LMM 2.12 - The Biologic Imperative

LMM 2.12 is an album about sex. As a musical subject, the topic is not uncommon. But it's one that I've for the most part neglected until now. This work attempts to take the common pop-music perspective on sex and expand it to include (and in fact tell a story of) the entire reproductive process. If you want, you might think of it as a tribute to humanity's oldest and perhaps greatest creative (artistic) act.

An extra huge thanks to Jean Robison. Jean not only made this month's cover artwork, but also made a fantastc film to accompany it, AND last week gave birth to a baby! WOW!

Thanks to Mike and Gabe for playing!

This is the last issue of Season 2. Thanks for your support. We're going to take a couple months off and hit the ground running for Season 3. See you then!

Sincerely,
jw

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• all songs written and recorded by John Wood, Jan 2010; except track 5, written by John Wood and Gabe Noel
• featuring Gabe Noel (bass on 4, 5; guitar on 5; modular synth on 9) and Mike G (drums on 4, 5, 6, 7, 9)
• track 2 and track 8 produced by TendaLoin

• artwork by Jean Robison :: jeanrobison.com
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LMM 2.11 - Fifteen Two Part Inventions for 2010

LMM 2.11 is a merging of artistic techniques dating from several relatively distinct eras of human history– as old as the 17th century B.C. (and even earlier) and as recent as 1982.

Mostly, this is a tribute to J. S. Bach’s fifteen two-part inventions. Written between 1717 and 1723, these thematic, contrapuntal pieces, following a simplified fugal form, were intended as etudes for keyboard and composition students. Likewise, writing fifteen brand new inventions was for me an intense study of Bach’s technique. Even with just two voices, this album is vertically dense and very German (in the sense that it is harmonically complex, even though #14 is intended as a melodious shout out to Rossini [Italian, 1792 -1868]).

Though these Learning Music inventions are written in the same keys as Bach’s, they follow a different order. Bach’s inventions are numbered by harmonic ascension (C, D, Eb, E, etc.). I chose to arrange mine following the order chosen by Glenn Gould for his recordings of the Bach inventions and sinfonias in the 1960s, moving through keys as they relate harmonically, much as the theme in each piece itself is modulated from key to key. Another unifying technique borrowed from Gould is the mathematical modulation of tempos from track to track.

Also concerned with math, Bach is known for building symmetrical shapes within his music, including the inventions. Symmetry is found in countless examples of art through the ages. It appears in Chinese bronze castings from as early as the 17th century B.C. It is aslo a recurring theme in religious and philosophical concepts from all over the world. This album as a whole uses a symmetrical structure. The inventions at the beginning and end are very traditional, following most closely the style of Bach. Moving toward the middle of the album, each piece becomes more abstract harmonically, moving more freely between keys, and stepping away from the rules of traditional counterpoint. Similarly, the first and last composition are both in a duple meter; the ones next to those are in triple; and as we progress toward the middle piece, which is in no set meter at all, we use meters of increasing odd numbers (5, 7, 9, 11). Time signatures of 5, 7, and higher prime numbers were uncommon in written music until the late 19th century (and are non-existent in Bach’s works), even though they were employed even before Bach’s time in pieces by Giovanni Valentini (1582-1649).

The recording of this album employed (obviously) much younger techniques than those studied to write it. Each invention was performed on a digital keyboard with rudimentary MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) capabilities, from which both the audio and MIDI information were recorded. The original MIDI protocol was developed in 1982 as a way for different digital instruments to work together. I used this technology to play back each performance through different keyboards (also dating from the early 80s) plugged into guitar amplifiers, using my now-free hands to twist the keyboard control knobs, and re-recording their sounds in sync with the original audio signal. I also used this MIDI information to trigger two samples of my voice in unison with the keyboards. All these sounds were combined together to create these odd resultant tones. The electronicization of contrapuntal baroque music began (famously) in 1968 with Walter Carlos’ (now Wendy Carlos) Switched-On Bach, which featured a handful of Bach compositions (including three inventions) performed on an early Moog modular synthesizer.

