The debut ‘The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra’ album is now available to download and stream as well as for CD pre-order. Click the relevant word, to link up.
Spotify – Itunes – Amazon – Physical CD
New Album Available Now
‘In Pareidolia’ Part 1 – Album art and what it’s about
In this short blog, Im going to explain a little about the album ahead of its release, give you a look at the artwork and an insight into the tracks…
This album, I guess like most albums, has been a long time coming. Over the past few years I’ve been playing, and I mean that in the most fun sense, with sound.I have been exploring the guitar in every way possible like always, and matching it with some unexpected instruments too.
The guitar has always been the focal point of course… and this album ‘In Pareidolia’ is not an exception. Each track has been an exploration of the guitar in a different way. Whilst you’ll hear a substantial helping of drums and double bass… the majority of what makes up this body of work is the humble guitar.
Sometimes twenty of them, sometimes an electric one, sometimes a really expensive one, sometimes a broken one from a charity shop…
On my journey of the past few years of sonic experimentation I have found myself in a world of tones, textures, shapes and edges… not a world of notes and numbers. Its not always a nice place, its sometimes uncomfortable, unnerving, its always emotional. Importantly the sounds and songs Ive been creating have not sat into a simple or explainable context. Whilst there is a story attached to many, the experience is abstract, personal to the listener. This is what I wanted to portray in an album; an impressive exploration of colour, tone, texture and emotion….but also something that each listener can find something new in – something that is a personal perspective for you.
It’s not fully released just yet but will be in a matter of days….
to hear about it first, join the mailing list…
Scroll down further to view the artwork, track listings and more…
ARTWORK:
Carrying on with the theme of things being about an original experience, from YOUR perspective, I wanted to try my hand at creating original artwork for each CD… crazy I know. In reality I will be releasing about 10 to 20 hand made CD’s. Whilst the main image below will be for the main CD.
I’ll get more stuck into how this is done later, but for now… here’s a couple of the images that came out and will be appearing on the digital release.
TRACK LISTINGS:
1: Rhythm Museum. (MUSIC FOR GUITAR ORCHESTRA)
Those of you who have caught a recent show would have heard this one. Its a piece for a guitar orchestra, with treated guitars (aka paper between the strings). The concept is a rhythmic and cultural museum coming to life at night.
2:Mirror and Wish. (MUSIC FOR ELECTRIC GUITAR AND DRUM KIT)
This blends a classical guitar technique with some seriously odd, yet subtle, electric sounds, strange time signatures and drumming from my friend Matt Pittori. The idea was to create something orchestral sounding with just the two instruments.
3: The Hunted (MUSIC FOR GUITAR ORCHESTRA)
Mainly nylon strung guitar here… but a mix of steel strung too. In my head this track built up out of images of some intensely edgy nature. Who knows what you’ll see…maybe puppies and chocolate.
4:Banneret (For Mum) (MUSIC FOR GUITAR AND DOUBLE BASS)
No prizes for what this one is about. I wrote it originaly for solo guitar and then begun to develop a double bass part later. It is is of course written for my mum. Its emotive and strong. Bass frequency friend Ben Taylor on Double bass on the recording.
5:Ukulele Septet (MUSIC FOR 7 UKULELES AND DRUM KIT)
I had been toying with a riff on the Uke for a while, and after jamming it out with drummer hero Matt Pittori it became a bit of an obsession. It’s supposed to be an explosion of energy, just like the Uke itself. When we recorded the drums I kept describing the drum part to Matt as a frustrated out burst….
6:Saol (MUSIC FOR GUITAR AND DOUBLE BASS)
This has been gigged for a year or two. Originaly as a solo guitar piece. Its about as traditional as the album gets. Ultimately a jazz guitar piece that represents the ups and downs of day to day life. Ben on bass again.
7:Hold For Now (MUSIC FOR GUITAR ORCHESTRA AND DRUM KIT)
A guitar orchestra with a drop C is always a good idea 🙂 and theres a splashing of slide guitar here. The drums courtesy of Matt are as lazy as we could make them. Its a break from time, one of those starring out the window moments.
8: Some Idle Tuesday (MUSIC FOR GUITAR ORCHESTRA AND DRUM KIT)
The title is taken from the Baz Lurman song Sunscreen….
‘Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
Bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
Never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday’
Its fine advice. And I sadly found it to be true… one tuesday, around 4 pm.
