robin koerts collab
November 2, 2017 In Uncategorized

Robin Koerts Electronic collaboration – Video!

Let me tell you a little bit about my collaboration with Robin Koerts. You might have seen some clips or pics on the internet of us performing at various shows, but it’s pretty hard to get what we actually do on stage. And It’s actually one of the most inspiring things I do musically!

Koerts, Robin Koerts

My collaboration with Robin Koerts is a very diverse one. Every time I try to explain what we’re doing I come to the same conclusion: you have to see and hear it, to get it. First of, you need to know that Robin Koerts is one of best bass players in the Netherlands, and definitely one of the best bass players I know. Being a huge Jaco Pastorius fan, he has this groove over him, which trickles down in everything he does. Second of all, he watches a lot of movies, like a lot. The funny thing is, in these movies he hears or sees something that has a groove or a rhythm.

And then he tends to implements that in his music. Third, he makes short musical clips for one of the best watched talkshows of The Netherlands (De Wereld Draait Door) and they’re called ‘Soundbites’. In these soundbites clips he takes a small snippet of video material of something that he recently saw in the news. It could be a politician saying a sentence or a word, a host that is sighing, piece of the news where something went wrong. He loops these snippets and lays them over each other, making a groovy, looping song out of it.

So back to the part where Robin watches a lot of movies. In these movies he hears something that he could turn into a groove. It could be a guy from ‘King of the Hill’ that says:”I don’t know if we can save this engine” or he puts all the moments when people slap each other in the face in a loop so that I becomes a drumkick. Think the same with 150 snippets of car-doors closing. The guy is a walking drum computer.

In the shows that Robin and I do, we mix his and my creations up. I sing parts of my songs and he puts parts of his songs in his loop-pedal so he can start a video of his own made face-slapping, digeredoo playing, trumpet buzzing or car-door slamming groove, whenever he wants, whatever he wants. Sometimes the base for our songs is one of his originals, and sometimes it’s one of mine. But we always leave space for improvisation. A song that starts of as one of my originals, mixed up with his “I don’t know if we can save this engine” can turn into a snippet with the Beastie Boys, me playing my Korg R3 synthesizer and looping my voice at the same time, while Robin is grooving on his electric bass guitar..

Below is a video compilation of one my shows in the Netherlands with Robin Koerts which includes a lot of cool parts that show. But it’s best to just come to one of our shows and enjoy this cool collaboration between us! See you there!

April 10, 2014 In Uncategorized

Boxes

During one of the Global Jazz classes – Creativity in the arts – my perspective on music changed. Our teacher was Anthony Scibilia and during the course we would work with different visiting artists like Joe Lovano, Danilo Perez, John Patitucci. For this class we went to the museum of fine arts and studied art history. We talked about the different periods like the renaissance, romanticism, realism, impressionism, expressionism, contemporary, minimalism, deconstructionism and many more. Finally we had to choose an artwork and make a composition that fits the work.

Starting to work with the paintings I learned a lot about myself. Staring with realizing how you can look at paintings. What are you feeling when you look at a work, and what do you see? What does somebody else see? How can you create a musical piece that really reflects the painting rather than your own view of the painting. This was a big challenge, I think for everybody. The first piece I chose to work on – Ravine by Van Gogh – seemed like a story, but in the beginning I chose just a couple of related scales and left the chord progression somewhat open. By choosing more chords I created more development. Also by choosing a less dramatic flavor of sounds and melodies the music started to reflect the painting better. When choosing different aspects of the painting like the little colored bushes, or the water, or the descending or ascending shape of the mountain there was more to work with. Furthermore I discovered different ways to use my voice. Unconventional, no lyrics using ooh or aah, trying to imitate shapes and forms with my voice. This was a challenge, and it took me out of my comfort zone. Also, in the second session, I brought some stones with me, and those to make additional sounds. Its interesting to think about new sounds I could use in my compositions using my environment. Even transcribing rhythms you can hear in nature like flowing water or blowing winds are super useful in this context.

My experience working with the pieces of the other students was interesting. Sometimes there were no directions for me of what to do, or how far to go with it. Even a couple of notes, but no dynamics or shape. Or sometimes it was just shapes to work with – like the Monet piece. I really liked the paintings of Pollock, where we tried to imitate the strokes of his brush/stick.

The final artwork I worked with was ‘Plain Salt’ by Rauschenberg. It’s a bunch of cardboard boxes, no symmetry, nothing charming about it. One box is upside down, one is open so you can see the wall, and one is turned to us with it’s corner. (See picture). I was thinking for a while what music I would write for it, and after some time I discovered that I wanted to use samples of cardboard boxes. So that’s what I did, no specific meter of speed, using my iPad loop station to store the samples. Then during the performance my band would join me and connect with the speed of the different samples and it would be an improvised bunch of boxes.

The result we had to play for Joe Lovano and Danilo Perez in an ‘open workshop’ where they gave us feedback on our creations. Joe Lovano’s magic comment was “I don’t feel Boxed” – he liked it! And we worked on how to make a better fit between the band and my mix of samples. Danilo really like the spontaneity of the composition cause it is really playful, just like the artwork.

You can hear the recording here. Hope you like it. But remember, its all about the process 🙂 …