| MandoMorphosis
(man'·dō·mor'·fø·sĭs) |
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2010 Producer's Comments
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| Most
records start with a preconceived idea of what the final product will be
- there are usually many knowns. This one was different. Even two weeks before the first
session, we didn't know what music we'd be recording, hadn't discussed
any of the musical arrangements, and didn't have a planned outcome,
other than the idea that this would be a creative venture
focusing on the humble, but deceptively versatile, mandolin.
With a single rehearsal under our belt, some hastily written crib notes, and an expectation of the unexpected, ideas began to take shape with live microphones on. In the studio the goal was to keep everything fresh and spontaneous, and capture that energy on disk. Different subsets of the group participated in three recording sessions, two in Seattle and one in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Pete and Adam were able to participate remotely, whereas David was able to coordinate a rendezvous with the rest of us as his touring band passed through the Pacific Northwest.) The result is a record that includes many combinations of players, and bashes through the imaginary fences that separate so-called musical genres. It includes tunes with recognizable roots (for example, "Matt's Idea," Out of the Furnace..." and "Nero's Fiddle"), some hybrids (like "A Minor Squabble" and "Hamhock's Razor"), two new versions of classics ("Santa Morena" and "Nocturne...") and several free-form pieces that defy categorization (such as "Impromptu Redux" and "MandoMorphosis"). Where the tunes had some structure, we made room for expansion. And we started and ended each session with open improvs, without any particular plan. Several pieces on the CD came from those passages. One of the challenges in working with wide-ranging content was pulling it together into a cohesive whole - this is meant to be an album, not just a collection of tunes. The tracks are linked in a flowing sequence, a sort of guided tour through the territories the group covered. I'll close by thanking the terrific musicians who contributed to this project as it evolved. In the end, a Rumsfeldism may be as true as anything else: there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. It's more fun to plunge into the unknown, and MandoMorphosis continues to be a work in progress... -Scott Schaffer
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