9: In Conversation (MUSIC FOR GUITAR ORCHESTRA)
If you’ve been to my recent one man show you would have experienced this track. Its a conversation between two people. Sat indoors on a rainy day. Two guitars take on the conversation and the guitar orchestra emulates the surroundings and reacts dynamically to the conversation.
9:OPTIC (MUSIC FOR GUITAR, DOUBLE BASS, DRUM KIT and TONGUE DRUM)
This piece is the first time on the album I have bought in something other than guitars, drum kit or double bass. We have the subtle skills of David Youngs on tongue drum. The piece has no intentions whatsoever… its just a look at sound, a look at life. The triplets at the end of the piece nearly killed me.
London Guitar Night Re-opening 9th September
The London Guitar Night; curated and hosted by Chris Woods has found a new home at Woodberry Wetlands, a stunning nature reserve managed by The London Wildlife Trust. The event is strictly advanced ticket only, from here
Orchestral Evolution Part 3 – ‘Modular Music’
In my last blog I delved into some of the compositional ideas going into Orchestral Evolution. Looking at how we can bring the best out of players of all abilities, by working in a minimalistic way.
This week I wanted to talk about how that minimalism is also rooted in being modular! Hopefully it will give you an insight into how I’m writing for a pop-up orchestra and maybe even get you thinking about your own compositions…
When we create music, the tendency is to create manageable ‘blocks’ of music. A ‘block’ of melody, a ‘block’ of rhythm.
A verse, is a block of music, so is a chorus. A ‘bar’ like this thing…
Is a ‘block’ of music.
Us human folk have this amazing tendency to break things down into manageable chunks. Our day is broken into seconds, hours, am or pm, days or weeks, seasons, breakfast, lunch… you get the idea. The reason you and I do that is, of course, probably because we have been culturally conditioned to do this, and that’s because it’s worked very well for …well…like ages…
It helps us, and others, to be able to comprehend what is happening. It helps us to summarise when explaining and even subatize when understanding. (Thats one for the teachers out there!). Ultimately it not only helps us, it helps those we are explaining ideas or concepts too.
As Ive already mentioned we do this in music all the time. And interestingly I think we are doing it increasingly so…
As more and more people use computers (DAWs of all shapes and sizes) to create music the idea of working in ‘blocks’ is becoming a really tangible physical reality, rather than a concept…
Just look at how Logic ( a common DAW) looks… just look at those ‘Blocks’ of music.
And the thing is, for the composer it works really really well as it gives them the feel of perspective, and a sense that the task is manageable. The end result is also something that is extra tangible for the listener.
Now this isn’t to say its a new idea in music. But, undoubtedly the introduction of such visual ‘blocks’ or such a focus on modules of music in DAWs, (thats digital audio workstation if ya didn’t know…the programmes we use to record music) means its becoming something that ingrained in composers heads and listeners ears…
‘Modular music’ is simply there all the time, its incidental, because its almost always part of how a human works. In fact its so common place that as a composer your focus often is to remove the sense of ‘modularness’ by desperately trying to blend sections together. Battling with the inevitable.
Now… My piece Orchestral Evolution has some unique challenges, firstly the fact that I don’t know what type of instruments I will have and secondly how many of them (thats the joy of a pop-up orchestra). So short of writing the composition in its entirety when I first meet the musicians I basically have to create a composition which I can work around the situation.
So…how? what is the solution? The solution is to be modular, really modular. Instead of letting modular thinking be the incidental and inevitable approach it will become the focus and strength of the piece. To create blocks of music that can be placed together in an infinite number of ways, according to the sound I want to create and the situation with which I am presented.
Doing this means I can really work with the players that I have. In other words; ‘the piece works for the players rather than the players working for the piece’. It also has another major affect… that the performance will be original to that orchestral line up. Cool huh?.
It also means that as the ‘conductor’ I can act as a DJ/Producer, bringing loops in and out, change different parameters within the piece as I go…perhaps I will make ‘loop A’ or ‘block A’ louder, or maybe I want to to make ‘Block B’ to have more of an aggressive feel to it. I can communicate all that as a conductor. My roll as a composer and conductor becomes one that is truly live and truly musical, working with the players in a symbiotic way…responding to the sounds the players make and the facial expressions the audience pulls. 🙂 🙁 😉 🙂 🙁
So if you like… we are somehow dragging the orchestral composer and conductor into a new modular, more musical and modern age.
