Graffiti Heaven Improv

For me, this is where it’s at: exploring unusual sites in Toronto, flute in hand: it’s like tagging with sound!

This burned out church on Shaw Street - a derelict site for at least three years and slated for proverbial condos development for almost as long - should actually be a U.N.E.S.C.O. site, don’t you think?

Here is UNESCO’s Canadian Content in today’s news: congratulations Nova Scotia on this new historic designation for the Joggins Fossil Cliffs!

Perhaps it is all of the international intrigue that reminds me of The Man From U.N.E.S.C.O.?

Well, not to ruin it for you if you ever have a chance to visit here under the Golden Gate Bridge, but this is what you might find there! This armoury, directly under the arches at the south end of this fabled bridge, and originally built to guard the narrows leading into the San Francisco Bay, absolutely caught me broadside.

The incessant wind ripping in off the open ocean and the rumble of traffic from overhead combined with this evocative, unique architectural space in such a way that it simply blew me away!

I set up to play this Golden Gate reel in one of the ground-level archways. Unfortunately, in my excitement, I kinda misjudged the levels for recording: my sincere apologies, but this recording is as much about the ambient sounds in the background as it is about my flute-playing!

Cage, 4′33″

Are you familiar with what might very well be the most important composition of the 20th Century?

Scouting online a few weeks ago before my first visit proper to San Francisco, I had a sense that there might be some kind of John Cage connection, and sure enough, I immediately stumbled upon a radio interview from decades ago with the composer discussing some of his ‘chance etchings’ he had done for an exhibition at Berkeley.

While in california, I never actually caught the BART to Berkeley campus. But on my penultimate day in California, at 4.33 a.m. (hey, still on EST!), I had the wonderous revelation that I should simply record Cage’s landmark piece…on flute…anywhere.

This pending performance gave me a newfound and welcome sense of bearing and purpose. And perhaps most importantly, it freed me from that terrible plight of the tourist: to tick off every landmark on the trip itinerary…I would not have to actually get to Berkeley to pay tribute to Cage!!

4′33” is a most versatile piece that will survive long after man has left his footprint on earth. Actually, does this piece require a performer? Let alone an audienc? Yes to both, I guess, or at least this recording props me up and makes me feel important, even accomplished…and imagine, this is only the first two movements!

Yes, this piece of ’silence’ was actually composed - I love this - in three movements, cobbled together from out-takes of silence from various of Cage’s previous compositions. It is a wondrously multi-layered piece. In part, the lack of music acts as a reflective surface for ambient, found sound…even the sound of an audience member’s breathing and heartbeat - or candy-unwrapping - are integral to the listening experience! So, wherever you might find yourself listening to this piece here, you - and what you happen to be hearing - are part of the piece.

Like the Rite of Spring before it, this composition still marks a watershed for philisophical fisticuffs!

I guess it was from one Hitchcock film or another, I had pictured the area under the Golden Gate Bridge to be some secluded, grassy park.

But actually I’m getting ahead of myself: it seemed cliched to even consider heading anywhere near the famed bridge - yeah, and I had a burning desire to catch a trolley on one of those really, really steep hills…not!!

So it came as a real revelation to discover that, lo and behold, under the Golden Gate bridge there is this incredible historic armory, replete with cannons, circa, like, whenever!

As silly as it might sound, I was actually a little nervous before recording. Four and a half minutes - and change - never felt so long, especially as I found myself keeping an eye on my Edirol’s dying battery levels!

It was an incredibly windblown afternoon. Up on the Macbethian parapets, alongside the turrets by this off-limits lighthouse, I was almost swept off my feet. It was tucked in the shelter of this stairwell with its graffitied, grimy windows that I set up to ‘perform’. I’m not even sure where the wind came from, out of such a blue San Francisco sky. In the days while I visited, there was nary a trace of the picturesque and fabled fog rolling in off the bay (maybe next time: one can only hope).

