: About the artist ( For Program Notes + Portfolio + Solos + Ensembles + Releases + Lutherie + Creative Coding and Interface Design + Workshops + Research + Miscellaneous )

"Electric" bassoon

If you know a bit what I do with the bassoon, you probably realised that I have, what some people call, an "electric" bassoon. I think this term is used because I can actually plug the bassoon with a 1/4 jack as an electric guitar would do. But, in fact, that is the only common part with the electric guitar. I actually have a normal bassoon with a modified bocal.

I have a pick-up on my bocal. Well, actually, it is often call a pick-up, but it has nothing to do with a electro magnetic pick-up from an electric guitar nor a piezo-electric microphone that we sometime call pick-ups. Well, actually, has it takes air vibration, it should be call a microphone, or maybe an inner-microphone, a transducer. I have a Telex. 

The modified bocal got a hole in it, before the first octave-key hole, first hole of the instrument. So, the microphone "hear" from the inside of the instrument. You can understand that with this idea, you get a lot less outside noise, but, you do get some. And, you can understand that as we never hear an instrument from inside, the sound is not the sound we are used to hear, but, it is good enough if you want to torture it with effects.

Here, is a piece for bassoon in which I used that bocal with an inner microphone. But, for the recording of the instrument, I had a standard microphone too.

My portrait by Patrick Larrivée

Patrick Larrivée gave me the great honour of making my portrait.

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24'' x 30''
Acrylic
June 2011

Patrick Larrivée



This painting is now in Ottawa, in the office of the NDP MP, Manon Perreault

LIO LEO LEON Release

Cover LONDON IMPROVISERS ORCHESTRA
LIO LEO LEON
Emanem Disc

The whole of the performance at the 2010 Freedom of the City festival by the 38-strong LIO. Conductions by Alison Blunt, Steve Beresford (featuring guest Leon Michener), Philipp Wachsmann, Caroline Kraabel, and Dave Tucker (featuring guest Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith), were interspersed with free improvisations.

Roland Ramanan - - trumpet
Ian Smith - - trumpet
Robert Jarvis - - trombone
Alan Tomlinson - - trombone
John Rangecroft - - clarinet and tenor saxophone
David Ryan - - clarinets
Noel Taylor - - clarinets
Harrison Smith - - bass clarinet
Neil Metcalfe - - flute
Terry Day - - pipes, etc.
Sonia Paço-Rocchia - - bassoon
Lol Coxhill - - soprano saxophone
Adrian Northover - - soprano and alto saxophones
Ricardo Tejero - - tenor saxophone and clarinet
Caroline Kraabel - - alto and baritone saxophones
Alison Blunt - - violin
Christoph Irmer - - violin
Ivor Kallin - - violin and viola
Philipp Wachsmann - - violin and viola
Charlotte Hug - - viola
Benedict Taylor - - viola
Hannah Marshall - - cello
Marcio Mattos - - cello
Barbara Meyer - - cello
Dominic Lash - - double bass
David Leahy - - double bass
Guillaume Viltard - - double bass
Adam Bohman - - amplified objects
Eugene Martynec - - electronics
Tania Chen - - phone and melodica
Roberto Sassi - - electric guitar
Dave Tucker - - electric guitar
Jackie Walduck - - vibraphone
Steve Beresford - - piano
Veryan Weston - - piano
Javier Carmona - - percussion
Tony Marsh - - percussion
Louis Moholo-Moholo - - percussion

Guests:
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith - - trumpet (on Dave Tucker conduction only)
Leon Michener - - piano (on Steve Beresford conduction only)

I have some disks to sell, please contact me if you'd like one!

Great Learning - Poland


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I have been invited to Wigry, Poland, to participate to a complete performance of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning in July 2010.

64 musicians and non-musicians conducted by Nima Gousheh. Recorded between 18th and 24th of July 2010 in Residential Arts Centre in Wigry and White Synagogue in Sejny, Poland for a Bôłt Release of the complete performance of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning.

The CD compilation is available on Discogs

There is a video on Youtube

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