This website was desinged to showcase music, performance, the development of music technology and provide ways for this to be integrated into the music classroom. This post is an exciting combination of everything! Enter Pat Metheny. An amazing musician, improviser, composer and integrator of technology into ‘making music.’
Orchestrion is the name of his project that merges “…ideas from the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the technologies of today to create a new, open-ended platform for musical composition, improvisation and performance.” In the BBC’s review of his album Kathryn Shackleton explains that “…Orchestrions were mechanically-played mini-orchestras of the 1800s, often built around the player piano. He sits dwarfed by looming racks of mechanisms, custom-built percussion instruments, guitarbots, Disklavier pianos and bottles, all controllable through his guitar via solenoids and MIDI.” Pat Metheny controls everything from his instrument – everything!
As a music educator who is enthralled by the latest music technology and how it can be used for education, Pat Metheny is a huge inspiration for me. I have used his music for guitarist improvisation classes, HSC rhythmic analyses (even the 22/8 time signature piece First Circle) and tone colour discussions among many. This is one reason I mention to my students they need a source of inspiration for their practice and creative works. My music teacher showed the class his DVD, Pat Metheny Group – We Live Here, and I was hooked!
Now with Metheny’s venture into controlled instruments this allows any music classroom to discuss the role of technology in music performance, composition and education. Did I mention he scored the whole album in Sibelius 6! The album was mentioned at the Sibelius Blog by Daniel Spreadbury.
As explained by Pat Metheny at http://www.patmetheny.com/orchestrioninfo/:
“Orchestrionics, is the term that I am using to describe a method of developing ensemble-oriented music using acoustic and acoustoelectric musical instruments that are mechanically controlled in a variety of ways, using solenoids and pneumatics. With a guitar, pen or keyboard I am able to create a detailed compositional environment or a spontaneously developed improvisation, with the pieces on this particular recording leaning toward the compositional side of the spectrum. On top of these layers of acoustic sound, I add my conventional electric guitar playing as an improvised component.
At least for me, this takes the term “solo record” into some new and interesting areas, somewhat recontextualizing the idea of what constitutes a solo performance by a single musician. This project is the result of a lifelong dream in this area that dates back to my early youth.”
In Pat Metheny’s words, “…one of the inspiring hallmarks of the jazz tradition through the decades has been the way that the form has willfully ushered in fresh musical contexts, resulting in new performance environments for players and composers. This pursuit of change, and the way that various restless souls along the way have bridged the roots of the form with the new possibilities of their own time, has been a major defining element for me in the music’s evolution at every key point along the way.”
Take his philosophy and focus and think, how could this be introduced into the classroom?
1. History of Music Technology research (with focus on one-man-band type instruments)
2. MIDI – what is it? How does it work?
3. Structure, Texture and Harmony analyses
4. Pat Metheny talks about ‘space in the sounds.’ What does this mean for composition?
5. In Performance today, what other musicians are taking a similar ‘integrate technology with performance/composition’ approach?
I would love feedback on these!
Final Track from Pat Metheny’s album, “Spirit of the Air.”
There are more explanations of his instruments and compositional focus over at DailyMotion Orchestrion FAQs.
Orchestrion References:
• Pat Metheny, accessed May 2011, http://www.patmetheny.com/
• Shackleton, K 2010 The Grammy winner drags a childhood obsession into the 21st century, accessed May 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/fd3q
• Spreadbury, D 2011 An Inside Look at Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion, accessed May 2011, http://www.sibeliusblog.com/people/an-inside-look-at-pat-methenys-orchestrion/
Whoa that is incredible! I was totally trasnfixed by that first video. It’s like MIDI but … actually played live….so trippy.
In terms of the “history of music” stuff – does that include an analysis of instruments that play themselves like the player piano? Lot’s of depth there.
Do you reckon it would be difficult to set up a basic example of this in a class room?
Awesome stuff dude
Thx for this great information that you are sharing with us!!!