Musical Night; Tracy Silverman

Written by Joshua Iyer
Published: October 18, 2014 at 4:42 AM [UTC]

This evening, my violist friend and I, on violin, played together for about a good half hour. First, we practiced this piece I wrote a while back, then got bored of that and played that one sequence game I remembered from my childhood - where you have a sequence of notes but repeats it. So, I played A, she played A; I played A-B, she played A-B; then A-B-E, then A-B-E-F (so you add on), etc. After, we had some improv sessions, just listening to each other play, and they turned sort of into Halloween sounds. It's fun to just improv with a friend, because you both have ideas in your heads and you mingle those into one. We listen to each other and find out what works, and sometimes accompany or take on solos.

Also, in the afternoon, Tracy Silverman came into orchestra with us. He played some tunes for us on his six-string electric violin; he began with some pop and rock stuff with distorted guitar sounds on the E string (he had floor pedal equipment), then after showed us (my favorite one) a concerto for orchestra and electric violin composed by John Adams "The Dharma at Big Sur". He looped the orchestra parts, then played a soothing, meditation sort of piece after. It was cool, and reminded me of a section in my "Birds of Prey" piece, which I showed him on the piano. It was really cool that I got to meet him, and he gave me some advice, mostly about college but it was still cool hearing some ideas of more contemporary music, stuff that isn't "classical", even though that's my style. Overall, today was a fun, musical one. On Sunday for Warrior Strings we're playing at a festival in Naperville at 11am (a luncheon I think), and I'm taking an improv solo in it. Should be fun!

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