Check out the previous blog to see some of the modular examples used already and how Im using these ‘blocks’ to give players the chance to get into ‘flow’ and really ‘get into’ playing the piece.
and in the meantime…
Want to have some fun with making modular music… give this a go.
https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Melody-Maker
Orchestral Evolution Part 2
This is an ongoing blog delving into the process of composing ‘Orchestral Evolution’ a piece of music for an infinitely sized orchestra of all instruments and abilities.
The piece has been written by The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra in conjunction with Soundstorm, the Music Education Hub for Bournemouth and Poole. The project is for young people of a huge range of ages from schools in and around Bournemouth – Funded through support from Arts Council England.
If you are a teacher wanting your school to be involved, or you have any questions you can email contact@chriswoodsgroove.co.uk or direct to Soundstorm rachel.Sene@Bournemouth.gov.uk
In this instalment of the blog Im going to be revealing some of the processes involved in composing this piece…
I want to create a piece that unites and inspires those playing and listening, overcoming the various challenges of the pop-up orchestra. So the concept behind this piece has two very specific important points.….
1. Be emotive and powerful – to help draw the players and listeners together
2. Be minimal/simplistic at heart – to bring out the best in, and play to the strengths of, each player.
This is the foundation and subject of the work. No images of lakes or political statements here… this is a piece of music to bring people together and to bring out the best in the individual and the orchestra.
Point one, be emotive and powerful, is going to be relatively musically straightforward. Although I will delve into that a little in this blog, the main challenge is point two, how to bring the best out of each player. In other words, rather than simply challenging each player within an inch of their ability how do I create a piece of music that allows each player to flourish and develop whatever their skill level. Crucially, without loosing sight of creating something musically emotive and powerful.
After thousands of cups of tea and hours of gazing thoughtfully out of my living room window, I have borrowed a simple principal from my previous ‘Guitar Revolution’ project. The principal is to work with incredibly repetitive and simplistic patterns, which enables players of all abilities to reach a ‘state of flow’ and to enable all abilities to focus on articulation and detail in a near macro way.
Sound complex? – In other words…. base the piece on a simple idea that gives everyone the space to play it amazingly. – by the way I recommend looking up ‘flow state’.
Borrowing from ‘Guitar Revolution’ I took a basic repetitive quaver pattern alternating between two notes. Now the choice of those two notes is quite important at this stage. I’m looking to create something powerful and emotive (remember point one), however many of the instruments and players I will be working with may only be able to manage a few notes. In the case of clarinets and trumpets for example this is likely to be D,C,Bb and E. So I need the repetitive pattern I am basing things around to create a tention or emotional feel when placed with these notes….
To cut a long story short I settled at the repeated pattern of G to A#. Of course, at this point I have no idea if there will be a clarinet player or ten…oh the joys of the unknown! 😉
Once we have this simplistic pattern we can then begin to play with the articulation. Experimenting with what notes we accent, and really bring it to life.
Here’s an example of the part played with accents on the ‘and’ of 1 and the ‘and’ of 3. At this early stage of composing I tend to use ‘Guitar Pro’ a programme as powerful as sibeliues but a bit more user friendly….Its purely for perspective to get a feel for how things might sound – it also only costs about 20 quid.
So, if you can hear past the terrible midi sounds, you would have heard a repeated pattern with a pulse that is more interesting than 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Now… This would be very achievable for most levels of player (Im thinking guitars, ukuleles and keyboards here!). But we can really start to have fun by using the orchestra to our advantage and have opposing accents from a different group of players. Like this example…
Suddenly we have something more interesting, and definately working towards a phillip glass intensity and something that would create a state of flow in even the most distracted of players.
By sharing the complexity within this part between two groups we give each player the room to really focus and flourish without being overwhelemed. In other words it gives them room to think…whilst making the music even more powerful.
Of course we can take things further and share this simple part out amongst for sections all playing different accents… like this:
At this point the complexity has literally taken away that beautiful quality we previously had, or atleast not added to it. Interesting how simplicity can even become too complex. If you look at the notation you will see that the accents have begun to in some cases cancel each other out, so without introducing a crazy and possibly unachievable pattern which goes in and out of phase, it just wont work!- so two parts it is then.
With my foundation riff in place, my next stage is to head to ‘Logic’ and quite literally begin playing. Using Logic gives me a bit more flexibility and a bank of sounds that are a little more realistic, but remember this is only here as guide for me to take to the real life players. In my next blog I’ll delve into how I did this…and how everything is focused on being modular in order to be flexible. In the mean time, here’s 30 seconds of a sketch for you. Hopefully you can hear our foundation riff that I have been exploring in this blog, played by two sections of the orchestra.
