A thread to gather our Jamuary compilation albums.
I will release my Jamuary bandcamp album this next Tuesday!
I’m happy with the selection and how I managed to somehow mix these digital piano tracks. Not perfect, but releasable.
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Here we go!
Hello everybody
During the whole month of January I participated to some kind of internet challenge : Jamuary. It’s about recording and publishing, every day, an original thing. An improvisation, a composition, a cover, whatever you want, but recorded on that day. Originally, Jamuary gathers electronic musicians, who play with modular synths and other rhythm boxes. But I thought I could participate at the piano, and I was well received.
So I posted all this on YouTube, chatting with the other Jamuarists, and listening to their tracks. There was a little dedicated forum, with a « prompt » given each day, with a key and a tempo, to be followed or not. I followed them most of the time. It was an intense experience, very rich. I learned a lot, on several levels, artistic, piano technique, musical production technique…
Then, the question of the future of these recordings emerged. Several Jamuarists were talking about making a selection for an album on BandCamp. Bingo, that’s what I decided to do too. True, everything is recorded with my digital piano, but I dare to believe that there is a certain artistic value in those pieces anyway. I kept 16 tracks, and I mixed them as I could.
I’m happy with the result. It goes in a lot of directions. There are some « traditional » piano drones, but also some Jazz standards, a little waltz, several explorations. I had trouble building up a solo piano repertoire, and this allowed me to take stock and overcome certain blockages.
What happens next? I don’t know. Every time I’ve said things like « I’m going to do this » or « I hope to do that » it hasn’t gone as planned. So I’d rather not say anything.
So today I’m releasing on BandCamp this little collection of these one-day compositions. 16 tracks, 30 minutes and some, and 3 euro, for the most motivated people who want and can support me.
Ciao
Johann
credits :
Johann Bourquenez : piano, rec, mix.
All music by Johann Bourquenez except :
(2) Ray Henderson (5) Carf Darko (11) Johnny Green (13) Charlie Haden (16) Asuka Ota & Ryo Nagamatsu
Thanks to Beto Dealmeida for hosting Jamuary.org and giving all these daily prompts, Déborah “Pipou” Legivre for the help on the cover, and Renaud Millet-Lacombe for forever haunting everything technical regarding music production.
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As I went through and picked out my favorites from Jamuary I realized most of them stuck to a particular noisy dark ambient/drone style, so I went with those for consistency.
It’s free/pay-what-you-want.
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If anyone’s interested, I made the scores of my compositions. It’s for free. And there’s the piano cover of @CarfDarko 's Phase Shift 
here : Johann Bourquenez / Scores
Here’s mine.
who doesn’t like a rusty donut! LOL!
that was just some piece of ancient machinery I found in my backyard in the dirt a few years back and I thought it looked like a donut so I took a pic.
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