Numerology

Not that numerology.

The step sequence from Five12 software, Numerology.

I’ve had it for a while and been enamored of its possibilities, but until tonight I never put it together with my main sequencer, Digital Performer.

I used numerology to run staccato sounds from the John Cage Prepared Piano Gigasampler library, using G-Player.

Numerology allows for building, on the fly, of very complex patterns of sound – pitches, velocities, gates and a whole lot more.

I ran two instances of the Cage prepared piano sounds and two variations of a similar rhythm, one with 16 beats per ssequence, the other with 12. That builds in a bit of natural counterpoint as the two sequences spin around a common point, sporadically meeting up along the way while evolving new syncopations. I improvised on a variety of parameters along the way – key, individual pitches, octave transposition, note duration and such, just letting them play out against one another with one instrument panned left, the other right. It becomes sort of a Steve Reich meets Conlon Nancarrow type of thing. In real time, these shifting syncopated sequences from Numerology are triggering prepared piano sounds on G-Player within my Digital Performer sequence, which, in turn, is recording the sequences for later playback, analysis and editing.

Just in the infancy of working with this but it seems an incredible tool to add to the arsenal.

– Daniel Buckley 10/31/12

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Music, Uncategorized

Plainly and simply, composers organize sound.

By that definition there are many types of composers.

There are the classical types who write for a given instrument or specific type of ensemble – a string quartet, a solo piano, an orchestra.

Then there are the composers we don’t typically think of when the term is mentioned. DJs are a kind of composer. They bring parts of different music together and reshape them into something new.

Foley artists are absolutely composers. They bring sounds of real and imaginary worlds together to heighten our experience of a film.

Songwriters likewise are composers and poets in full partnership.

Over the years I have composed in many genres. I created soundscapes for Tucson’s Invisible Theater, wrote scores for local dance companies and fashion show runway presentations, composed an opera (a second in progress) and a string quartet (for the Kronos Quartet) and put together songs in a variety of pop music styles.

In between I have been involved in near constant experimentation.

It was pure sound that got me interested in being a composer. The evocative spaghetti western soundtracks of Ennio Morricone, the metaphysical soundscapes of George Crumb, the electronic scores of Morton Subotnik, the wailing sound of Duane Allman’s slide guitar. Along with 70’s-era Miles Davis, Motown, James Brown, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, Jon Hassell, John Cage, Bob Moses, Kip Hanrahan, Brian Eno, David Byrne and a few thousand other musical artists I had a lot of influences to work from.

Like most composers my music is a reflection of my personality, my life experiences and my strengths and weaknesses. I am well known for my sense of humor, though not as much for my  pleasure in life’s mysteries and exotic locales.

I live in the Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona, so naturally this region, its geologic and meteorologic forms, along with its culture and history, filter into my work.

I am endlessly inspired by the mythical west, by the vast sky and the dramatic landforms that surround me. Our monsoon rains and the building of clouds in anticipation thereof are likewise set my creative juices flowing. I love the summer heat as much as the unleashing of powerhouse storms.

I look for sounds that conjure these experiences and often reflect my sense of awe and wonder of the profound place in which I live.

For three decades I have worked in various capacities as a music writer and critic for newspapers and magazines. In the early days I wrote about everything from rock and country to classical music, chamber music, world music, folk music, jazz – everything there was. At the Tucson Citizen I focused mainly on classical music, world music and regional music of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico. From the mid-1990s to the present I have written about contemporary classical and experimental music for Stereophile Magazine.

So I bring to the table a knowledge of music that is broad and deep, both historically and in a contemporary sense.

But at the end of the day, every composer starts out the same way – staring into the void at the “blank canvas” or blank sheet music. As primarily an improvising and experimental composer it’s the “new file” for me.

I try to work every day, whether home or on the road. It is about both discipline and release. Discipline in that it takes years of focused experimentation to start to come to a sound that is your own. Release in that, although it is work, it is often the most stress-relieving part of my day. I never forget why creating music is called “playing,” even when the work being created may be about a serious topic.

Music does so many things. It binds people and families culturally. It gives us something to get up and dance to. It helps us learn and teach. It helps us tell our stories in more memorable form. It helps us to describe that which is beyond description. It helps us share our emotions and feelings. And it helps us get over things we need to put behind us.

