By Giant-Sized, I mean 48 minutes and 44 MB. As I did last year, here’s a breakdown of how that time is spent:
00:00-02:15: Introduction and Thanks
02:15-23:25: Improvisation I
23:25-25:36: The Big Idea
25:36-47:03: C + Improvisation I + Improvisation II
47:03-48:21: Conclusion
http://nascentmusic.com/mp3/2007/10/InC.mp3
If you’re not familiar with Terry Riley’s “In C,” you might be interested to read about the process (here’s Wikipedia’s take). Although each segment is composed, not improvised, performing it requires the improvisation of some elements, and the listening, responding, and happenstance of the piece are very familiar to me from Nascent Music.
Riley’s performance instructions say that an ensemble of 35 is ideal. I, of course, am but one dude. Fortunately, there’s such a thing as multitracking. For the first track, I went through it segment by segment, punching in if necessary, to establish a baseline (and to learn the piece, which I had never even heard before taking it on this weekend). Obviously, that was the least dynamic of the takes. I then went through several more takes, each time putting more emphasis on hearing my relationship to the previous tracks. I also added multiple copies of each take, offset by fractions of a measure to add to the rhythmic offsets (which makes it sound like I played more than I did); that may have reduced the integrity of a particular take, but gave me more to listen and respond to in later takes, and anyway, it fills out the mix in a way that sounds good to me.
http://nascentmusic.com/mp3/2007/10/nm20071007.mp3
Going in a different direction (for no reason that I know of), with a lot more distorted Stick than synth sounds; but getting to the same place, all the same.