Numbers

August 2009 Peter Broderick - Numbers (mp3)

posted on Peter's flickr photostream:

"I wrote some numbers on a photo. I wanted to think of it as a musical score. I would be really happy if anyone and everyone would like to create something, anything (paintings, drawings, musics, photos, whatever!), inspired by this score. Please, if you feel like doing it, and you have the time, make something and email it to me (peter.broderick@yahoo.com).

Maybe you'd like to make a piece of music from it? Maybe first you would treat each number as a note in the D major scale. 1 = D, 2 = E, 3 = F#, etc. Then you might grab your violin and record each horizontal line of numbers separately, at different tempos. So each number corresponds to a note in the scale, but you might also decide that each number represents how many times you will play that given note. So when you see a 6, you would play a B, for six beats, and so on and so forth. Then once you finished recording those violins playing the different lines of numbers, you might take the different lines and randomly place them over the top of each other. After hearing that you'd probably decide your piece of music needs a little bit of low end. So you might take the first vertical line of numbers and make it a bass line, playing each note for one measure, in slow 4/4 time, over and over again. After recording that bass line on a bass guitar as well as piano, you might think about fading it up throughout the entire song. And finally, you might hear all that together and decide that it needs something else. Why not read aloud all the numbers over the top of the music?

If one were to try these things, it might end up sounding something like this"

This tracks has been released on Numbers - A Project By Peter Broderick

Two Tracks

August 2009 Two Tracks Hush (free download)

1. And It's Alright (Nils Frahm Remix)
2. Not At Home (Piano & Strings Version)

From Peter Broderick and Nils Frahm with love. Two tracks to engage your ears. Available to download here

Various Friends - Soup

From Wixel's blog

"This is something I’ve been trying to get going for a while. It’s what I call “Musical Soup”. The basic idea is that several people send me a tender & quiet 2-to-3 minute recording of a couple of their favorite instruments, using the notes c#, d#, e, f#, g#, a and b. They’re the ingredients. I throw them all into a giant bowl of tracks in which I play those samples as randomly as possible, but always 8 samples at a time. …And that, will become the musical soup. :-)

I am convinced it will result in a magical piece that will be excellent to fall asleep to, or to read a book to, or any other gentle quiet evening “action”. Even if it is just getting lost in all those sounds. For those wondering; the people playing in this little snippet here are: Pieter Van Dessel, Boris Snauwaert, Ellen Evers, Ralph Steinbrüchel and Peter Broderick.

The goal is to reach at least one hour of this slowly evolving music. If you want to get involved, send me an e-mail."

You can hear an excerpt of the soup here

Dwars session

June 2009 Dwars Session 8 June 2009 (webstream)

01 Everything I Know
02 For Bella Union
03 Ceasefire
04 Below It
05 Games Again
06 Looking/Thinking
07 I Am Piano
08 And It's Alright

On June 8, 2009 Peter Broderick did an exclusive session for Dwars in Studio Desmet. Nils Frahm plays piano on track 1.

Listen here

Music for Falling From Trees

June 2009 Music for Falling from Trees Erased Tapes eratp15 (cd, download)

Part 1: An Introduction to the Patient
Part 2: Patient Observation
Part 3: Pill Induced Slumber
Part 4: The Dream
Part 5: Awaken/Panic/Restraint
Part 6: Electroconvulsive Shock
Part 7: The Path to Recovery

In late 2008, Adrienne Hart contacted me about scoring her new work, FALLING FROM TREES. In Adrienne's words, "The piece is set in a psychiatric hospital and centered around one man's struggle to retain his identity in the most extreme of circumstances." There are four dancers in the piece. One male playing the patient, and three female hospital workers.

I had been making music for a variety of film projects, but the thought of scoring a dance was very exciting to me. I was on tour at the time, so wasn't able to start writing the music until I had a break in early January. The dance premiered on January 21st, so I had about three weeks to create the score. I camped out up in the top of my father's barn with some minimal recording equipment, my violin and viola, and an old broken piano.

Given the time constraints, I approached the music in a very open way. Rather than sit down and try to compose something, I just set up a microphone and started playing. After coming up with a couple of themes on the piano, I started recording, using those small themes and improvising around them. Most of the sections have a small core that is composed, and then the rest is improvised. Luckily for me this method seemed to work. I would work all day and then send a sketch over to Adrienne, and every time her response was positive. So in this way we worked very well together. I give my hugest thanks to Adrienne for trusting me to create the music for her wonderful work.

Adrienne told me from the beginning she was looking for a score of piano and strings. So I decided to take this literally and make a rule not to use any other instruments. In the script it called for the sound of a ticking clock. I made this sound by tapping on the body of the violin with my fingernails. The sound of an electric shock given to the patient is depicted by a quick, distorted piano chord. And all other droning and bass tones were made by extending and processing violin and/or piano tones, etc. Thank you very much for listening.

-Peter Broderick, March 2009

All music written, performed and recorded by Peter Broderick.

Buy a digital download here

Luzern

May 2009 Peter Broderick & Nils Frahm - Luzern (mp3)

Posted on Peter's flickr photostream. Peter said "It was midway through our Summer tour, and every night Nils and I would play for 5-15 minutes together at the end of his set, improvising. We only have recordings from a few of the shows, and Luzern is one of them. Nils was on the piano, and I was making loops and playing a bunch of instruments - voice, Yamaha CP-70 piano, violin, musical saw, shaker, postcard weevil, and field recorder."

Probably from the concert on 28/05/09 at Treibhaus, Luzern, Switzerland

No Longer Available

Five Film Score Outtakes

May 2009 Five Film Score Outtakes Secret Furry Hole sfh/003 (cd-r)

1. Film Score Outtake 1
2. Film Score Outtake 2
3. Film Score Outtake 3
4. Film Score Outtake 4
5. Film Score Outtake 5

Written, performed and recorded by Peter Broderick, March 2009

Made with love using piano, violin, cello, guitar and laptop.

Thanks to Jukka and Tommaso, and to you for listening.

From Peter's myspace page:

In March 2009 I was asked by Matt Clark to create the score for his new short film. I recorded a lot of music for the film, and ended up with quite a few extra pieces that were not used in the final cut. Among those extra pieces were these five little songs.

3" cd-r limited to 200 copies.