Akai LPD-8

Back on the pentatonic trip: here’s two very down-and-dirty versions of pentatonic riffing that use some patches from Native Instrument’s Reaktor-Prism synthesizer module. (Upgrade to NI Komplete version 7, and Prism is included as one of the numerous new modules.) The pentatonic, characterized as the ‘black keys’ on a piano, is elsewhere on the keyboard too, obviously. I think of it not as a five or six note mode, but as an extended two or three octave scale; in C: C, D, E, G, A, C, D, E, G, A, C

For these short sketches, the Akai pad controller adds in the E and the A. I did run some effects on this unmastered and roughly mixed set of sketches. The versions represent different mixes.

Aound, versions I & II

(Frederic Rzewski, recounted by Derek Bailey) “One day in 1968. I ran into Steve Lacy on the street in Rome. I took out my pocket tape recorder and asked him to describe in fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered, “In fifteen seconds, the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds”.

via the huppeshyalites jazz blog.