Orchestral Evolution Part 1
What is Orchestral Evolution?
A brand new commissioned score for a revolutionary ‘pop up orchestra’….
A piece of music for an infinitely sized orchestra of all instruments and abilities. The piece has been written by The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra in conjunction with Soundstorm, the Music Education Hub for Bournemouth and Poole. The project is for young people of a huge range of ages from schools in and around Bournemouth – Funded through support from Arts Council England.
Students from every type of school ensemble traditional or unusual, from orchestras to jazz bands, an after school ukulele club to the in house rock band are all invited to learn the piece with me and a visiting member of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, in a morning or afternoon workshop. (27th Feb: AM or PM 28th Feb: AM or PM 1st March: AM or PM 2nd March: AM or PM)
Further content will be made available for free online, to help students practice and further develop their playing.
All of the groups will then be invited to join a mass pop up orchestra hosted by one of the participating schools ; to perform alongside some of this country’s finest players as part of ‘The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra’ at a one off inspirational concert. Interested?..get in touch by email contact@chriswoodsgroove.co.uk or direct to Soundstorm Rachel.Sene@Bournemouth.gov.uk
The Project was born out of an idea to inspire students, irrespective of their interest in classical or contemporary ensembles, to help all students engage within a modern orchestral setting culminating in a shared finale. A focus on making the orchestra, and orchestral thinking inclusive and exciting. Soundstorm approached the CWGO to bring these aims to life.
Over the coming weeks as I compose the piece I will be writing about my processes, successes, failures and more in this blog. So sign up now to watch it grow.
Why?
As many of you may know who are reading this, in septmember of 2016 I launched a project entitled ‘guitar revolution’. A piece of music for an infinite number of guitars, all ages and abilities. You can find out more here.
After an oversubscribed launch at the london olympia we went on to tour the pop guitar orchestra project across the uk. Bringing together hundreds of guitarists of all ages to perform together. It was an inspirational process. From two angles it has to be one of the most satisfying and exciting things I have done as a musician and composer…and has inspired this next project.
Firstly because of the social element; the idea of bringing together people of all ages and abilities was idyllic in concept and idyllic in practice. To work with people who may not spend every moment of their life playing an instrument is seriously refreshing. There is a genuine passion that hasn’t succumbed to the gigging fatigue that many of us ‘professional’s’ have. There is an almost more pure love for the music, and this pure passion comes out in the playing regardless of physical skill.
Secondly the process was a compositional conundrum. And a compositional challenge is one that feeds creative thinking. In short, composing for a mix of abilities is a challenge. Having boundaries to keep within, though, is often really constructive. I had to compose to be prepared for huge unknowns (how many would turn up to the pop up orchestra) and crucially I had to compose something that was simple enough to be played by the most beginner player and crucially simple enough and intuitive enough to have room to be an expressive performance.
So here I am again in a new compositional scenario, with similar challenges but also very exciting new ones…here’s what Im facing with Orchestral Evolution
1.Composing for all abilities.
In this project whilst it is only open to school children, it is not for one specific age or ability. So within the the parts there must be room for all abilities. And crucially we want it to be an enriching experience for all, so there also needs to be value in it for even the most accomplished player.
2.Composing for an unknown orchestra (unknown instrumentation)
This time, its not just guitars. We are making a truly modern orchestra welcoming all instruments. But it is a pop-up orchestra so until the day of the workshops I wont know what Im dealing with. Do we have ten violins? three bassoons and a hundred ukuleles? or… well, ultimately it could be anything. So I need to categorise the instruments in a non-traditional orchestral way.
Over the coming weeks, as I compose the piece I will be blogging about the processes and experiences. Ill be sharing audio clips and maybe even a video or two too.
Drop your email in the sign up form to stay up to date.
Building A Guitar Revolution Part 4: We did it!
So, The Guitar Revolution tour has come to an end. After an over subsribed launch at the London Olympia in september 2016, we took the concept on the road in early 2017. Visiting 7 Cities across the UK, bringing together hundreds of players to form our epic pop-up guitar Orchestra’s to play the piece Guitar Revolution.
A huge and heartfelt thank you to Martin Guitars for powering us and making it possible. All the amazing and world class guest acts who played such inspirational sets and put so much effort into reaching out into the wider community. The players who joined us and ultimately made the magic happen and of course all the audience memebers who helped create such amazing atmospheres at the shows… there is so many more, you know who you are, thank you. 🙂
Below you can enjoy a few live video’s of our performances and more…