The most magical moments of this particular performance? Aside from this mind-blowing setting in the shadow of the Golden Gate bridge, it is the footfall heard in this ancient, wooden, circular staircase, as well as the chance sound of a child talking towards the end of the second movement, at least in my humble opinion.

Unscripted, and, yes, rest assured, the 3rd movement is forthcoming…I bet you can hardly wait!

In A Monastery Garden

Speaking of revolutionary art studios, NYC’s late-60’s transformation of the de-commissioned Bell Labs building into the arts colony Westbeth is near-mythological in stature. I had an opportunity to visit and get a sense of it - at least from the perspective of this outdoor courtyard - on the last morning of a recent visit to NYC, and it continues to be a vibrant creative hub.

It was a bit of a maze of streets through Greenwich Village to get there, but I can’t think of any better excuse for an early-morning stroll than to pay homage to this extraordinary site that has borne witness to comings and goings of such creative luminaries as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Diane Arbus and Gil Evans.

Today it continues to be home to a second generation of residents, and without a lot of new leases coming available, I get the impression that Westbeth is like a tightly knit village within a village, a refuge in one of New York’s burgeoning arts’ districts.

‘In a Monastery Garden’ seemed like the right title for a piece to play: meditative and evocative. Initially I recorded in the open courtyard, but the sound seemed to dissipate like crazy, so I explored a little further and set up just at the top of these stairs, where I discovered a large, open and resonant concourse that acted as an amplifier for the flute against the din of traffic in the background. The cascading waterfall in the previous post here is exchanged for the cascading sounds of cars and trucks on the nearby Joe DiMaggio Highway that runs along the Hudson River.

Caccini, Aria

The Toronto Sculpture Garden is one of my favorite public spaces, immediately across the street from the massive Saint James Cathedral. So when I caught a glimpse of a colour photo of this incredible mushroom building in the National Post a few weeks ago, I knew I had to drop by! I found the gates locked and the artist hard at work with an assistant prepping the site for its year-long installation.

I had sent off a quick e-mail to the artist Katie Bethune-Leamen, who kindly extended an open invitation for me to drop by to play flute and record in her Mushroom Studio. Her press material suggests that she will be working out of the studio once it’s set up, which I thought was very cool. But I’ve dropped by a couple of times now when I have found myself down in the area, just to kinda keep things spontaneous, and, sadly, there’s been no-one home. Yet this is perfect somehow, to find the place ‘poignantly empty’, as described in her artist’s statement!

Initially I had thought that something hallucinatory like a flute rendition of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit would be appropriate. However, upon learning from the artist that the programmatic architectural style of her studio in fact represents a highly poisonous mushroom, well, I figure it’s anything goes. Despite my rather benign, lyrical musical selection here by a female artist of the 17th Century, don’t be fooled: this mushroom installation transcends its surface whimsy and is a highly charged, even incendiary work of art.

Truth be told, I imagine the acoustics inside the mushroom aren’t much to write home about, given the relatively confined space. But with any luck I will still have a chance to try it out: it’s not every day that a chance comes along to sit down cross-legged and meditate with ones flute inside a lethal mushroom of monstrous proportion!

I dropped by a few days ago before picking up the end of the Euro Cup’s Russia-Spain game at Betty’s on King Street, and decided I would capture at least the streetsounds along with the cascade of the wonderful fountain, and that I might as well overlay some flute-playing while I was at it. This time, after knocking politely on the studio door, I pressed my nose up against one of the two studio windows and assessed the internal installation. Peering in, I could see open yet untouched Faber-Castell pencils, and other cryptic clues of an artist’s studio in an odd state of limbo, like assessing the tell-tale clues of the living quarters of a sunken ship: everything in its place, but not a soul in sight.

I recorded this evocative piece adjacent to the restive wall-fountain, an aria by Francesca Caccini from her landmark opera, La Liberazione de Ruggiero, first performed on February 3rd, 1625. I wonder what Francesca’s impression would have been with regards to an artist making a living in modern times, let alone the whirr and rumble of passing streetcars, and Bethune-Leaman’s declamatory Studio Installation here in this historic area of Toronto.

