Beauty is Imperfection

Salon de la Guerre is very proud to announce that its latest modern classical album, Uncle Ernie’s Progress, is now available for streaming or purchase on all the major music websites, including Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok and Bandcamp. This is my sixth attempt at classical music, and, like other albums in this series, it tells a musical story about the member of an extended family.

I have tried to improve on and embellish previous efforts, and this time added computer sax and marimba parts (after spending a little too much time listening to Frank Zappa’s early ’70s work).

The album was made with two software programs: GarageBand and Logic Pro, and I wrote many of the parts with a scoring tool. I try not to fool my listeners about what I’m personally performing and what the computer is doing, so here’s full disclosure: There are three piano pieces here I have scored and let the computer generate (including “Ernie’s Score,” “Ernie Sells His Steinway” and the bookends to “Ernie’s Goodbye”) and the effect is that of a player piano. But the piano parts elsewhere, including those on “Ernie’s Heart Monitor,” “Half a Heart,” “Half a Stomach” and “Betina’s Gone,” for example, I played directly onto an iPhone keyboard using my own intuitive keyboard playing style. For a self-taught piano player, I can sometimes do impressive things, but I’m not a trained concert pianist, and don’t want anyone to walk off with that impression.

I’ve sometimes tried in the past to use classical music theory terms to describe what I’m doing, but I’ve given that up, and confess that I’m not even sure what key I’m playing in. I have struggled with the idea of learning more music theory in the spirit of curiosity and self-improvement and intellectual rigor, but the fact is that any good artist simply creates first and asks questions later. All I’ll add is that I’d read a bit about Frank Zappa using major second intervals in his chords (in other words, making a chord out of two notes sitting right next to each other instead of separated, an approach that can sound eerie). I tried to mix some of that idea into the new album, but probably stopped pursuing that aim whenever I’d hit on my own new melodic ideas. My whole approach to music is to always learn something new when I’m creating anything and then let inspiration take over from there–or otherwise be guided by a new conceptual idea. (For instance, what would happen if I used microtonal experiments, using tones between the degrees of the scale, to make country music the way Gram Parsons would? Or what if I tuned a guitar with open tunings like Thurston Moore and then played it like Maybelle Carter, tapping out the melody on the bass and scratching the higher strings for the chords to make post-punk country music? If you’re interested in that, you can check out my album Air is a Public Good.)

Unfortunately, this approach also means I keep genre hopping. I have three other albums sitting in various degrees of completion. One is folk, one is electronic dance music and one is alternative rock. Whatever it is, I’m hoping at least one thing I make this year turns you on.

As always, the album was completely composed, arranged and produced by Eric R. Rasmussen. Copyright 2023. Cover photo credit: SoumenNath

Check out a track from Uncle Ernie’s Progress below.