TDC Tunes and RJ

How about my modular synth paired with the alto flute?

Enter RJ

RJ plays many different instruments. All are acoustic.

Wildly different to my machine of wires, knobs and lashing lights.

But he was up for experimenting so last week we spent a lovely afternoon jamming together at his cafe in south east London.

This video is one result from that afternoon where he's improvising on the alto flute.

I'm also improvising, but keeping within a more structured and 'known' range of chords and notes than I normally would.

Modular challenges

I found out that my current live modular case is not ideal for playing with other musicians as there is a lot of randomness built into it to the point I don't necessarily know what the notes are or what the musical key is.

Think of it as a system where I'm guiding the shape of the notes and rythmns that the machine creates rather than specifying every note precisely. This works great when I'm playing solo, but I'm having a big of a rethink about some changes to the setup to help me play more easily with other musicians,

Watch this space modular nerds!

There is an unfortunate high pitch noise from one of the amplifiers we were using in this recording. Apologies for that. The sound recording is also from my phone so no where near release quality anyway.

What next?

We are planning another session like this to work out how best to play together. And after that who knows - perhaps a recording studio session to release something? Or a joint gig? We will see!

I love collaboration - especially with unusual combinations of instruments!

Have a great day Hive!