And sometimes it helps us deal with complex feelings we never knew we had. Primal things. Things that speak directly to our psyches. Soul dredging things.

So a composer has a lot to do, and a lot of responsibility. His or her tool kit has to be huge, and he must have an artist’s soul. He must learn to say what words have failed him in saying, sometimes discovering in himself along the way things he’d rather not deal with.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Music, Uncategorized

Back in September I started work on scoring a new video project featuring performance artist Laura Milkins and a variety of time lapse landscape footage.

Tentatively titled “Poem From Memory,” the piece depicts Milkins walking through a variety of surreal terrains.

The landscapes have been sped up to 5000 percent, while the footage of Milkins has been slowed down to 33 percent of its original speed.

The accelerated footage of the landscape reveals the building and flow of various layers of clouds, sometimes in different directions at different altitudes, as well as the shadows of clouds floating over the ground below.

Likewise the slowed down version of Milkins’ walk and stylized posturing accentuates the surreal juxtaposition as the two are layered and blended.

There is a magical quality to the bringing together of these images. And that, along with the surreal flow, is what I hope to achieve in the musical score.

Using MOTU’s Digital Performer I was able to import the video so that I could watch it full screen as I improvised. The first instrument I initially chose was Soniccouture’s EP73 Deconstructed – a heavily sampled library of Electric Piano sounds, formatted for Native Instruments’ Kontakt sampler.

I used the multi version of the instrument and assigned all of its layers to the same MIDI source so that I could play them all at once – sounds produced by using the keyboard, plucking and striking the electric piano’s metal tynes, along with a pad constructed using the source electric piano. This was the magical basic sound I was looking for, and with the modulation wheel programmed to pluck the tines in an arpeggiated fashion, it was rigged for variety and sparkle.

Harmonically and in terms of chord progression I wanted some ambiguity and unlikely motion, and yet also to tie the improvisation together organically.

There is also an FX layer to this electric piano sample library which features unusual sounds one can get by torturing this poor electric piano in cruel and unusual ways. I used it as well, assigning that sound set to a different MIDI channel so I could add it separately and locate it elsewhere in the mix. I recorded this track next.

This was followed by tracks for  MOTU Mach V’s acoustic guitar sample instrument, Native Instruments’ Motown cellos and 8Dio’s solo violin. A touch of organ pedal was added later as well.

Naturally mistakes were made, and so following the recording of the tracks there was a considerable period of fixing MIDI – comping different riffs, moving notes around, adjusting their note velocities and correcting improper pitches. The solo violin parts changed the most to accentuate the evolving beauty and unlikely juxtaposition of the visual elements.

Throughout the entire score, a sense of surrealism, ambiguity and liquid flow was sought.

The next step, which was recently undertaken, was to “freeze” the MIDI tracks, or export them as audio.

Tonight I created a new project document that brings together all of the frozen tracks from the original soundtrack, synced to a revised version of the video.

Once the tracks were imported I used individual instances of Izotope’s Alloy software to heighten the sound of each track. A bit of reverb was added to the cellos at this stage as well.

Next up is a preliminary mix of the elements, or rather several passes at it, using Digital Performer’s automation properties.

I will likely also experiment with a variety of sound filtering and altering software options as well.

The final piece should be soft and surreal, evolutionary and malleable in form.

Updates and sound examples to follow.

– Daniel Buckley, 10/27/12

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Music, Uncategorized
Tags: composer, Daniel Buckley music, film editor, Laura Milkins, performance art, videographer

20 Tips for Composers:

1. Work every day, even if only to take a few minutes to visualize new work
2. Never forget why making music is called playing
3. Output your works in progress frequently as audio files to review when things aren’t coming easily
4. Send work to someone you trust for feedback
5. Do things you’ve never tried
6. Work with some visual medium such as dance or film to stimulate new creative paths
7. Re-engage yourself with new sounds
8. Listen to the world around you, musical and otherwise
9. Seek periods of silence
10. See how softly you can play
11. Seek collaborators
12.  Learn your craft and your gear
13. Sing, dance and misbehave
14. Draw your music pictorially to fully develop its design and overall shape
15. List your accomplishments every day
16. Write sacred music, whether you’re a believer or an atheist. Nothing stretches you like writing music to describe the indescribable.
17. Read creation stories
18. Revel in and transcend your limitations
19. Talk to small children. They see and hear the world differently.
20. Back up your work every day

– Daniel Buckley

Posted in Critic's corner, Daniel Buckley Music
Tags: advice, composer, Daniel Buckley music, tips

Izotope Iris treatment of Jones sample

Every sound can be reinterpreted.

CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE< SOUND CLIPS TO HEAR

The path from the sound source to the ear isn’t always clear or short.

The sound might be muffled by distance. There might be a wall between the hearer and the sound source. Earwax might rob the sound source of its crisp high end.

Then again, there might be an analog or digital electronic sound path that distorts and transforms the original sound signal into something new.

Is that an interesting thing?

Sometimes.

Sometimes it’s just research.

But you have to go through a lot of research to find what might be some new avenue of sound.

The path to my Jonestown opera is paved with experimentation.

Most of it produces unattractive results in the short term. But in the long term, a level of expertise and control evolves that helps to develop something new.

When I first started working with the Jonestown tapes in the early 1980s, taken from an NPR broadcast of a piece called “Our Father Who Art In Hell: The Last of Jonestown,” if you wanted to experiment with sound the only option was some form of tape manipulation. You could speed the tapes up or slow them down. You could layer individual track and control their relative sonic balances. You could cut tapes up and reassemble them. I did all of those things and then I hit upon tape loops. You record a phrase of some length to a piece of magnetic recording tape, then cut that section from the reel and splice it back to itself, end to end, so that that phrase would play in perpetuity. Layer phrases of different lengths and sound sources and you started to get something complex and interesting.

In the 1980s, digital sampling came into being, at first through toy keyboards and later through an evolving series of professional samplers. Early samplers had limited memory, so the phrases input had to be either short or played at a lower bit rate (with a corresponding degradation of sound). Those early samplers also produced relative pitch by the same process that drives perception in humans. An octave higher is a doubling of pitch, and its wavelength is twice as short. So if you had a phrase and you played it with itself and at an octave higher on the keyboard, the higher pitched version would play out in half the time. Similarly lower pitches took longer to play out. And the mathematical ratios of their playing lengths all had to do with the relative pitches of the equal-temperment western keyboard.

Jones 1a snip 1

Jones 1a snip 2

Jones 1a snip 3

JONES 1A SNIPS 1-3 ARE UNALTERED SAMPLER MANIPULATIONS OF PHRASES SPOKEN BY JIM JONES. Click title to hear sound.

Sampling software improvements made it possible to vary the pitch of a sound source according to western tuning without varying the length of the original sampled sound.

Later samplers had more memory and could accommodate longer samples and higher bit rates, resulting in better sound. And the advent of computer based samplers meant huge libraries of individual sounds could be developed.

Increasing speed of processors and cheap, available memory made for more possibilities in the way of software to control effects of all sorts, generally broken down into filtering effects and time effects (delay, reverb). In recent years, software such as Izotope’s Stutter Edit and Native Instruments’ The Finger and The Mouth have allowed keyboard players to manipulate a track on the fly, carving the sound up, making it repeat faster or slower or filtering the content of the phrase sampled in the editor. Each key of the keyboard would generate another process to effect the sound.

In the past year, Izotope has come up with another highly interesting tool for sound designers called Iris. Iris allows the composer to shape the spectral components of a sound, either in real time or in pre-created ways.

As a means of letting people in on my creative process I have been generating some examples of what I’m currently researching. So that people will have something to hang onto, I have used a section of Reverend Jim Jones trying to talk his flock into taking the Kool Aid.

He says, “Please, for God’s sake. Let’s be done with it. We’ve lived as no other people have lived, and loved. Let’s just be done with the agony of it.”

This phrase has been broken into sub-phrases and tightly mapped to the music keyboard so that as one plays the keyboard from left to right one adds material from further in the phrase. Some key phrases are repeated in looped and unlooped forms. All have been mapped in such a way that they play our in different locations of the stereo field.

