Zach Herchen

I'm in the last day or so of New England Conservatory's Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. SICPP, which is pronounced "sick puppy" (really it is), has been a week of rehearsals, concerts, discussions over coffee/beer, and general immersion in some really wild contemporary music. The Boston Globe published an article recently about the program.

The nightly concerts have featured the music of Jo Kondo (composer in residence), along with works by Morton Feldman, Helmut Lachenmann, Frederic Rzewski, Iannis Xenakis, John Zorn, Brian Ferneyhough, and more. The artists in residence, Aki Takahashi (piano) and Mathius Reumert (percussion), have been amazing.

Tomorrow is a 6 hour (or longer) concert by participants and faculty. I will be performing We Speak Etruscan by Lee Hyla for bass clarinet and baritone saxophone, Hammerfall by Niels Rønsholdt for piano, alto saxophone, and percussion, and Workers Union by Louis Andriessen (with piano, keyboard, bari sax, trombone, vibraphone, and percussion).

Wow, a long time has passed since my last post. I spent the last two weeks moving into a new apartment (way harder than it should be) and visiting my family. I have also been solidifying my plans for the summer, which is very exciting!

I want to follow up on Kevin Kelly's 1,000 True Fans business model. He has a new post called The Reality of Depending on True Fans. Its about Robert Rich who "was one of the first professional musicians to start dealing directly with his fans via his own website". Rich talks very honestly about what it is like to self-manage, try to earn a living, and deal with copyrights and pirated music.

Another article that relates to making ends meet as an artist is Cory Doctorow's Think Like a Dandelion from Locus Magazine. He talks about taking advantage of the easy duplication and distribution offered by computers and the internet.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the AM/PM Quartet concert a few days ago at An Die Musik LIVE! in Baltimore, MD. It was really exciting to perform new music for a full house, especially with all of the composers in attendance. I hope to post audio samples from the concert soon!

Program:
Sax Quartet - Geoff Knorr
Possible Objects - George Lam
"I Have A Past Life Memory From The War That Blew The Fifth Planet Into The Asteroid Belt" and other stories from AM Radio - Paul Leary

Prelude and Fugue - Adam Knauss
Roadways - Kathleen Bader
Saxophone Quartet #1 - Miguel Bolivar

This video is of the Magnetic Ink Process, made by a Robert Hodgin. The effect is really quite beautiful. His blog has more info. See all of his videos posted on Vimeo at flight404.

Video source is Vimeo.

Last week I premiered Ying-Chen Kao's I Am Dancing Blue Flame as part of Bonnie Lander's GPD recital. The piece uses soprano voice, tenor sax, piano, prerecorded material, live audio processing, and video. The balance in the live recording isn't perfect and I don't have the video, but I think its worth checking out. With any luck, we will make a real recording this summer.

I Am Dancing Blue Flame - Ying-Chen Kao

Text by H. A. Kares and electronics by Jenny Beck

live premiere - Bonnie Lander (soprano), Zach Herchen (tenor saxophone), and David Witmer (piano)

MP3 (Right-click to download)

Program Notes:
I am Dancing Blue flame is a musical work that portrays the female perspective of the soul reaching and extending into a dualistic vision of oneself. We are often over stimulated in society and forget to identify with who we really are from an organic perspective. Therefore I tried to create a world of stasis and meditation to counter the hectic and confused state that we often live in. I did this by using a mixture of dark and bright colors with intertwining melodic lines. The idea behind the prerecorded voice and sound samples is to interlace the metaphoric inner voice of the protagonist.

This piece is written for my dearest friend Bonnie Lander whom I have known for a long period of time. I as well would like to thank Jenny Beck who helped me with the computer aspects. Most of all I would like to thank Heather Kares for writing this dramatic and meaningful poem that inspired me to write this piece.

