Drowsy Maggie performed by Jason Marsh

This piece is an improvisation on the Irish fiddle tune Drowsy Maggie. It's a well-known piece, even used at one point the movie Titanic.

This entire piece is a single pass-through, created live only on an acoustic violin. The violin parts are performed live, recorded and played back (similar to looping), but I've programmed the foot pedals to give me complete control over each track, up to 16 simultaneously. This enables me to create and improvise musical form and orchestration, which I find more satisfying than the typical looping.

Nothing is pre-recorded before I begin. I create the bass drum part by tapping on the bridge and electronically transposing it down 2 octaves, and the bass line by plucking in the normal range, and transposing the part down 2 octaves. The snare-like effects come from "chops" with the bow. It's satisfying to watch live and know that everything is real-time. Most of the piece is improvisation, and every performance is quite different.

More information on how this is done and more digital acoustic violin can be found at marshworks.com .

Category:

Music

Tags:

• violin
• Drowsy Maggie
• Irish
• fiddle
• electronic
• improvisation
• jazz
• classical
• solo
• computer
• abelton
• abelton live
• looped
• looping
• foot pedals
• footpedal
• digital
• acoustic

[wishihadamotorcycle]

Wow, too cool! You are wizard at the phrase sampler and the Irish fiddle!