Stutter Edit

I have created a couple of basic rhythmic patterns as one might assemble a song. These are accompanied by a separate track of gongs and low bowed basses.

Jones 1a Snip 1 Stutter 1

Jones 1A snip 2 stutter 1

Jones 1A snip 3 stutter 1

THE ABOVE CLIPS ARE VARIATIONS OF THE FIRST THREE CLIPS< PROCESSED WITH IZOTOPE STUTTER EDIT ONLY. Click clip to hear.

In later variations I have processed the spoken voice track using U He’s Filterscape (which creates complex filtering patterns) and Izotope’s Stutter Edit. There are several variations of each to briefly illustrate a bit of the range each can create.

Jones 1a snip 1 FS:SE 1

Jones 1a snip 1 FS-SE 2

Jones 1a snip 2 FS-SE 1

Jones 1a snip 2 FS-SE 2

Jones 1a snip 3 FS-SE 1

Jones 1a Snip 3 FS-SE 2

THE ABOVE SOUND CLIPS ARE VARIATIONS ON THE ORIGINAL SOUND SAMPLES USING BOTH FILTERSCAPE AND STUTTER EDIT

The last piece was a track created using Izotope’s Iris to sculpt the original phrase, then trigger new rhythmic possibilities.

Jones 1A Snip 1 Iris

Jones 1a snip 2 Iris

Jones 1A snip 3 Iris

THE ABOVE SOUND CLIPS WERE CREATED USING IZOTOPE IRIS

Filterscape

As you can hear, there’s an infinite range of possibilities from a single sound source.

Now multiply this times thousands of hours of tapes and you begin to see the need for a lot of pure experimentation in order to arrive at a new kind of story telling, and a new sound.

You can learn more about my creative process with sound and hear early examples of my work with the Jonestown tapes by clicking here.

– Daniel Buckley, October 2012

Posted in Daniel Buckley Music, Jonestown progress, Uncategorized
Tags: audio filtering, composer, Daniel Buckley, digital sampling, Izotope Iris, Izotope Stutter Edit, Jonestown, MOTU Digital Performer 8, Native Instruments Kontakt, opera, sound manipulation, tape loops, Ur-He Filterscape

Buckley shoot at the mariachi conference, 2007

Daniel Buckley has officially begun work on a new mariachi film.

Tentatively titled “Tucson, the mariachi crucible,” this sixth installment of Buckley’s Cine Plaza at the Fox documentaries will focus on Tucson, Arizona’s place in the mariachi world and how the mariachi movement has advanced the city in terms of education, social progress, economics, politics and more.

The search for funding is underway, as is the securing of partners to assist in the project. Current partners include the Tucson International Mariachi Conference, the CHISPA Foundation and the Arizona Historical Society.

Tiffany Alvarez

Buckley is discussing the option of creating an exhibit of mariachi history for the Tucson branch of the Arizona Historical Society.

The first official interview for the new film was shot late in September while Tiffany Alvarez – veteran player of the all-female Mariachi Mujer 2000 – was visiting Tucson from California. Alvarez discussed how mariachi education was part of her life from childhood and that even though she has pursued a career in the sciences, she still performs with mariachis at least part time to this day.

Documentary maker Daniel Buckley has a long association with mariachis in Tucson. He first became interested in the music in the 1970s while a student at the University of Arizona. He wrote about mariachi music in Tucson for the Tucson Weekly and the Tucson Citizen, and covered the Tucson International Mariachi Conference for 22 years while with the Citizen. Buckley traveled to Boston for the Citizen when Mariachi Cobre made its debut with that group, and twice journeyed to Orlando for the Citizen to do large features on Cobre.

Mariachi Cobre performs at Disney’s Epcot Center

When Buckley began the multimedia division of the Tucson Citizen in 2001, he immediately made Tucson’s mariachi and folklórico dance scene a priority target. He taped at each of the mariachi conferences in Tucson from that point forward, focusing frequently on the student showcases and developing a catalog of progress of young talent from all over the United States at those performances.

