It’s common refrain among former students of music conservatories that one of the great opportunities of the education was the availability of an orchestra to play their music. There are technological equivalents to that relative proximity of vast musical resources. As Ethan Hein, a music student and not infrequent subject of coverage here at Disquiet.com, noted in a recent upload to his soundcloud.com/ethanhein account, the school he’s attending, New York University (where among his instructors is Morton Subotnick), has a “big fancy studio” to which he and other students have access. One recent evening, their experiments yielded the ebullient digital hoedown “Accordion and Harmonica,” featuring Chris Jacoby on the former and Hein on the latter. Writes Hein of what led to this:
I had Chris improvise a drone on the accordion based around D mixolydian without the third. Then I overdubbed a harmonica improv on top. Today I finally succeeded in getting the file off the studio computer and onto mine, where I dropped it into Ableton and went to town. So in addition to me and Chris as filtered through various effects, you’re hearing 808, processed hand percussion and a giant bell slowed down and reversed.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/ethanhein. More on Hein at ethanhein.com and twitter.com/ethanhein. More on Jacoby at soundcloud.com/christopherjacoby, christopherjacoby.com, and twitter.com/chrstphrjcby.