02006-07-05 | Home, Musings, Ottmar, Recording, Santa Fe
Good morning! Another lovely rain during the night. Woke up around three and listened to the soft and steady drops… Some locals say: if the Santa Fe Monsoon happens in June and July – it means very little snow the following winter, but if it happens July and August – good snow… this monsoon season started during the last week of June.
Birds are nesting on a beam right by the entrance to my house. I have been using the garage to get in and out so as to not disturb the little couple. A few years ago I hung a cute little bird-house on the other side of the house, where the nesting would not be disturbed and where little birds learning to fly could land on dirt. But no, for a couple of years birds nested inside the awning right above a concrete terrace, and now they are on the beam above the door and above flagstone… I need a bird-whisperer!
This Onymyrrhe nail fortifier and strengthener is amazing – see earlier post… downside – and there is a downside to everything – is that I have to shape the nails of my right hand every day, because they grow faster…
Speaking of downside… I found this from Ken Wilber very illuminating:
The Shadow Series. Part 1: How to Spot the Shadow.
Here is a chapter from No Boundary, which contains some very practical suggestions and exercises for spotting and re-owning one’s shadow. Click here for the chapter in pdf form. This is only one of many ways that an individual can begin to confront and deal with shadow material, if he or she so wishes.
Ah, moving from nail fortifier to shadow in 2 seconds…
Today: a couple of meetings regarding Stephen Duros’ new album Thira, followed by lunch with Michael and then getting ready for my flight to Australia on Friday (practicing guitar, burning pre-show and intermission CDs etc…)
Stephen has mixed his album, Jon is mastering it in his studio, and Michael Motley will get started on the album cover while we are in Australia. I think we are looking at a late September or early October release for both Thira and Transit 2.
Oh yeah, added a few more dates to the August schedule, with one or two still in the works. And when we come back from that little tour we are set to record with Rahim and Barrett – see earlier post. There is talk of a bona-fide rockstar joining us on this album… Methinks we need a good name for the group…
02006-06-24 | Music, Ottmar, Recording, Studio
With my new solo guitar CD One Guitar about to be released in another month or two, it’s predecessor Tears in the Rain is no longer available from our ListeningLounge. Those who have purchased music from Tears in the Rain will continue to be able to find it in their library until the end of the year.
For those of you who might not know the story of this music:
Last September I started to record solo guitar music in my studio. I wanted to experience the quality of 24bit/96kHz recording (CDs are only 16bit/44.1kHz) and also felt that there was some music in me that was different from my previous work. The music I recorded was largely improvised – about 70% of it I made up on the spot – and I assumed that it would have an audience of one (me), or maybe a handful of people. I would upload new pieces to the ListeningLounge as soon as I recorded them, without EQ or compression. I didn’t want to title the pieces, because I wanted the music to remain wordless, pure, and devised a series of numbers for each piece that was made up of the exact date and time the music was recorded. I named this download-only album Tears in the Rain.
I really enjoyed this music I had recorded, music that I find is unlike anything I have released in the past, and because of the feedback I received we decided to release a CD this Summer. The title changed from Tears in the Rain to One Guitar, “normal” word-titles were discovered and I “cleaned up” the music files a little bit, meaning I made sure the beginning and endings were as noise-free as possible. I mastered the album with just a touch of EQ and without any compression and just this afternoon I gave it a last final critical listen with my Stax Ear Speakers before it will be sent to the manufacturer next week. I think this is the finest guitar sound I have heard on CD, rich and defined, silken and strong. Many thanks to Lester DeVoe for making me such a fine instrument and to Martech for making such an amazing microphone pre-amp.
I think we should have One Guitar CDs in stock by the time we come back from Australia at the end of July.
02006-06-24 | Design, Music, Ottmar
I want to show the song titles on the back of the CD package, so that people can see them without having to open the package. As a result there won’t be space for a blurb about the music. We will order stickers locally which will be applied to the front of the CD package, on top of the shrinkwrapping. I have two quotes that will fit nicely:
Ottmar Liebert’s new CD of solo acoustic guitar – the ghosts of Spanish flamenco within the dreamscapes of the New World. One Guitar: 13 tracks of contemplation, meditation, exhalation, levitation… and exquisite solitude. – CoultureCourt.com
Music that is haunting in its beauty and depth. Highly recommended! – Ken Wilber
Thanks Ken. I appreciate it!
And I could not resist LR’s poetic description of the album for CultureCourt: ghosts of spanish flamenco… levitation… but my favorite is exquisite solitude…
02006-06-15 | Brain, Music, Musings, Ottmar, Performance
My mind is in an interesting state the last few days. I know the state well and recognize it as a pause in which my mind digests and re-arranges data… It is the muddled state that can precede the act of creation. This state used to freak me out – until I got used to it.
When working on music I seem to invariably arrive at a point where it seems hopeless and muddled and stale. This is a hard time for a young musician, but one soon discovers that out of that muddled state a brilliant new vision may appear (or not…).
I am old enough to observe the state with slight bemusement and less panic – and a little bit of expectation. Because it seems to be part of a mental process. Not unlike THIS process of shifting memory from one part of the brain to another.
02003-03-03 | Guitar, LAVA, Music, Ottmar, Recording
I recently discovered some forgotten music from 1995. It is a project I started with my friend Eric Schermerhorn while he was in Santa Fe to play a guitar solo on the song Butterfly + Juniper for the Opium album.
We called the project LAVA and it was to be a meeting of Flamenco guitar + ROCK. And indeed it is crunchy on the outside with a soft filling on the inside! It is yummy! Within less than two weeks we recorded and mixed 14 songs! An explosion of creativity….Eric + I played lots of guitars, Carl Coletti played drums, Jon Gagan played bass and Mark Clark added some percussion. Well, then I went on to finish Opium, then we went on tour, then we had to mix the music for the wide-eyed + Dreaming video and by then LAVA was forgotten…..
