The Hop

COSMOS WONDER-CHILD

By Jordan on April 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Kay Gardner
A Rainbow Path
Ladyslipper Records, 1984
Cover art by Gina Halpern

Side One:
01. Processional (Root Chakra, Saraswati Raga in C)
02. Dorian Hills (Belly Chakra, Aeolian/Dorian Modes in D)
03. Awakening (Solar Plexus Chakra, Dorian Mode in E)
04. The Greenwood (Heart Chakra, Lesbian Mode in F#)

Side Two:
01. Castle In The Mist (Throat Chakra, Ionian/Lydian Mode in G)
02. See My Wings Shining (Brown/3rd Eye Chakra, Six-Note Minor Mode in A)
03. Soaring (Crown Chakra, Whole Tone/Melodic Minor Scales in Bb)
04. Fountain of Light (Transpersonal Chakra, First through Fourth Octave Harmonic Scale in B)

Download via drop.io/kaygardner

KayGardner.com
Discography
Obituary

MIKE O’S: THE MUSIC VIDEO

By Jordan on March 6, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Along with director and Dave Nuss, The Righteous and Harmonious Fists have made a music video for our song called “Mike O’s”. The song is going to be released on a split 7” record, along with a head banging White Fang jam, in the next few months through Marriage Records, States Rights Records, and our friends at the Tender Loving Empire. This video will be on the accompanimental DVD that is included in the luscious package with artwork by Maria Dixon (awesome article about her painting on Valet’s new record, “Naked Acid”). Liberal editing by yours truly. Enjoy.

Mike O’s from Jordan Dykstra on Vimeo.

A SMILING DUTCHMAN: VAN DYKE PARKS

By Jordan on February 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Welcome the inauguration of a new series of posts regarding my favorite composers! Expect more soon.

To begin with, I got chills watching this excellent Dutch documentary from 2002 which, simply put, is viewed like you might read a book:

Of course, this layout is a Real Talk shoutout from Uncle…

There is a lot of information I’d like to share about why I adore Van Dyke Parks as much as I do, but Wikipedia explains it quite well. Pretty much, he’s the raddest dude ever. Film composer, collaborator extraordinarie, sick lyricist, actor (!), composer, arranger…I mean come on! Here’s the short list of awesome people he’s worked with: The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson (also: to top it off, a new one this year), Randy Newman, Joanna Newsom, Jon Cale, Loudon Wainwright III. Know those guys but think you’ve never heard his stuff? Well Zac Pennington reminds us that “his first paying job was arranging ‘The Bear Necessities’ for Disney’s the Jungle Book, and work with Harper’s Bizzare”. God damn. A lucky duck, Zac also shares this rad story: “I met him about a month ago. Really nice guy. He said when he was nine, his boy choir performed for an audience that included Albert Einstein. Van Dyke was the only kid who knew the German words to “Silent Night,” so he sang it for Einstein, who left, got his violin, and came back to accompany the boy. How ridiculously cool is that?”

I end with a secret.

SHINOBI

By Jordan on February 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

recorded and engineered by honey owens

OK FEEL GOOD

By Jordan on January 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Jonathan Newman A few weeks ago in my composition class at PSU, my professor introduced us to a piece called OK FEEL GOOD by a composer named Jonathan Newman. I was instantly taken back by it. The piece was written, as Newman states in the notes of the score, during “a year of somewhat intense personal distress, and I was extremely tired of feeling bad, so I decided to write a very happy piece.”

To me it’s an amazing work, full of lush melodic color and pulsating with rhythmic motion. I specifically state this because the motivic material is written in a somewhat odd meter. It starts with a bar of 7/16, goes into a bar of 3/8, back into another bar of 7/16, and then finishes with two bars of a more common 3/4. But it manages to flow very well. It has many moods, no doubt due to the fact of his intentional transition from dark to light, and it’s easy to her his love of jazz rhythms, percussion, and Gershwin. It’s warm and very tender at times, extremely sexy at others, and it reminds me a lot of a Don Ellis composition. It’s rad.

The seven and a half minute long composition was written for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and debuted on July 12, 1996 at the Harris Hall as part of the world renowned Aspen Music Festival. The orchestration is for a small six person chamber group: Flute (doubling Piccolo), B-flat Clarinet (doubling Bass Clarinet), Violin, Cello, Piano, and Percussion (Crotales, Xylophone, Vibraphone, Marimba, Triangle, Suspended Cymbal, Conga).