The daughter of one of the founding fathers of Opera, Francesca was not not typical of female artists in her day, although it sounds like she had a pretty sweet deal, a wonderful career and she certainly left her mark!

Okay, so I lifted the title for this post*, but how could I resist?

* Mushroom Studio - Globe & Mail, Brad Wheeler, June 26th, 2008

Toxic toadstool or funky fungus? Artist Katie Bethune-Leamen explores the love-hate relationship we have with the woodsy growth by installing a six-metre-high replication/studio, complete with windows - a ’shroom with a view, perhaps. Daily to April, 2009, dawn to dusk. Free. Toronto Sculpture Garden, 115 King St. W., http://www.torontosculpturegarden.com.

Bach Suite (excerpt)

Urban Flute is not just about flute adventures, as you might have noticed. It’s also about ambient city soundscapes, concert adventures of all description, as well as chance encounters with street musicians, as offered here.

Wordsworth called his restorative forays into nature ’spots in time’. These experiences offered him solace long after the fact, as he found even the recollection of a walk by a stream, sitting under a tree, etc, was effective in alleviating the ‘evil’ urban stresses of big city life in the 1800’s!

I like to think that my posts - with or without flute - offer a similiar kind of relief from the everyday pace of our modern age.

Freeway Flute

I had been told that San Francisco is a walkable city, and indeed it is if you don’t mind a steep hill now and again! But I must confess that despite maps and guidebooks, I spent what seemed like two hours going in a confounding, zig-zag fashion through one of the roughest parts of town in search of the historic Dolores Mission. The number of homeless persons in the shadow of City Hall paled in comparison to the incredibly colourful, impoverished street life I mingled with in the Tenderloin District of the city.

I found myself under this busy freeway, and, with talk of tearing down a portion of the Gardiner Expressway currently being hotly debated in the Toronto media, I thought I would do a short recording on the same North American Flute that I had sounded just an hour earlier under the magnificent dome of City Hall.

One small problem: the string and duct tape(!) that was holding my flute together was in need of repair, and while all of the splendour of San Francisco awaited, I found myself crouched on the median here for almost 20 minutes, stubbornly making my flute playable.

I like to think it was worth the delay.

Other posts that juxtapose flute with ambient freeway sounds include:

• Jacques Cartier Bridge, Montreal
• Somwhere, USA

And to evidence the afore-mentioned ‘heated debate’, check out this CTV Toronto discussion board which includes a San Fran reference under the heading ‘Condo Cash Machine’. Somewhere Jane Jacobs is smiling and looking on with bemusement!

Jane Jacobs, where are you now?

Photo by Cervin Robinson

Purple Bamboo Melody

Just so you know, I did make it back in time to visit the extraordinary Asian Art Museum after a full day exploring San Fran. My camera batteries had just about died at that point, so this seems as good a place as any to slip in my rendition of Purple Bamboo Melody, recorded at the top of the beautiful and historic marble staircase. (It may sound like a bit of a party in the background, and you are not mistaken. So if I miss a few of the grace notes here, let’s just say it was the sake speaking!)

My San Francisco stories will gradually emerge, but judging by how much exploring and recording I managed to pack into one day, I would say that the magical phoenix - Fenghuang - who is watching over the flute player in this antique painting, was perhaps presiding over my musical wanderings as well!

The Phoenix Means Good Luck

It seemed auspicious to have just left City Hall and discover this ancient painting depicting a solitary flute player and the magical phoenix-bird.

I had just checked the hours of the nearby Asian Museum, but it wasn’t going to open for at least an hour. Since it was staying open late - being a Thursday - I decided I might try to catch it at the end of my day of wandering around San Francisco.

There is nothing like being in a city for the first time. I find the whole process of anticipation really quite extraordinary, especially as one moves from ‘guide book mode’ into actually getting ones bearings and trying to make sense of the place. The most insightful book I have read about this is Alain de Botton’s ‘The Art of Travel’.

