, and some TV. Back at it tomorrow!
