'Neath the River, In My Bed

         Please do me a favor for a moment (yes, I know these are program notes, but give me a chance). Please mentally place yourself somewhere in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. I do not have a preference whether this is northern (Eastern Ohio, Pennsylvania, or western New York State) or southern (Kentucky or Tennessee). Don’t let yourself be fully in the mountains; stay along those bordering hills that look out on the nearby plains. Now, find some water—streams, rivers, ponds, creeks, etc. Anything will work. Take a moment before continuing.

         What lies at the bottom of that water? What uses the river silt as a blanket, sleeping alongside catfish and crawdads? You and I, in our little mental exercises, can’t see anything necessarily. Our mental exercise has one step left. Ask yourself: “What does it all sound like?”

         My place is just south of Lancaster, Ohio– a town at the base of the foothills making up southeastern Ohio. When I think about the water running, I always end up combining two different places from my memory. This music is a meditative experience more than anything else.

         The synthesizer's sound comes from processing audio through tuned filters. These filters cut out all the frequencies in the sound, except for those of the keys held down by the performer. I ask the performers to make their own field recording– so that hopefully they have a real place on which to dwell in their minds.