Within blocks of City Hall I was struck by the number of homeless individuals, hanging around in the morning sun, just minding their own business as I wandered along. I had a couple of maps on the go, and a vague sense of how I was going to string together a number of historic spots in the general area. However I didn’t get too far before I saw vendors setting up an open-air market.

A stack of antique scrolls caught my eye, and the vendor was not only good enough to unroll this bigger one that I had pointed to at the top of the pile, he gave me a brief description of the story and meaning of the Chinese text.

Listening to his words, along with the text provided below, really should fill you in on what the image is all about. Hey, $50 sounded like a pretty good deal, but, like the elusive phoenix-bird itself, I afforded myself only a fleeting glimpse!

The following text courtesy of The Darling Harbour’s Chinese Garden of Friendship located in Sydney, Australia:

In Chinese mythology the phoenix is a creature whose rare appearance is said to
indicate some great event or bear testimony to the greatness of a ruler. Tradition
tells of the appearance of the Fenghuang before the death of the legendary Yellow
Emperor (Huang-ti) who ruled China in the 27th century BC. Its most recent
appearance is said to have taken place in 1368 at Anhwei province by the grave of
the father of Hung-wu, founder of the Ming Dynasty. It is said that the song of the
phoenix is both exceptionally beautiful and meaningful and that it is has a special
appreciation of human music.
The Shuo-wen Dictionary, prepared in the 1st or 2nd century AD, describes the
phoenix as having the breast of a goose, the hind down of a duck, the marks of a
dragon, the back of a tortoise, the face of a swallow, and the beak of a rooster.
It was said to be 9 ft or 2.7 m tall and in mythology is considered the female
counterpart of the male dragon.
There are a number of excellent web sites, which provide further information on
Chinese tales and mythology including those listed below:
• Chinese Astrology Site: www.chinese.astrology.com/signs.html
• Dragon Site: www.chinapage.com/dragon1.html
• Chinese Folk Tales: www.chineseculture.miningco.com/msub9l l2.html
• Mythical Creatures: www.virtualteacher.com.au/mythical.html

Puccini, Un bel dì vedremo

After taking an early morning commuter train from Sunnyvale, California, south of San Fran, with the prospect of a full day of gallivanting around this fabled city, I found myself killing a bit of time before the incredible City Hall opened its doors at 8 a.m.

One of my favorite things to do when visiting a new city is to intermingle with the locals, and I soon had a fix on the nearest Starbucks for a medicinal coffee. This particular coffee joint turned out to be adjacent to be an historic hotel lobby. After the earthquake in 1906, this building was the tempoary location for the City Hall, as described below, and as such foreshadowed the recording adventure that is described in recent posts.

While waiting for my latte, and purportedly while looking for the washroom (or rather the restroom, Americans inevitably stare at me blankly, especially when I ask where to find ‘the bathroom’), I cased this exquisite lobby as a potential venue for getting a jump-start on my intrepid flute-recording activities.

I diligently assembled my flute off to one side of the lobby, having selected this evocative aria by Puccini, well-suited for the occasion. No, I did not get interrupted as I sounded these first lyrical notes of the day, however you can listen for the ominous cackle of a hotel staff member who subsequently busied himself with an overt display of using his walkie-talkie as I played. I guess I’ll never know for sure - I  did not stick around long enough to find out - but it appeared he was requesting heavy-duty ground support to deal with this unexpected musical interlocutor!

A couple of times during my left-hand notes as I played, I pleadingly held up a finger (no, not that finger!) requesting ‘just one more minute’ as politely as possible, so as to buy time and maybe win favour with him! To avoid further incident, and upon completing my ‘da capo’, I hastily packed up and retreated to the anonymity of the street, coffee in hand!

Hotel Whitcomb is a marvel of early 19^th century and Edwardian architecture that can be seen throughout the hotel. The opulent lobby featuring Austrian crystal chandeliers, marble columns, rare Janesero wood paneling, intricately carved ceiling molding and beautiful Tiffany stained glass at the front desk and in the piano bar are but a few of the spectacular features of this exquisite property.