This month’s artwork is by “graphic artist, daydreamer, pseudo-scientist, wanna-be astronaut and untrained intellectual” Christopher David Ryan. Many thanks to Christopher, and to Autumn for getting him on board! To me, this image successfully represents all the things I find important about the album.

I hope you also find something in this collection. Please consider it as a candidate for semi-official theme music of 2010.

Thanks.

Sincerely,
John

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• all music written, recorded, and performed by John Wood, Dec 2009

• artwork by Christopher David Ryan :: cdryan.com close

LMM 2.10 - The Greatest Event In Sports History

On March 16, 2007, a great thing happened in Culver City, California. For the first time ever, all three contestants of the game show Jeopardy, without ending in a score of zero, tied. At the time, at least two incorrect interpretations of this event were made; one being that it was a chance occurrence, the other that it was caused by mistake.

In fact, this tie was purposefully created by the episode’s returning champion Scott Weiss, a puzzle-lover who must have been thrilled when he saw the opportunity arise (in the form of his tailing opponents being tied) in the Final Jeopardy round. Instead of wagering the customary one dollar extra needed to win, Weiss bet the exact amount required to tie, should all three contestants question the answer correctly, which they did.

When I saw this happen– coincidentally I was watching the show that evening, something I did rarely before and have barely since– it struck me as a profound gesture of good sportsmanship. All three got to keep their winnings and play again on the next episode.

Drawing on an amount of gathered research as well as formulated opinion on the event, we organized this twelve-song interpretation of the story, which takes place in ancient Greece. The album is entitled (a telling of) The Greatest Event in Sports History. As you might be able to guess by now, there is a fair amount of humor in this album. But also, I hope, a good and resounding lesson to be learned.

The Cast:
John Wood as Alex Trebek
Lisa Tremain as the goddess Athena
Jeff Eliassen as Anders Martinson
Gabe Noel as Jamey Kirby
Douglas Pipes as the hero Scott Weiss

Thanks so much to these guys for helping create the songs to tell this story. Also thanks to Jason Golday, who plays guitar on this month’s single, The Ancients (this was the title of a category about ancient Greece in the Double Jeopardy round of this episode).

This album is the result of a lot of collaboration, which makes this month’s artwork very appropriate. It was made at the Learning Music workshop we held back in March of this year, as an exercise in communal creation. Thanks to all the participants who added a little piece to this work.

I hope you enjoy this album as much as I enjoyed making it.

Efharistó!

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• tracks 1, 2, 4, 8, and 12 written and recorded by John Wood in November 09
• track 3 by John Wood and Lisa Tremain
• 5 written by John Wood and Jeff Eliassen, performed and recorded by Jeff Eliassen
• 6 by John Wood and Jason Golday
• 7 by John Wood and Gabe Noel
• 9 by John Wood and Douglas Pipes
• 10 by John Wood and Gabe Noel
• 11 by John Wood, Lisa Tremain, Jeff Eliassen, Gabe Noel, and Douglas Pipes

• artwork by participants of the Learning Music Workshop at Machine Project, Los Angeles, March 2009 close

LMM 2.9 - Horizontal Household Ballads

What is a horizontal household ballad?

Horizontal – As opposed to the linearly immediate and obvious vertical, these pieces are long, stretched out, changing gradually over time. (this is the longest LM album yet, seventy-some minutes). They took a lot of commitment and patience to make, employing great efforts to avoid dualistic (masculine-feminine/verse-chorus/loud-soft) dramatic techniques. They may also take some patience to listen to, (though perhaps they are better NOT listened to, but rather absorbed subconsciously).

Household – Subjects tackled in these songs include mostly elements of various modern families; stories of relationships that are ingrained over long periods of time.

Ballads – This is a very old term, at one time describing a form of epic storytelling, later referring to folk songs that traveled around europe (with wandering minstrels) and eventually to the Americas. It is a word also associated with modern love songs. Many of the electronic keyboard tones on this album sound like they could have come from a pop ballad of maybe fifteen to twenty-five years ago; sounds that could be considered dated and even cheesy (correct me if you don’t think so). However, I have, to some degree, here attempted to rescue these sounds from obsolescence, with hope that the cultural associations of sounds are but transient, that all instruments may someday be accepted into the melting pot, and judged not by their geographical or historical or social heritage, but by the pure tones which they produce.

