Bill Dixon helped me understand what the words orchestra and orchestration really mean. The pandemic has made music very small. The piano, of course, is referred to as the 'poor mans orchestra'. It would have been easy to publish Trumpet/Piano duets. We've done that. I wanted to fulfill the implications of what we've been working on or at least give someone a picture of my musical thinking. Whether it’s one instrument or many, each instrument encompasses all the elements of the orchestra, its range and variety of timbre. With these combinations, densities, and distribution of colors and registers there is a sense of proportion, the sheer mass of 3 dimensional sound, front/back/sides and middle. It’s an illusion much like perspective in painting. By using percussion and synthesizer, the whole piece is magnified.
The first track is a collage of two duets on a March afternoon. The second track was created by sending Ellwood files of a recording of piano, percussion and synthesizer. He sent me two files. The first I arranged as he played it from the beginning with my piano/perc/synth tracks. The other file I assembled into the sound. On the third track Ellwood sent me two trumpet solos approximately 8 minutes each. I created 5 tracks of piano, percussion and synthesizer around it.
In the first two tracks I played the other instruments simultaneously and that created a relationship or synchronicity that could not exist in any other way. In the third track I isolated each instrument by recording them separately. This created more contrast. In each case you imagine a larger ensemble with its vertical and horizontal density with solos, duets and more.
The result is a collision of musical landscapes, a topography, a distribution of colors, a three dimensional representation of an orchestra rising and falling within a form.
Eric Zinman, Cambridge September 2020
credits
released October 2, 2020
Recorded in March, July, and August of 2020 in Cambridge and Montreal.
Released September 29, 2020
Ellwood Epps trumpet
Eric Zinman piano, percussion, synthesizer
All music composed by the performers.
All music registered with SOCAN.