After the 1906 earthquake ruined the city, the hotel served as San Francisco’s City Hall from 1912 to 1915. Curious guests can arrange a tour of the old jail cells in the basement. Etched over the main entranceway, the words ‘City Hall’ were visible until the mid 1990’s.

I hope to return at some point to visit and record in the mothballed jail-cells directly below this lobby - the next time I might request permission in advance!

Puccini, Madame Butterfly Aria

Shades of my run-in with authority in the foyer of NYC’s Empire State Building where I was asked to cease and desist once before. And I have a funny feeling it won’t be the last time!

I had just finished recording a couple of improvs on my North American Love Flute, getting thumbs up and smiles from the few early-morning passersby in the building, when a security guard - the one heard at the end of this recording - called out to me from an upper level, on the third tier of this massive interior, over 250 feet away. She suggested that I should stop playing, and I beseeched her as much with hand gestures for ‘just one more minute’.

She called out that she would be right over: surely it would take her at least a minute to get to where I was located! Not simply to flaunt authority, I got right to work and started into the same Puccini Aria that I had recorded half an hour earlier in the ornate lobby of San Francisco’s oldest hotel, all part of my research into ‘comparative acoustics’…really!

The curious thing is that in the course of shutting me down, both of these individual security guards (Empire State, San Fran City Hall) made a point of saying ‘how beautiful’ or ‘how pretty’ the music sounded - they both also cited how ‘rules are rules’, suggesting that it was not their personal decision to bust me, but that they were simply executing the orders of an otherwise invisible authority. I guess it’s called ‘doing your job’, and that’s fine with me: I’ll continue to do mine and they can do theirs!

I found it oddly gratifying afterwards to see a gaggle of five security guards huddled together with their walkie-talkies cracking away, deep in a debriefing session after successfully busting the lone guerilla flutist! For some reason, describing this scenario reminds me of the famous photo from the sixties of the hippie as she places a daisy in the barrel of a soldier’s rifle: can anyone out there find a copy of that classic black & white image??

North American Love Flute, Improv

Well, it is a big day here in Canada, as today’s news has been a long time in the making: the top levels of our government fully acknowledged the systematic removal of earlier generations of Canada’s First Nation peoples from their indigenous communities. Prime Minister Stephen Harper officially apologized for the ’sad chapter’ of Residential Boarding Schools that provided the setting for this appalling aspect of our country’s - and indeed our continent’s - collective history.

Some would say that this apology comes way too late; however, as was pointed out by one of the many First Nations leaders who attended, it potentially serves as a new beginning for fully healing racial and cultural divides of the past.

Before arriving in San Francisco, the first historic landmark that I set my sights on playing in was the massive San Francisco City Hall and it failed to disappoint.

Perhaps intuitively I chose to play on my North American Love Flute, one of the most expressive flutes in my collection. Having passed through the X-ray security check with my sachel of music, flutes and recording gear, I was blown away - who wouldn’t be?! - by this incredible marble interior. Before long I explored up these grand stairs and found a discreet location from which to sound the extraordinary acoustics.

There’s more to this story that will emerge in subsequent posts!

Scott McKenzie, San Francisco

Early one morning last week, poolside in sunny Sunnyvale, California…birds twittering, a lone sweeper sweeping his garden trimmings…well, you get the picture!

As I packed up my flute after recording this rather tepid version of San Francisco (Flowers in Your Hair), I suddenly noticed the initials inscribed in the silver crown of my instrument: SF

Coincidence? I don’t think so! But regardless, I have to say that I continue to love my Parisian-made Faulisi headjoint that I picked up at last year’s NFA Flute Convention in Albuquerque!

For you flute players out there, I guess the lyrics for this song could be changed to read: “Are going…to Kan-sas City“?

Admittedly I have been digressing a little of late, so here is some recent ‘roving journalist’ flute content to mollify any of you critics out there.

