Anecdotes
Here are some funny anecdotes that I remember about working with these groups:
WAITIKI | Akamai Brain Collective | The HARX
Tour to Nantucket Island (March 26 -28, 2004)
This tour was awesome. Except for youth orchestra and summer festivals, this was the first time I ever went on tour with a band of my own! Overall it was a ton of fun. The people on the island were very friendly, just like all of our ohana back home. (Thanks to Teryl, Claudia, Scott, Santjes, Tom, Mike, and everybody else!) This started off as primarily a WAITIKI performance, but then we got to play ABC stuff as well, and bring Yohei with us. UA drove us all around in his big red pick-up truck. We watched him shoot pool one-handed. Both ABC and WAITIKI played to a crowd of a little more than 400 people. The club we played at is called The Muse and it attracts a lot of big-name performers like UB40, Ziggy Marley and Hootie & The Blowfish. Oh yeah, and the Dave Matthews Band was its former "house" band. We hung out and played a lot of Travel SCRABBLE, Twister, and watched each other attempt Chiyo's Stick Manuever.
Click here for a short video clip of Chiyo & Her Famous Stick Manuever (chiyostickmanuever.avi - 2.2MB - 12 seconds). (Note: you have to turn your head sideways to view - couldn't figure out how to rotate the clip!)
Here's us at the Band House with UA (Uncle Al):
Here's Yohei attempting Chiyo's stick maneuver:
Here's us with the Great New Zealander, Scott (ultra nice guy!):
More Info on Tunes on the Album
Aight. So here are some of the "stories" behind the tunes we recorded for our first album!
Dew Drop Inn...
Background Info
I wrote this tune while eating a bowl of really salty beef jook on a cold rainy day this summer in Pittsburgh, PA. I went to Pittsburgh to visit Jeff Turner, Principal Bass of the Pittsburgh Symphony, whom I will be studying with at Carnegie Mellon University next fall. The Chinese restaurant I was eating in was actually a buffet place, and the jook I was eating was something that I special-ordered. The background music consisted of 80s pop hits -- I'm pretty sure I remember hearing Gloria Estefan, Richard Marx, and Michael Jackson while I was in there.
Theoretical Aspects
The song itself was my first foray into writing music in the Exotica style, such as that composed by Martin Denny, Kit Ebersbach, and Arthur Lyman. Exotica music, if you're not familiar, consists essentially of jazz & Latin stylizations of pseudo-Polynesian melodies. Repeating bass lines (ostinato), simple cheesy melodies, and bird calls are all details characteristic of the Exotica style.
I suppose one device that really contributes to the Asiatic sound of the tune is the bass line, which emphasizes beats 1 & 3 via the use of agogic accents -- notes which receive an extra, natural emphasis because they are longer in length than the notes preceding/following. Also, the instrumentation of the piece is such that there are no chordal/polyphonic instruments (i.e., piano or guitar); all sounds heard are from monophonic sources. The result is a thinned texture that sounds foreign to the mainstream ear.
Menehune Dance
Originally titled "Walking On Sand," this tune is one that I wrote for a class homework assignment while at NEC. The class was "20th Century Compositional Techniques" taught by Curtis Hughes. I don't remember much from this class, except that I was always scared to have my pieces performed in front of my peers. (Before this class, I had never really composed anything that I liked. I tried writing some stuff in high school but nothing really worked!) Even though the class was for non-composition majors, we still had some pretty big-time players in the room, and that added to my anxieties more.
I think the topic for this assignment was to compose 10-15 measures of music and score it for an extra-large orchestra, one with at least 45 different parts. So I came up with this melody that went through a whole slew of different time signatures but sounded pretty much like it was in 4/4. I titled it Walking On Sand because I felt that the rhythms/time signatures gave it a natural lilt reminiscent of walking on a sandy beach.
When Abe & I were trying to figure out tunes to record for the Akamai Brain Collective album, I suggested that we do Walking on Sand. But of course I had to adapt it for a smaller ensemble (a standard jazz combo). I also had to re-write the piece from memory because: 1) The original homework assignment was long lost; and, 2) Abe & I were cruising in Eric's basement in New Jersey (!).
On a side note, I really had a tough time writing the melody out -- not because I couldn't remember it, but because Abe & I couldn't find any scrap paper around! Not "there's no blank music paper" ... but "there's no scrap paper!" ... I think I finally ended up scrawling it on a KFC napkin that we got at lunch that day.
Eric suggested the title "Menehune Dance" after we recorded the tune for the Akamai Brain Collective album.
WAITIKI - Exotic Tiki Music of Polynesia & Hawaii
Tour to Nantucket Island (March 26 -28, 2004)
Yup. So like I said above, WAITIKI played to a pack house of about 400 people at the Muse. It was pretty crazy. I'd never seen so many poeple want to get down and dance like that before -- and to tiki music! Our set opened up really strong with the Pu/Bwana (where I wear the mask and sing "Bwannnnaaaaaahhh!!" ... And then people got down and partied to PRIMITIVA! Adults, couples, keiki alike ... all dancin' and groovin' to the music of WAITIKI!
Here are some shots of the crowd:
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For more info on WAITKI, please visit our website at www.waitiki.com
Thoughts Behind "Fuzzy Mammoth Breath"
"[Randy's] use of displaced beat groups and irregular accentuation are strong features [in Fuzzy Mammoth Breath] ... This is a whimsical-sounding piece which manages to sound original and unconstrained"
I initially wrote the tune "Fuzzy Mammoth Breath" as an assignment for a 20th Century Compositional Techniques class at NEC; in its original form, the piece utilized several techniques (such as serialism, non-retrogradeable rhythms, modes of limited transposition, and tetrachordal pitch rotation) made famous by composers like Olivier Messaien, Oliver Knussen, and contemporary pianist Michael Cain.
Cain's odd-meter rhythmic "meditations" have been quite an influence on the way that I look at how music is composed and develops. These "meditations" are basically cycles of rhythms that can easily fool the listener (or the performer!) into thinking that the figure is written in several different meters. My bassline ostinato not only plays with meter (7/4) but also uses non-retrogradeable rhythms.
Listen to "Fuzzy Mammoth Breath", as performed by WAITIKI, here.
The "HARX" is an acronym which represents the first initial of each member in the band ("Helen, Abe, Randy Xperiment" or alternatively, "Helen, Abe, Randy Xmas"). Helen Liu is a violinist studying at New England Conservatory and one of Boston's most well-respected chamber musicians. The three of us put this ensemble together when the opportunity to record a Christmas album, originally set for release in December 2003, presented itself.
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To learn more about The HARX, please visit us at www.randywong.net/harx
All original compositions © by their respective owners.
To contact me (Randy Wong), visit www.randywong.net or e-mail me directly.