When the Citizen’s print operation was shut down in 2009 and Buckley was laid off, he continued and broadened his association with mariachis and folklórico groups in Tucson. He wrote theatrical vignettes for the San Jose VivaFest in 2010 and 2011, attending and blogging on mariachi topics for VivaFest in 2011. He continued to unofficially advise the Tucson conference, and helped Tucson mariachi and folklórico groups in need of video support. In 2012 he produced a short video for the Tucson International Mariachi Conference that featured interviews with current TIMC workshop instructors talking about their own experiences as students of the conference.

This new film will bring together both the archival footage Buckley has shot over the years as well as new footage to tell the story of Tucson’s mariachi scene in the most comprehensive way yet.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona Historical society, ballet folklorico, CHISPA Foundation, Cine Plaza at the Fox, Daniel Buckley, Fox Theatre, mariachi, Mariachi 2000, Mariachi Cobre, San Jose VivaFest!, Tucson Citizen, Tucson International Mariachi Conference, Tucson Weekly

Bad News Blues

KXCI’s House Rockin’ Blues Review

El Casino Ballroom

437 East 26th Street

Friday August 10th, 8pm

Contact Jeb Schoonover 795-1420

jebby137@yahoo.com

Randy Peterson KXCI GM

520-623-1000 ext. 12

randy@kxci.org

91.3 KXCI Community Radio returns to its roots with a “House Rockin'” party at historic El Casino Ballroom on Friday, August 10th at 8pm. KXCI’s popular concert series in the 1980’s helped get the station on the air beginning with the very first “Blues Review” benefit to raise scratch to buy the initial broadcast equipment.

On Friday, August 10th, KXCI pays tribute to this rich heritage with a “House Rockin’ Blues Review.” Confirmed artists include: Tom Walbank and Stefan George teaming up with a rocking rhythm section. Three members of Kings of Pleasure swing into blues with The Mike Hebert Band featuring vocalist Katherine Byrnes and saxophonist Jeff Grubic. (Mike Hebert first performed at El Casino with Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs.) The evening culminates with The Bad News Blues Band backing up Arizona Blues Hall of Fame members such as Hans Olson, Tony Uribe, Danny Krieger, Mike Blommer, Hurricane Carla, Steve Grams, Alex Flores, John Strasser, and Heather Hardy. Expect some smoking blues with tasty licks from an All Star line up.

The show starts at 8pm with doors at 7pm. $10 advance tickets are now on sale at KXCI, Antigone’s, The Folk Shop, The Parish Gastropub and www.kxci.org. $8 KXCI member discounted tickets are available at the KXCI Studios (Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm) $12 tickets will be available at the show. Local food trucks will have delicious cuisine available for purchase in the parking lot.

KXCI’s early years were peppered with House Rockin’ shows at El Casino with artists such as Queen Ida, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Lonnie Mack, Marcia Ball, Beausoleil, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and many more. El Casino’s renowned dance floor provided the perfect atmosphere for these adrenaline fueled and dance crazed shindigs.

Filmmaker Daniel Buckley approached KXCI about producing a “House Rockin” in conjunction with the release of “Tucson’s Heart and Soul – El Casino Ballroom.” The documentary is set to premiere on August 5 at 2 p.m., Fox Theatre, Tucson, 17 W Congress St. $3 suggested donation.

http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/el-casino-ballroom-documentary/

Early KXCI Staff Member and concert promoter Jeb Schoonover teamed up with current KXCI Blues Review host Marty Kool to curate an evening of exceptional local blues music which celebrates the unique cultural crossroads of KXCI, Tucson and El Casino. Marty Kool’s Blues Review features 4 hours of blues music every Saturday from 5-9pm on 91.3 KXCI Tucson or www.kxci.org.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Alex Flores, and Heather Hardy, ans Olson, Blues Review, Daniel Buckley, Danny Krieger, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Hurricane Carla, John Strasser, KXCI, Mike Blommer, Steve Grams, The Bad News Blues Band, Tom Walbank and Stefan George, Tony Uribe

Producer Daniel Buckley shooting at El Casino Ballroom

El Casino Ballroom documentary set for premiere:

After a year-plus of shooting, “The Heart and Soul of Tucson – El Casino Ballroom” is set to premiere August 5 at 2 p.m. at the Fox Theatre downtown.

The film marks the 65th anniversary of the venerable Tucson landmark where people of all ethnicities and backgrounds have been welcomed since its earliest days. It also marks the 80^th anniversary of the Latin American Social Club, which has run the ballroom since the late 1960s.

