Monthly Archives: June 2011

Not for the Faint

Jason Marsh

A new piece: Not for the Faint (of heart). This piece is my most ambitious to date, over 8 minutes, and by the end it has 9 simultaneous tracks going.

 (Right-click here to download, or touch for iPad/iPhone)

[Edit: remixed on July 3 and posted]

I do a classic composition technique to build energy, so by the end I layer the B section tracks (selecting them one at a time) over the A section, underneath a ‘crazy fiddler’ improvisation.

Not For The Faint Tracksheet

Not For The Faint tracksheet

As always for my ‘Digital Acoustic Violin’, all sounds are created on the violin. In this case, the piece opens with strumming processed to sound like a bubbly, underwatery groove. The bass line is violin pizzicato put down 2 octaves digitally. (If you listen carefully, you’ll hear it in the correct octave, live, before I put it down into bass range on its first loop.)

I play this piece live with all the parts recorded and played-back with a foot controller to enable/record/playback each of the tracks.

I hope you enjoy it!

Rollin’

Jason Marsh

As I practiced up for the Peru Fundraiser Concerts, I recorded a better version of Rollin’. Here it is:

(Right-click here to download, or touch for iPad/iPhone)

A bit of explanation: This is my wanna-be guitarist piece. I start with the violin in my lap strumming it like a guitar. As with all my “Digital Acoustic Violin” pieces, all the sounds are created on the violin, with no effects except reverb (and a bit of delay), so the fed-back guitar sound is produced just with the bow on an acoustic violin – think of it as Hendrix on an acoustic violin!

This is a SINGLE pass (no overdubs)… start to finish, with all the parts recorded and played-back with a foot controller to enable/record/playback each of the tracks.

Someday I’ll do a YouTube version so you can see how it is all produced, or attend one of my fundraisers!