Brett Crudgington

Improvistion 8.7.09

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:42:29 -0700

This is me just fucking around with my Wurlitzer, playing against a groove that Billy Martin made available as a template DJ drum groove. Kind of messed up, but whatever.

5.27.09

Wed, 27 May 2009 09:53:42 -0700

Improv 5.3.09

Wed, 06 May 2009 20:22:20 -0700

Using my sweet new computer, with the music software that came with it. So...yeah, sorry about the quality.

Thirds

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:16:57 -0700

Burrow in Your Sex Tunnel

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:23:49 -0800

"In A Sentimental Mood" - Duke Ellington

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:54:33 -0800

(Pissed Off Improvisation)

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:01:21 -0800

My Drunk Kitten

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:22:46 -0800

Let's Go Ice Dancing in a Jungle

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:53:25 -0800

Leave My Pear William Alone

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:03:51 -0800

My version of "In A Sentimental Mood"

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:49:13 -0800

While I'm busy making up my own pieces, I have to stay in shape regarding my pianistic abilities. I've been playing "jazz" in several forms since I was 13, read lots of tunes in a big band in high school, and did a lot of jazz and experimental gigs with a drummer and bassist. When I got to New York I spent a two years playing with people at school in jam sessions, and grew to enjoy it a lot less than before. When I was 19 I started working with a classical concert pianist that literally isolated and broke down some bad habits, and we've spent the last 2 years building my whole musical perspective up again through lots of classical repertoire, stuff I wouldn't have dreamed of playing when I was 18. Because of this radical sort of departure from what I had been doing, my jazz playing has indirectly gotten better, although my knowledge of jazz repertoire and vocabulary sucks. Because I don't just want to be a groove monkey, or someone who can only play over only a single chord, I'm slowly learning tunes again. The goal here is not to learn a shit load of tunes necessarily - the goal is to develop a greater depth of repertoire that can more precisely inform my improvisations. More deliberate improvisations ==>> sexier compositions. That being said, Here is my own personalized, fucked-up take of Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood."

I Am Depressed, therefore Full of Unique and Profound Things To Say

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:03:10 -0800

Sometimes I wonder why the fuck I'm doing this. I've heard successful entrepreneurs reminisce about their times in the beginnings of their ventures - and they typically say something like "If I knew how hard it would end up being before I started, I wouldn't have started." Doing as much personally meaningful stuff when I'm young and helplessly ignorant is probably the best the to be doing. That being said, it is frighteningly easy to fall back into the comfortable verbal pat-on-the-backs of good friends and family who support you. "Everything will be okay, you'll make it. You're talented, so you'll make it." The reality is, none of it means anything. I literally doesn't mean anything - and you have to know that, down to your core, that those words of encouragement, while nice and uplifting, don't really mean anything. At that point you can decide whether or not to move forward, because if its vague words of encouragement from external personalities and motivations mostly influencing your own drive and fervor to accomplish stuff, then you're probably fucked. You can't fall back on the sympathetic promises of other people, because they aren't you and definitively do not share your motivations. They don't care, nor should they necessarily care. They aren't you. The only thing left is to take complete personal responsibility for what you want to do. If you're going to feel truly liberated as a human being then this is essential. You have to take responsibility for who you are, what you are at least attempting to do, and see it through to the end. No bullshit. No "Well, if I had these things, then I could move forward..." No. That's horseshit. Either move forward or don't, and take responsibility for whichever you choose. Its a visceral and unpleasant feeling, but the deeper you explore this the less you want to head back into what you were before. And its a process. I'm starting to get that making art is not a glamorous or romantic sort of thing. All the audience tends to see is the product, and well, yeah, there is glamor there when it works. But the process of getting good at making it? Making GOOD art? Its a pain in the ass, frankly. Don't get me wrong, its a profoundly uplifting process, and there is nothing sweeter than the feeling of having worked on something and being able to contribute it, no matter how shitty - but it also sucks a lot of balls and brings out the most exquisite feelings of worthlessness you'll ever encounter. Cheers. Brett

New Piece -- "Let's Go Ice Dancing in the Jungle" --

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:22:13 -0800

New Piece -- "Let's Go Ice Dancing in the Jungle" -- Just put this piece up. Its only a minute long but I still think its fucking sweet. As short as this is, actually recording all of this took about 6 hours, using 7-8 different tracks on ProTools. This doesn't include the time writing and reworking the actual piece itself - the melody and bass. Admittedly, the sound quality still kind of sucks a lot, and everything is disjointed, and to some extent, lacking a rhythmic cohesiveness. The time is off. I still don't know how to set up a click track. Fuck off. But most importantly, this is an example of what the ideas I'm having are slowly turning into. The point here is to try out some shit, and in doing so I'm finding out quite a lot about my personal tastes that I didn't realize. Interesting, this stuff. If you do similar sort of work to this, you've probably found yourself just as consistently floored as I am at the level of creativity you have, without actually knowing it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think my piece is good but its nowhere near anything good enough to seriously and legitimately submit to anybody. However, despite all the work I put into this 1 minute, it stills seems like an accident of the gods that allowed it to come into existence. I don't know, maybe I'm not explaining this very clearly. Its new, I guess. Piano nerds: listen up bitches. The melody and bass (the synth sounds that actually sound like plucking strings on a violin) were actually an exercise I used to do a couple years back. I used to cross my hands and play the bass line with my right hand, and melody with my right. This was to develop my hand independence. I worked on this, and realized it was actually pretty cool on its own, so here it is.

New Piece will be up by the end of next week

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 13:37:36 -0800

I currently have a ton of ideas that needed to be systematically worked out, but for now I'm working on a couple particular pieces that I'm almost finished with. I'm using my roommates computer and protools, and can't be bothered to get everything sounding professional, because that takes more money than I have. Everything that I post for awhile now will be low-quality recordings - the purpose being to capture the essential ideas and have at least something minimal to play with and tweak.

Its coming, I swear. Hold your breath please.

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:12:00 -0800

If you happen to be among a handful of people, or something, who have glanced at this space on the web and wonder in fervent anticipation why no music, nor anything really, has been posted to justify having this space - then you can stop wondering. Soon. I've played lots of scales and studied chord voicings and theory, so I attack the prospect of using technology and recording equipment similar to the way old people attack the prospect of using computers and email. As a result, I'm currently sitting on my ass dumbfounded at how to convert a track in ProTools into something I can put on this site. I'll have something up soon.