Recording Credits

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When we arrived in North Carolina in the summer of 1997,Brian Paulson, our engineer, was still debating where the optimal recording space would be for two acoustic guitars and a cello. Brian asked us if we would prefer a recital hall over a traditional studio.We couldn't pass up the opportunity to record our music in a recital hall.  With this, our annual recording pilgrimage to Hill Hall at University of North Carolina began.

1. ThaRoman (formerly Valerie White) - Part I

After ThaRoman Movement II and III were recorded at Hill Hall, I began ThaRoman Part I. This song was produced on a computer to avoid the costs of delivering a complete Javanese gamelan to North Carolina. At UC Berkeley, Erik and I recorded each tone of each gamelan instrument at several different dynamic levels to DAT, and then mapped them into a software sampler to create a gamelan that we could play from the computer. In the end, I abandoned the sampler method and simply used the raw sounds in a multitrack program. The gong and kempul sounds contain a particularly startling range of harmonic overtones, including some incredibly low frequencies which only reproduce on certain hi-fi playback systems and may distort others. There are also human voices chanting throughout the piece, though they almost never rise to a detectable level. The overall song is composed of around 60 tracks, most of these the result of single demung sustains overlapping so as not to cut them off.

2-3. ThaRoman (formerly Valerie White) Part II and III

From concept to completion, ThaRoman was a year in the making. We hoped to finish this song in time for our 1998 Hill Hall session, but the twisting, unpredictable nature of the parts made it too difficult to finish while also trying to complete the Machine. The processes involved in creating ThaRoman generally describe our songwriting processes for the entired CD.

Recorded improvisation is typically the first step. As often happens when creativity strikes, we have a desperate search for an empty tape to record on. Instead of keeping a stash of blank tapes handy, we use the miserly approach of recycling old and unwanted cassettes. Years ago, my friend Davis White had given me a French language learning tape to use on my experimental radio show. The tape originally belonged to his sister, Valerie White, whose name was clearly labeled on the front. We recorded our improvisation and reviewed it later that day. Amidst the chaos of improvisation, there were a large number of fragments worth keeping. We began referring to those fragments on the tape as "Valerie White".

During our next session, we were distressed to find that the "Valerie White" cassette shell had become cracked. Fortunately, the magnetic tape itself could be salvaged. We decided to transfer the contents of the "Valerie White" tape into another cassette shell. The scramble to find a tape produced a mix tape with a handmade label called "Tha Roman". With a screwdriver and gentle maneuvering of the tape reels, we had created "ThaRoman - formerly Valerie White". Although the story of the song title ends here, the working title continued to expand. In order to whittle out the good imporivsation from the bad, we dubbed parts of "ThaRoman - formerly Valerie White" to an old Edie Brickell tape, thus, for a time, extending the name of the song to "ThaRoman - formerly Valerie White / Edie Brickell".

The next step in our process is to physically learn all of the improvised fragments. We listen back to the tape over and over, with instruments in hand until we have learned the parts. We re-record the parts, now isolated from the original improvisation, and identify where parts can be rearranged or transitions added. After rearragning parts, the largest hurdle is to create transitions between disparate parts. Working out transitions is often like starting over from scratch because we have no material to work with other than a starting and ending point. This process can take several weeks or months, depending on the number of transitions required. Often times, we will write transitions just like songs, by making a recorded improvisation, whittling it down, relearning the parts, etc. In other cases, we will discuss various theoretical methods of getting from one musical juncture to another, viewing transitions as obscured mathematical equations that we must uncover. From this perspective, the challenge is not only to describe a way of getting from musical point A to point B, but to do so in an elegant, aesthetically appropriate way.

Once transitions have been sewn together, the basic song structure is finished. With this piece, we next entered each instruments' part into Finale, a computer music notation program. The notation provided a harmonic and structural perspective to the song unavailable to us using our recording and memorization techniques. The primary advantage was the ability to exand the number of voices and to interleave parts among them. The song quickly expanded in two dimensions: from ten minutes and three instruments to twenty minutes and ten instruments.

Erik left for a month in Albania to work for a humanitarian aid organization. There was the idea of trading MIDI files back and forth over the Internet to keep the composition a collaborative effort, but this proved to be too difficult. The song was fleshed out on the computer, using crudely synthesized MIDI sounds to previsualize the song. When Erik returned, we had a working version known as "ThaRoman - formerly Valerie White/Edie Brickell-Albania".

The computer allowed us to create instuments with the click of a button, but we still had to find musicians to bring the song to a life beyond primitive computer sounds. We contacted friends of friends in North Carolina, sending scores and cassettes to interested performers. With an ensemble finally organized for Hill Hall 1999, we made the individual sheet music and headed to North Carolina.

Thank you...

It is often difficult to give sufficient thanks within the limitations of record and CD packaging, so we are dedicating this section of the web site to all of the musicians who dedicated their time and resources to the recording of ThaRoman.We want to especially thank Jennifer Hancock for donating so much of her time and energy, for arranging rehearsal spaces, and for genuinely supporting our musical endeavors. (She was also a marvelous bowed piano player and we will use those sounds in some capacity soon!). Martha Bausch (piano) and Margaret White (violin) took three days out of their already busy music schedules to rehearse and record. David Jordan was a hero to us before we met him in person. The clarinet notation had a comment that read "may be difficult to breathe" due to a forty measure clarinet sustain. Many of the crucial melodies were written for the clarinet and David did not even have the luxury of a rehearsal day. Christopher Thurston and Merritt Partridge drove an hour just to rehearse the 20-second Latin rhythm section, and repeated the trip the following day for the recording. Christopher even brought microphones that we didn't know we needed and let us borrow them for the entire session! Finally, we want to thank our relatively long time friend Amy Domingues (everyone else we met the day before reecording) who drove all the way from Arlington, Virginia to play cello on rehearsals and recording. (Dave's note: "The best part about Amy Domingues is that despite her incredible musical talent, she can appreciate metal chugs. Between Amy and Dominique (also a master of chugs), we are a fortunate band indeed"). We also want to give extra special thanks to Harrison Haynes (percussion), Wells Tower and Matt Jones, who provided us a place to stay for three years in a row while recording at Hill Hall. They always made it feel like we were coming back to North Carolina for summer camp instead of recording.

4. Somewhere Near Denton

was an improvisation recorded in San Francisco, CA, in Dave's very small room on Shotwell Street. Erik detuned his E string to A, making the string loose enough to actually pull it off the fretboard and on to the neck.

5. The Machine

is based on the interplay of three overlapping metric cycles of 3 1/2,7, and 21 beats. This causes the opposing melody lines of the guitars to switch between synchronous and interlocking patterns within each 7 beat cycle. This song was composed with processes similar to ThaRoman. There was a form of notation used during The Machine's composition, but it was not standard. Excerpts of this notation can be found on the cover of the Timbre Hollow CD.

6. Tension as Opposed to Tension

is strucutred completely on a twenty minute improvisation.The starting idea was to drastically detune the guitars and see what would happen. Erik's guitar is tuned so low that it actually affected his acoustic guitar pickup. During a Knitting Factory show in New York, Erik's pickup stopped working altogether because of the lack of tension against the bridge. Even tuning back to normal would not fix the problem. Just as we were cursing the whole concept of the song, Harrison Haynes came to the rescue with Scotch tape and years of museum installation experience. After twenty minutes of uncertain tinkering (Erik's guitar was literally in pieces over the Knitting Factory stage) Harrison miraculously handed over the repaired guitar. Tension as Opposed to Tension has a very natural flow due to its lack of formal compositional elements.