In this sense, I believe there is a bit of time-travel genre-bending in some of these songs, which is why Malisa Humphrey’s cover art seems appropriate. Thanks to Malisa for the art, and also to Max Markowitz, who helped create several of the songs on this album.

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• all songs written and recorded by John Wood, Oct 09, except 1, 4, 6, & 9 by John Wood and Max Markowitz (a.k.a. ing)

• artwork by Malisa Humphrey :: artslant.com close

LMM 2.8 - Famous: the Jonny Pride Story

Jonny Pride (born James Albert Purdue on June 14, 1949 in San Pedro, CA) was a singer/songwriter who gained relative fame in the 1960s for his pop and psychedelic rock recordings. Signed to a major record deal while still a teenager, he was considered by many a promising rock prodigy. Despite the critical success of his few albums, and significant local popularity in Southern California, his songs failed to break the national top 50. This ultimately led to the termination of his recording contract, which, by several accounts, left Pride (who had become accustomed to heavy drug use and extravagant rock lifestyle) and his by-now bloated ego in a downward spiral. Assumed dead by many, his whereabouts have been unknown since the early 1970s.

LMM 2.8 attempts to tell his story, using some of his original songs (rerecorded) along with several new narrative pieces. This album was envisioned, co-written/performed, and produced by Alex Silverman. Also heard are Keith Karman, Brian McLaughlin, Barbara Gruska, Samantha Sidley, Charles DeCastro, and Emily Howell. Thanks to all of you.

This month’s artwork is a collaboration between French artist Suisse Marocain and Brooklyn artist Kit Brown, who work together in Paris. They are part of a group of artists who started squatting in a long-abandoned building in Paris (59 Rivoli) in 1999. Six years later, the government bought and refurbished the building, which is now officially dedicated to housing artists and showing their work. Big thanks to Chloë Flores (our visual artist curator) for getting these two onboard for LMM.

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• written and recorded by Alex Silverman and John Wood
• produced by Alex Silverman
• featuring Keith Karman (bass & drums: 1, 3, 6), Brian McLaughlin (drums, 2), Barbara Gruska (drums 4, 10; background vocals 9, 10), Samantha Sidley (background vocals 9, 10), Charles DeCastro (trumpet 1, 3, 9), Emily Howell (vocals: 7)

• artwork by Suisse Marocain and Kit Brown close

LMM 2.7 - Friends Who Are

For this issue, Lisa Tremain and I remixed eleven songs originally written and recorded by friends of ours. We tried to re-imagine each song in a new physical space, which in most cases led us stripping down to only the original vocal track, and building a new song around that.

The perfectly appropriate cover art for Friends Who Are is by Jeffrey James Mohr, another great “friend who is”.

The other artists whose songs we remixed are: Charlie Wadhams, The Sweet Hurt, Video, ForgetMeNauts, The Years, Willoughby, Electrocute, The Hair PUddle, The Peter Pinguid Society, and Joseph Davancens. All of these tracks were really good before we got our hands on them. (Thanks so much to you guys for letting us play with them.) If you haven’t heard the originals, you should do that now.

Thanks for listening. See you next month.

Sincerely,

jw

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• all songs remixed by John Wood and Lisa Tremain
• written and origianlly recorded by the artists listed

• artwork by Jeffrey James Mohr :: jeffreyjamesmohr.com close

LMM 2.6 - Frequency Histograms For Predictor Variables

LMM issue 2.6 is a collection of 99 audio tracks, each twenty seconds long, made of only sounds from my body (singing, clapping, etc.) and manipulated samples of objects I found in our kitchen (metal pots, knifes, cups, spray bottles, cumin seed, a small plastic cooler, tupperware, crystal wine glass, etc). These tracks are meant to be played together in random order (on shuffle). Many thanks to Matt Lipps for the fabulous cover art!

