My friend Lisa Albinger, a full-time artist and recent new resident of Portland, is working on a painting inspired by My Favorite Clown. She has some pictures up of the work in progress. What fun! I'll post a picture of the finished work here when it's completed.
Another Kasey Baker painting, in response to my piano musings.
Metal Knotted came from a discussion about the nature of anxiety and what it feels like when it dissipates. I didn't actually know that is what I was feeling when I improvised the piece, but Kasey captured it afterwards by coming up with this artwork in reaction.
"Start with a loose tangle. Find two ends, and start pulling them in opposite directions. Make them want different things. Force through the tangle, fight against it. Turn it into a knot, make it harder, as hard as metal. Then remember, how could metal ever become a knot? To untangle, remember where it started. With softness."
One of the fun things about having my stuff up online is that people will occasionally ask permission to use them for random things. Yay Creative Commons. Paul Ivanov asked permission to use All Aboard for a local contest having to do with the Berkeley International House. Here's the resulting video - my music starts about 1:30 in. It's just a rehearsal recording of my song, and Johns Williams is a tough act to follow, but it's always fun to see one's own work applied to someone else's stuff.
Another Kasey Baker painting, in response to my piano musings.
Dancing About Architecture corresponded to a time when Kasey and I were just getting to know each other - she told me she was an architect and I was challenged to come up with something that represented architecture in my mind - simple structures that vary with time and effort. I couldn't get as complicated as I wanted since I was making it up as I went along, but I felt that I got the idea down. Kasey then responded with this work.
"It's a strange structure, new. She moves around it tentatively, slowly assembling the pieces in her understanding and movements. It's a careful embrace, but ultimately whole and secure."
Another Kasey Baker painting, in response to my piano musings.
Busted Lemonade Stand came from a random memory of a friend telling me about her attempts to sell lemonade when she was a kid. Her and her friend didn't tell their moms what they were doing, so they kind of improvised.
"Lemonade stands always sound like such a good idea. Although sometimes there's splinters in the plywood, or the ice melts too fast, or you realize you don't have enough dixie cups, so you start reusing them. And the day stretches on."
Some of you may remember that one of my side projects is Acoustic Conversations, where we interview gigging musicians and bands and ask them to perform acoustic versions of their songs for us. The latest episode is an interview of outPost, a local band that fuses reggae, hip-hop, and other things - their music is a complete blast to listen to. We've just uploaded some the songs that we recorded over on acousticconversations.com, and I'm sure the interview will be coming soon. Go on over to check them out and download their tunes.
So, after doing a bunch of research, I've finally figured out how to apply the creative commons licenses to my works here.
All my piano musings have a by-nc-sa license applied to them. That means that you can, without having to contact me and ask, download the pieces, and share them provided my name stays attached. You can also adapt them into your own works provided you apply a similar noncommercial license to the resultant work, and again give me attribution.
All my songs have a by-nc-nd license. That means that you can, without contacting me to ask, download and share my songs provided you keep my name attached. nd stands for "No Derivatives", meaning you can't adapt them into your own works. So it's a slightly more restrictive license.
You can of course feel free to contact me for more permissions on any of them, though. Some of the art musings have already had extra permissions granted to them (even though they are connected to my tunes, I let the artist have commercial purposes for the resultant art). Just contact me, I love to collaborate.
It was fun figuring out the technical end - in addition to each page having a creative commons badge, I was also able to give each song a friendly page name, such as http://curtsiffert.com/phoenixgrace for Phoenix Grace, and even embed the copyright information into the mp3 for each song. That means that as these songs propagate to file-sharing networks, the url for the song home will be spread out there as well, so people will be able to find me.
Another Kasey Baker painting, in response to my piano musings.
Strumming Lost Threads is one of my earlier improvs, and basically illustrates what it feels like to come up with one of these improvs. There's a peculiar mix of care and blitheness that goes into these pieces.
"That occasional state of mind of when you're trying to remember an old memory but don't really mind when you can't. Maybe because you're drunk on a porch swing."
Another Kasey Baker painting, in response to my piano musings.
A Young Church is again part of the small town theme I've been drawn to. There's a lot of hope and potential and idealism and goodness in new churches - as much as there can be weight and corruption in stale churches. It's a hint of what to avoid in the journey.
"It starts with a gathering. Healthy ideals. A gentle church is formed, and it grows - hopefully not too quickly."
Another painting by Kasey Baker, in response to my piano musings.
Drunk On A Porch Swing was one of my first improvs where I felt like I really stumbled onto a distinct concept. I have a porch swing of my own and I've never really enjoyed it to its full potential, but this piece is about a porch swing properly used. Kasey really captured the sense of it.
"Sitting on a porch swing, swinging back and forth, looking at a sun-drenched field with dandelions and breezes, except your lemonade is spiked and you're completely soused."