Film on El Casino premieres Sunday

Founded in 1947 by Ramon Siqueiros, Benjamin Jacobs and Adolfo Loustaunau, El Casino Ballroom has hosted the stars of Mexican cinema, Latino music, jazz and more. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when black artists could not play in white Tucson clubs, El Casino opened its giant dance floor to the likes of Fats Domino, Little Richard and the Motown reviews. It was the place where Tejano music took root in Tucson, and in the 1980s, the home of KXCI’s House Rocking series of blues, Cajun, zydeco and roots music concerts.

Film on El Casino premieres Sunday p. 2

But it is also the headquarters of Tucson’s Latino community – politically, socially and culturally. Countless wedding receptions, quinceañeras, anniversary parties, memorial services, celebrations of every type and political rallies of many viewpoints brought the community together under El Casino Ballroom’s roof. And to this day, every Sunday El Casino Ballroom is turned over to local non-profits to help them raise funds for their community efforts.

For over a year, videographer Daniel Buckley has been capturing events and stories of the people who have lived and loved the El Casino Ballroom experience. Folks who had their first kiss or first dance there, who joined clubs and organized there, and who hold memories of hearing music and dancing on its vast dance floor that will last a lifetime. The stories are told by those who lived it.

This is the fifth and largest of Buckley’s Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary series, produced in conjunction with associate producers Ralph Gonzalez and Julie Gallego, and such partners as the Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation, the Arizona Historical Society and community radio station KXCI. The film was supported by a Tucson Pima Arts Council PLACE grant, as well as community donations.

City Week | City Week | Tucson Weekly

In addition KXCI will hold its first Blues Review show in years at El Casino Ballroom on August 10 (see separate forwarded press release) in conjunction with the film’s release. For more contact Daniel Buckley at 520-260-4176 or dbtucson@gmail.com.

IF YOU GO:

What: “Tucson’s Heart and Soul – El Casino Ballroom” – a documentary film by Daniel Buckley

When: August 5, 2 p.m.

Where: Tucson’s Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress Street

Suggested donation: $3 at the door

LINKS IN THE PRESS:

“Film on El Casino premieres Sunday,” Arizona Daily Star, 08/02/12

“A Tribute to El Casino Ballroom,” Tucson Weekly 08/01/12

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona Historical society, Community Radio KXCI, Daniel Buckley, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Fox Theatre Tucson, Latin AMerican Social Club

Time to open up the time lapse landscapes to new vistas.

As the monsoon rolls on in Tucson, Daniel Buckley is watching the sky.

If he can steal a few hours every now and then from work on the El Casino Documentary, Buckley retreats into the desert west of Tucson to watch the clouds roll, see the light morph and enjoy the plump, water-filled landscape in all its green glory.

At the same time, new thoughts are stirring as to how to treat the time lapse video he is capturing.

Changing the colors to a negative makes the landscape look like a dark sea. And cueing the video snippets to music creates a different, non-linear way of experiencing the images.

Coming from a news and documentary background, it’s alien turf. But it is a direction that down the line may yield some interesting new video art over time.

Above is an early example of some things that might be tried, using footage from a dust storm preceding rain in mid-June.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Daniel Buckley Images, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, landscapes, Saguaro Furnace Music., time lapse, video art

“In Dying Light” features music and video by Daniel Buckley

FOR BEST RESULTS, PRESS THE YOUTUBE SYMBOL, ENLARGE THE VIEWER AND SET THE SETTINGS TO THE HIGHEST RATE YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION WILL HANDLE.

The video was shot during a sunset monsoon thunder storm in the desert west of Tucson, Arizona, looking into Avra Valley and beyond.

The music features a variety of guitars, synthesizers, samplers, reed organs and special sound collections. Among these are cloud chamber bowls from the Harry Partch collection, prepared piano sounds, and an effects collection of prepared electric piano sounds.

The thunder clap was recorded by Buckley in 2005.

All instruments played by Buckley.

Copyright 2012, Daniel Buckley Arts/Saguaro Furnace Music

Posted in Daniel Buckley Images, Daniel Buckley Music, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, music video, time lapse