Wired Magazine posted a great photo essay entitled Unlikely Places Where Wired Pioneers Had Their Eureka! Moments. Eight brief stories behind the idea for television, Netflix, turntables and more are matched up with photos of where those ideas happened. This reminded me of an engineering professor at the Johns Hopkins University who said that great ideas always happen at the three B's: bathroom, bedroom, and bar.

This post somewhat ties into my last post about enhancement. I have been thinking a lot about different types of collaboration after watching Howard Rheingold's presentation at TED:

The music world has varying degrees of collaboration. Performers and organizations work closely with composers to create new works, but premieres are limited in order to make the business side of things work. Pieces can be restricted to rental only, which limits the number of performances. Some pieces are out of print, but sharing them by given other musicians a photocopy violates the copyright.

Younger musicians and composers tend to collaborate much more. Young composers often write music without being payed commissions and give away free copies. Young performers learn and perform music (often at a really high level) despite being payed little or nothing.

Now, I'm not trying to say that everyone should do things for free, but I am interesting in exploring how the networks and technology available today can be used to spread good music quickly and, just maybe, bolster the live music industry.

The source for the TED video is TED.

Celemony recently updated their Melodyne software to include the ability to change any note/rhythm in a polyphonic recording (see 7:00, 10:00, and 11:30 for good examples of what I mean). As a recording engineer and general technology geek I am amazed at this software. It is quick and sounds amazingly good. As an artist, it is one more scary step towards being able to produce quality music with talent or training.

Should musicians be worried about technology replacing talent and training? Or, on the other hand, should we be interested in new technology as an acceptable type of enhancement. In trying to come to terms with this, I also have been thinking about what types of enhancements society accepts. Major League Baseball has its drug scandals. Wired magazine had a recent blog about scientists using brain-enhancing drugs. And, from my understanding, a fair number of musicians use beta-blockers. What is the difference between an athlete, a scientist, and an artist using some type of enhancement? At what point should an artist limited themselves?

The source for the Celemony video is Sonic State.

I recently performed with the AM/PM Quartet (see live recording below) as we prepare for our recital in May. If you like what you hear, come see our performance on May 11th @ 4:00pm at An Die Musik LIVE! in Baltimore, MD. The concert features music by young composers: Kathleen Bader, Miguel Bolivar, Adam Knauss, Geoff Knorr, and George Lam. Tickets are $10.

Update (4/18/08) - We have added a piece by Paul Leary to the program! Also, since we love our audience so much, tickets are now free and there is a suggested $10 donation.

Saxophone Quartet #1 - Miguel Bolivar

Program Notes:
This quartet was written in 2007 and is a piece that spawns all of its main ideas from the slow, chorale like, initial movement. The use of harmonic sound, rhythmic interaction, and resolution all become the main ingredients for each of movements that follow.

live recording by the AM/PM Quartet - Jeremiah Baker (soprano sax), Zach Herchen (alto sax), Miguel Bolivar (tenor sax), Cara Salveson (baritone sax)

Mvmt I and Mvmt II (attacca)

Mvmt III

Mvmt IV

Yesterday I played in New York City with No Signal! The entire show involved using electronics and was split into four sections. Jody Redhage performed pieces for cello, voice, and electronics. Alex Temple performed his live radio theater piece that uses New Wave synths. Jennifer Stock performed her composition that used found sounds from Connie Island and live processing. Members from No Signal (Rachel Gawell on cello, Greg Jukes on vibraphone, and I) closed out the show with improvised music using live electronic processing. All in all it was a fun show and a great trip to NYC, including lots of tasty food from various locations.

Last week my friend asked me to look over his dad's saxophone to try and get it playing. It turns out that the sax is an old Buescher True Tone model made sometime around 1923 (the serial number is mostly worn off so its hard to put an exact date on it).

Outside of some oxidation on the ligature, the horn is in amazing shape with virtually no dents. I tried playing it but only high notes worked. Figuring there was a leak somewhere, I threw a leak light in the horn and immediately found the problem. An old Meyer mouthpiece was crammed backwards up through the horn! After poking the "blockage" out and oiling the joints, the sax plays rather well!