When I started thinking about this project, I was trying to consider what untapped benefits may be available from presenting songs in a digital format (and more specifically on a computer). I hear and read a lot of people talking about the degradation of sound quality caused by mp3 compression. I myself would much rather hear something on vinyl than from a computer. But surely, there are formatting possibilities offered by the computer– just like vinyl provided two separate yet conjoined canvases (an obvious example is Joe Jackson’s Night and Day)– that are only starting to be tapped. Many artists (like Brian Eno, 77 Million Paintings) are utilizing computerized randomness to create pieces that will sound different nearly every time they are played. Most of us already have the tools to do this with our own music library (using the iTunes “shuffle” function). To play songs from a single album in random order used to be relatively difficult, having to move the arm of the record player or fast forward or rewind the tape to the right spot. Even the shuffle option offered on most CD players is less than ideal, as it takes at least a moment for the laser mechanism to adjust it’s position for the next track.

In making Frequency Histograms for Predictor Variables, I’ve learned that iTunes also puts a small moment of space in between shuffled tracks, a fault which hopefully will be remedied in future versions of the program. With the right technology, this album should be shuffled with NO gap between tracks.

Where is all this going? As more artists realize their freedom from the restraints of linearity and duration (thanks to new technology), I think there will be many albums or even single songs (broken into smaller parts) intended for shuffle playback or for user reordering. Frequency has 99 tracks simply because that’s how many we can fit on an audio CD (and I did pick a specific track order for the CD edition). There are more Learning Music “shuffle” albums in the planning stages, including one comprised of 5400 tracks, something which will probably (by necessity) be released in only mp3 format.

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• all songs written and performed by John Wood

• artwork by Matt Lipps :: mattlipps.com close

LMM 2.5 - You Can Take It In

Produced by Mike Richardson, with artwork by Christine Finley, the newest issue of LMM is here for you.

Many many thanks to Mike, who has released a handful of his own stunning albums through myspace, for creating the majority of sounds on this record. It was all a lot of fun to make.

“You Can Take It In.” I hope you do.

Sincerely,
John

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• all songs written and recorded by Mike Richardson & John Wood; except 1 & 10, written by Tremain/Richardson/Wood; and 6, written by Superhumanoids

• featuring Lisa Tremain (voice: 1, 10)

• artwork by Christine Finley :: cfinley.com close

LMM 2.4 - Geochemistry

LMM, The Movie

I am very proud to announce this month’s release, which is more than a music album. It’s a collection of ten music videos by some very talented film-makers. Unlike the process for most music videos, these songs were written after the films were completed, creating sounds to fit the images, rather than the other way around. Though all the films were made separately, without a unifying theme in mind, I think the title “Geochemistry” manages to encompass them all. The word also shows up in this month’s cover art, crafted by Scott Godfrey.

I can’t say THANK YOU enough to all the filmmakers who contributed pieces to this project. So I’ll do it again:

Rollin Hunt, THANK YOU!

Eli Rarey, THANK YOU!

Tony Moore, THANK YOU!

Alex Jablonski, THANK YOU!

David Fenster, THANK YOU!

Lee Anne Schmitt, THANK YOU!

PJ Wyderka, THANK YOU!

Kate Dollenmayer, THANK YOU!

Emily Lacy, THANK YOU!

Clay Dean and Tuni Chatterji, THANK YOU!

I couldn’t be happier with the results. Look out: I think there may be another LMM video collection in the near future. See you next month. Sincerely,

JW

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• all songs written and recorded by John Wood. Silent videos by ( filmmakers ) as listed.

• featuring Lisa Tremain, vocals on 10; Mike Richardson, trombone on 3; Damon Zick, clarinets on 4; Sam Robles, saxaphone on 4; Max Markowitz, trumpet on 4

• artwork by Scott Godfrey :: The Hair PUddle close

LMM 2.3 - An End Like This

I am very proud to announce the release of LMM 2.3. This album is something Jeff Eliassen and I have talked about for a long time. A while back, Jeff told me he wanted to re-record a collection of songs from the first season of Learning Music albums. He picked nine tracks from the first twelve records. Beginning a couple months ago, Jeff and his band(Delby L)-mate Dave Devine produced all nine songs from their studio in Denver, with me, under direction from Jeff, recording vocals in Los Angeles. I couldn’t be happier with the results.

many thanks the Dave and Jeff! see you next month,
John

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• all songs written by John Wood
• produced and recorded by Jeff Eliassen and Dave Devine
• vocals recorded in LA by John Wood

• featuring John Wood (vocals: 1-9 + acoustic guitar: 1), Jeff Eliassen (electric guitar: 2,4,5,6,8,9 + bass: 2,3,8 + drums: 1,9 + background vocals: 2,4,5,8), and Dave Devine (electric guitar: 2,3,4,5,6,7 + drums: 2,3,5,6 + keyboards: 5)

• artwork by Jeff Eliassen :: je-ff.net close

LMM 2.2 - Matchstick Monument

Alright. Our April edition, titled Matchstick Monument, is here.

