The Hop

PANNING

By Jordan on June 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Experiment in panning…

(Not recommended for computer speakers, headphones okay, better yet is a stereo setup sitting five or more feet back)

Which side is the melody on?
And which the bass?
Can you hear when they change?
And when they reverse?

Visual explanatory answer.

DASH! In The Street

By Jordan on June 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5)

DASH! is opening up for a rad avant-garde film screening that’s happening tomorrow evening in association with Portland Cinema Project’s “In The Street” series. The following are showing:

Under The Brooklyn Bridge by Rudy Burckhardt [1953, 16mm, b&w, 15 min]
In the Street by Helen Levitt [1952, 16mm, b&w, sound, 16 min]
Mirror Animation by Portland’s own Harry E. Smith [1979, 16mm, color, sound, 11 min]
(I’m really excited to see work from this amazing man. Check out his “Early Abstractions” (1946-57), Pt. 1: )

The Riddle of Lumen by Stan Brakhage [1972, 16mm, color, silent, 17 min]
The Black Tower by John Smith [1987, 16mm, color, sound, 24 min]

I’m playing at 8:30 and the films start at dusk.

3125 NE Burnside (across from Music Millennium)
Portland, OR 97214
Free or very cheap!

LOST

By Jordan on June 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just watched the pilot of a show called Lost on ABC and it was really cool and it seems to be a really great idea for a awesome show. It’s about a plane full of people that crashes on an island and was scary and there is this freaky bald dude and this hot girl and a funny fat guy and no ones getting along. Check it out I think it could end up being a bit hit! Peace.

THE SPENCE AND THE GIB

By Jordan on June 1, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Spence and the Gib from Jordan Dykstra on Vimeo.

Video documentation of the Matthew and Laura’s wedding on May 17, 2008. Photo documents can be found here.

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.