Finally I would also like to mention that Mr. Newman is part-founder and member of the BCM International, a consortium of four composers: Newman, Jim Bonney, Steven Bryant, and Eric Whitacre, who was the artist in residence at the APU School of Music two years ago. He adapted ideas and themes from Milton’s epic poem to a multimedia opera/dance/stage performance with live and prerecorded music and entitled it Paradise Lost. Interesting idea, sort of trendy output. Anyway I thought it was cool that they all work together and promote each other. Something of a no brainer but refreshing to see for two composers that I had no idea were connected.

POST-YEAR’S NEW EVE RECAP

By Jordan on January 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

NEW EVES PARTYEAR: BEST SONG I’VE HEARD ALL NIGHT from Jordan Dykstra on Vimeo.

GETS CONNECTED, TOO: 2007

By Jordan on December 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (8)

Each year, a couple of friends and I from Sioux City always make, and trade, our (sometimes not) uniquely own “Best Of” mixes from our favorites of that year. But this year I decided to make a mixtape of snippets from some of the songs I really enjoyed. I must admit that I strayed from my usual stern path of checking out the new releases and struggled, or maybe better put: was tempted, to push a lot of the “popular records” into my final decision. In the end, I opted to not include some of the popular “top 10” records (i.e. panda bear, beriut, the national, etc.),but I did have fun with it, in fact I had a blast! Here’s my compressed, comparitvely short, last hooray for the Best Music of 2007. Check it out:

BEST MUSIC OF 2007

I am consciously not including the tracks played in this mix with hopes that you will help me, by commenting the artist/song, and revel in some of the similarity, or at least knowledge, of this years’ fruits. I open up the comment board to you to post anything you recognize.

I have also compiled an image of scenes/posters from some of my favorite movies I saw in 2007. By far, this doesn’t include them all, nor are they in any specific order. I also have quite a list I of flicks I still am anticipating. Some of those being: Once, King of Kong, Into the Wild, Juno, I’m Not There, The Band’s Visit, The Life Of Reilly, and many others. Here’s a pop-up of that image:

Whaddaya think? Let me know if you dig ‘em and please recommend your favorite screengems to me as well. As previously indicated, I once again invite you to tag the movies you recognize via flickr (link to the image, use the “add note” function) and help me better understand your thrills from the great, heavy, and joyous year of our lord, two thousand seven. Here’s to you and, more than well deserving, TO US.

GETS UNRECOVERED

By Jordan on December 19, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (7)

Bam! Check it out!

RECORD / MOVE

By Jordan on December 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dated news for some, new for others, I moved:

425 se 3rd ave #208
portland, or 97214, usa

and I’m finally making my first Dash! record:

Titled Gets Unrecovered, it’s a collection of some of the new, some of the old. Eleven tracks, also showcasing a kind, bonus element including a Crystal Seth -> Righteous jam and a few selections from a film score that I am excited about/equally proud of. It should be ready for release, via Marriage and The Prescott Family next Wednesday, coincidentally when I fly back to my parent’s house, and my hometown, of Sioux City.

Lots to come in the near future including a The Righteous and Harmonious Fists Tour tour blog as well as some fat videos when I treat myself to a Christmas present of a digital camera, or maybe a cat, I haven’t decided yet¹. Also, I’ve been thinking deeply about going into a classical composers bend of in-depth research/background/history alphabetically and vibeing on some shit of their’s when it hits me hardest…we’ll see, maybe a new years resolution, amongst others. Hope you dig it. Also, a top 10 albums/movies of the year vid/pod-cast…on it!

^{1 Well, actually I kinda have…realistically, a external hd. ya know? shit! that’s the market to be in these dayz, damn.}

COMPUTING SYNESTHESIA

By Jordan on November 13, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (8)

Speaking of visual and conceptual relationships, I’ve been enjoying some strange trips from using a unique software called RGB MusicLab. It was cleverly designed by Kenji Kojima who explains it quite well by saying,

RGB MusicLab converts RGB (Red, Green and Blue) value of an image to chromatic scale sounds. The program reads RGB value of pixels from the top left to the bottom right of an image. One pixel makes a harmony of three note of RGB value, and the length of note is determined by brightness of the pixel. RGB value 120 or 121 is the center C, and RGB value 122 or 123 is added a half steps of the scale that is C#. Pure black that is R=0, G=0, B=0 is no sounds.

It is not an impression of paintings or photographs of a composer. It reads a score from an image data directly.

So, as l recall one of the most influential exhibits I’ve ever experienced, here a few pieces I’ve come up with.