Here are some personal notes about Matchstick Monument (perhaps more than you wanted to know):

From the start of planning for this season of LMM, the first two albums (last month’s and this one) were intended to strongly contrast each other. Though I believe this goal has been well achieved, I think both albums sound far different from how I originally imagined them. The lesson: sometimes you have to take a step back and watch your creation become it’s own. I feel like once I loosened the reigns on my vision, this album became not only it’s own thing, which I could appreciate as an outside observer (not just it’s creator), but also turned out to be much more personal and probably sound a lot more like me.

Thanks to all the musicians who came over and tutored my trouble-making child of an album. They are, in order of sonic appearance: Lewis Keller, Charles DeCastro, Alex Harlan Silverman, Oscar Schedin, Mike Richardson, Drew Jorgensen, and Lisa Tremain.

I think it may be important to also mention the theme of transparency in this record. In writing the music I used very clear, simple chord changes. In recording I used almost only room mics, picking up all the sounds of my garage-studio (including the creaks and dog barks)–(I also tried to not use any digital reverb, just the sound of the room). In the lyrics there are numerous references to my on-going romance with my wife, including multiple unashamed usages of the word “love,” a lyrical cliche which I have attempted to avoid previously, but here I felt appropriate. It is all intentional. So in the spirit of this transparency, I would like to say that this album is for Lisa.

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• all songs written and recorded by John Wood; except 2, written by Wood/Keller; 10, written by Wood/Jorgensen; 8, adopted by Wood from the public domain hymn; and 11, the melody of which mostly comes from Woody Guthrie's "New York Town" (Ludlow Music Inc.)

• featuring Lisa Tremain (vocals: 5,8), Lewis Keller (laptop [aka skronk]: 1,2,3,5,8,11), Charles DeCastro (trumpet, accordion: 1,5,7,8,11), Alex Harlan Silverman (slide guitars: 1,5,7,8,11), Oscar Schedin (electric guitar: 3), Mike Richardson (trombone: 3), Drew Jorgensen (vibraphone, percussion: 5,7,10,11)

• artwork by Max Markowitz :: watercloudmoon.com close

LMM 2.1 - Allegro

Well, it’s here. The first album of the new Learning Music Monthly series. I think Ben White’s cover art says it all.

Myths about LMM 2.1:

* The name of the album is Allegro, in reference to the common first movement of a sonata. Some of the songs attempt to follow a sonata-allegro form, especially track one.
* I wrote much of the material while sitting on the couch watching TV, yamaha pss 460 on my lap. The first lyric of “Short Tempered” came from a sitcom. (Also shout-out to Huell Howser)
* Track two borrows story and some lyrics from an old traditional folk song.
* Musical contributors are Oscar Schedin (guitar) Sam Robles (saxophones), Max Markowitz (trumpet), Damon Zick (woodwinds), Mike Richardson (trombone), Devin McNulty (co-writer), Lisa Tremain (co-writer), and the Notorious OCD (rhymes on track five).
* This is the first Learning Music album to feature trombone.
* if you play track eight backwards it says “change we can believe in”

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• all songs written by John Wood; except 10, written by Wood/McNulty/Tremain; and 2, which borrows lyrics and story from the public domain traditional "Gypsy Davey"

• featuring Sam Robles (alto/bari sax: 2,4,7,9), Max Markowitz (trumpet: 2,4,9), Damon Zick (flute, clarinet, bass clarinet: 3,11), Oscar Schedin (guitar: 9), Mike Richardson (trombone: 2)

• artwork by Ben White :: hellobenwhite close