Dear friends
Covid-19 is dangerously impacting the social-economic category of musicians. No concerts, poor political and social consideration, uncertain earnings. As a consequence, an ever-growing number of musicians, especially those from the experimental area, are trying to promote their music on BandCamp in digital format only. It is increasingly difficult for me to follow and review this incredible flow of music. I therefore decided to open this section on my blog Neuguitars where I propose music in digital format that I consider particularly interesting and worthy of attention. I hope you like it. Let’s support musicians. They need it.
Andrea Aguzzi
Jo Jena started playing the guitar at the age of 10 in berlin (the wall had just come down). His teachers were Arion Levy and Michael Gechter. 1 of 100 guitarists with Rhys Chatham. recipient of berklee scholarship. participant of ensemble modern junior forum. emphasis on improvisation, ambient & avantgarde. independent release of music recordings via “instauratio minima musicarum“ since 2004
Sechs kleine klavierstücke, op. 19 by arnold schönberg (arranged for electric guitar by Jo Jena), Bandcamp, 2021 on #neuguitars #blog
the arrangement and realisation for electric guitar is done for the first time – at least to my knowledge – and based as closely as possible on eduard steuermann’s columbia recordings from 1957, which must count as a reference recording, especially since schoenberg made the highest demands on the interpretation. longer pauses were left at the end of each piece to prevent them from merging directly into each other. this instruction is found in the original text and ignored by many interpreters.
on some of my other channels you can also find versions in which I play the pieces live (I, IV, VI) or in an overdubbing duo situation (II, III). for this classical performance practice I had to omit certain notes or make compromises concerning the articulation. for the recording however, i made extensive use of the possibilities of digital technology to realize the result as close as possible to the text. furthermore, the guitar typical attack was alienated by various effects to achieve a better sustain. furthermore, unlike the classical guitar, the electric guitar offers the possibility to realize the pieces in the original register – for the most part.
jj, march 2021
credits
released March 8, 2021
jo jena – electric guitars, fx
played, recorded, mixed, edited and mastered by jj; recorded at studio “raumstation”, frankfurt am main. wav files are provided in 24 bit/96 kHz hi res. thanks to e. for reverb and cover design consulting as well as atonal resilience (early in the morning).
used by permission of belmont music publishers, los angeles. special thanks to Lawrence Schönberg.
NeuGuitars 