Donald Merand

🎵 Output before Input #108 - 2022.04.27 Countermelody invented from the bottom up.

🎵 Output before Input #107 - 2022.04.27 Harmony invented from the top down.

🎵 Output before Input #106 - 2022.04.26 I heard somewhere that The Books were so-named because their music evolved like a book instead of being repetitive from one end of a song to another. That idea really sticks with me, and influenced this sketch.

🎵 Output before Input #105 - 2022.04.25 I’ll call this one “Surf’s Up Sonata”

🎵 Output before Input #104 - 2022.04.24 Getting some Don Henley vibes this morning.

🎵 Output before Input #103 - 2022.04.23 Let your body relax and let the changing meter just carry you awayyyyy

🎵 Output before Input #102 - 2022.04.22 Some guitar heroics for a Friday.

🎵 Output before Input #101 - 2022.04.21 This is what the inside of my head sounds like this morning. So much going on in there, it’s hard to calm down - kind of all over the place.

🎵 Output before Input #100 - 2022.04.20 I don’t know how many of these I thought I’d make, but 100 seemed like an outer bound when I started. How many ideas can one person have? I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.

🎵 Output before Input #99 - 2022.04.19 Feeling a bit tender and humbled this morning.

🎵 Output before Input #98 - 2022.04.18 This is some kind of jazz rock outland/parallel universe version of #96 (same morning, different take).

🎵 Output before Input #97 - 2022.04.18 Same “seed” idea + chords as #96 (same morning), but taken in a chunkier direction.

🎵 Output before Input #96 - 2022.04.18 I ended up recording three very different things this morning - I’m either feeling like a high achiever or can’t make up my mind where to sit in the breakfast hall.

🎵 Output before Input #95 - 2022.04.17 I call this a “Falcor” - a never-ending story of chord resolution that sounds like it goes on forever but in reality is just three chords. We have Philip Glass to thank for single-handedly making this kind of circular resolution a thing.

🎵 Output before Input #94 - 2022.04.17 I tend to focus a lot on harmonic mobility in my own writing but there’s always something interesting about playing simple changes with a particular feeling.

🎵 Output before Input #93 - 2022.04.16 This lick made me wish I were in better shape. I was listening to High Life Kings yesterday so that’s undoubtedly why I have this kind of pattern in my head today.

🎵 Output before Input #92 - 2022.04.14 A groove like this sounds easy to play and isn’t technically difficult, but can be tough to sustain consistently.

🎵 Output before Input #91 - 2022.04.13 Inverted power chord (fourth under fifth) structures keep showing up in my improvisation. They sound inherently less resolved and powerful, which lends a bit more dramatic tension.

🎵 Output before Input #90 - 2022.04.10 Bonus exploration today. Feels like outer space to me.

🎵 Output before Input #89 - 2022.04.10 I watched Metal Lords last night and something must have transferred to my subconscious.

🎵 Output before Input #88 (Take 3) - 2022.04.09 3-part series today. This is the final take of 3. It’s quite different from the other takes (ultimately), but it also feels to me like the most interesting ideas of the improv started to take shape and get stated with more clarity here.

🎵 Output before Input #88 (Take 2) - 2022.04.09 3-part series today. This was a second take after I flubbed the first one (see Take 1), and I really liked it. But I realized after I stopped playing that my computer had run out of battery somewhere in the middle. This is a partial recording…

🎵 Output before Input #88 (Take 1) - 2022.04.09 3-part series today. I started with this recording, but I felt like I flubbed it too many times to share. I did another take and my computer ran out of battery right in the middle of the take :/ Since they’re all quite different I thought maybe it would be interesting to share them all as a window into the improvisation process.

🎵 Output before Input #87 - 2022.04.08 Sinister steps through silent streets.

🎵 Output before Input #86 - 2022.04.08 I don’t know why these pop melodies keep coming out. I must be feeling nostalgic.