Part of the soundaXis offering a couple of weeks ago, and featuring electrified Matthius Ziegler, flutes, and Franziska Baumann, soprano, this concert was a stunning kick off for their current series of sound events and performances.

The venue is a fav of mine, and I encourage you to check out St. George the Martyr Church - in the shadow of the new OCAD - as this is a community worth knowing about and supporting, above and beyond their advocating a wide range of New Music initiatives.

San Fran stories on the way, rest assured…

Of all the soundfiles from my recent trip to California, this one just about sums it up. Despite the suggestion of the above photo, this soundfile was created just outside a local bar late on my last night in town.

Here is a tribute to Otis Redding, and my heartfelt thanks to Gregg for his incredibly infectious rendition of this classic tune!

This post powered by Edirol and the Nikon D60.

One in a long list of flute experiments, and as recently posted on YouTube, by all reports this feat appears to be unprecedented. I’m working on doing an Ollie at the same time, and hopefully I don’t break an allegro or fall on my Orpheus while I’m at it!

What you hear might be Baroque, but at least my wooden Wunderlich 1920’s flute isn’t…yet!

Cow Palace Velo-Improv

There was a definite sense of deja-vu as I began to pack up my flute after recording a few pieces in this deserted Cow Palace in Ottawa: such an incredible space!!

Like the Velo-Flute solo that I had improvised while riding my bike in an empty warehouse on the CNE grounds in Toronto, I suddenly realized that this was yet another golden opportunity to conduct an acoustic experiment in the Doppler Effect!

Quickly re-assembling my trusty Yamaha Flute, I set the my Edirol rolling while I embarked on a wonderful, early-morning spin across the polished concrete floor, happily improvising as I rode my trusty Brodie. The Doppler Effect is not really in evidence here, however this bending-pitch phenomena (think of the sound of a passing siren) can be heard in a recent video I posted on YouTube yesterday: Playing Flute on a Skateboard!

This last link courtesy of Chris Foley’s The Collaborative Piano Blog.

Britten, Tenor, French Horn & Piano

Welcome to what used to be called Awde Street, Toronto.

This slow movement by Benjamin Britten captures the bittersweet atmosphere of not only having been relocated as a school for three years, but the optimistic excitement about moving back to our flagship location at 273 Bloor Street West…no matter how you look at it, 90 Croatia - a.k.a. 90 Awde Street - has served us well as we re-groom the main site!
This soundfile is a rich sampling of what the Glenn Gould Professional School at the RCM has to offer. If you wander the halls - especially around now at the end of the school year - you might happen upon a wide range of instrumental recitals or masterclasses.

Musicians names and links to follow.

I can’t mention the clip-clop of horses hooves in New York City without offering a few evocative sound files! I had hoped that I might capture a recording that would meld Boris’ accomplished Jazz Sax with the sound of passing horses in Central Park, but you’ll just have to use your imagination!

These recordings capture a distinct aspect of my acoustic experience while in NYC, and it is interesting to note how the contemporary sound of these horses compete with the shrill whine of taxis riding their brakes. In the final soundfile, the sound - and history - of the horses is all but subsumed by the din of street traffic.

Peering into the past, and for a rather gritty, unique glimpse of ‘Olde New York’, check this Dark Passage site.

Here are a couple of takes of one of the first pieces I ever learned on flute, El Condor Pasa. You’d think I’d have it down cold, but this was very much an impromptu performance, an ode to this evocative shell of a building that caught my eye as I was driving back from Ottawa recently. Playing on my antique Hawkes & Sons Superior 8-keyed flute, some of the fingerings got away from me: I have to get that thing repaired! In the first of these two recordings, despite my false start, I love the way the final notes blend with the sound of a passing truck on the highway.

With the sound of the 401 in the background, I explored the unique acoustics of this abandoned grain silo. Like the derlict barn I recorded in not so long ago, these shells of buildings that dot the rural landscape are a reminder of - and testament to - days gone by.