Excellent photos and some video of this year’s Tilted Axes Mobile Electric Guitar Procession for Make Music Winter 2013:

TILTED AXES
Music for Mobile Electric Guitars

MAKE MUSIC WINTER
December 21, 2013
New York City
3pm-5pm

Part 3 of our Tilted Trilogy in NYC:
The Alamo’s Last Stand

“Composer and producer Patrick Grant creates and leads a procession with dozens of electric guitarists through the East Village, with a special stop at The Alamo, the iconic Astor Place sculpture commonly referred to as The Cube. In 2014, The Alamo will be moved from its current location to another part of the plaza. To observe this occurrence, Grant introduces new repertoire that evokes the iconic guitar music that has scored sub-genre Wild West cinema. The event will be a moving, polyphonic sound cloud layered in compelling, electric rhythms to honor the season’s axial tilt.” – from the Make Music Winter Tilted Axes page

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TILTED AXES
Music for Mobile Electric Guitars

MAKE MUSIC WINTER
December 21, 2013
New York City
3pm-5pm

Part 3 of our Tilted Trilogy in NYC: The Alamo’s Last Stand

Applications are now being accepted HERE
The General Deadline to apply is Nov. 22nd

“Composer and producer Patrick Grant creates and leads a procession with dozens of electric guitarists through the East Village, with a special stop at The Alamo, the iconic Astor Place sculpture commonly referred to as The Cube. In 2014, The Alamo will be moved from its current location to another part of the plaza. To observe this occurrence, Grant introduces new repertoire that evokes the iconic guitar music that has scored sub-genre Wild West cinema. The event will be a moving, polyphonic sound cloud layered in compelling, electric rhythms to honor the season’s axial tilt.” – from the Make Music Winter Tilted Axes page

Produced by Peppergreen Media and made possible through the help and support of our sponsors and partners Make Music New York, Spectrum NYC, Discover Guitar, D’Addario Strings, The Music Building, Strings by Aurora, and Composers Concordance

On December 21st, 2013, in celebration of the first day of winter, TILTED AXES: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars will give its 3rd annual procession as part of Make Music Winter. The event features dozens of electric guitarists powered by portable mini-amps and accompanied by percussion that results in a moving, polyphonic sound cloud layered in compelling, electric rhythms to honor this season’s axial tilt. The procession will begin and end at event sponsor Spectrum NYC‘s location at 121 Ludlow Street, wind its way up through the East Village to Union Square, and then back again with a special stop at the iconic sculpture The Alamo (aka the Astor Place Cube). The procession route is shown in detail in the map at the bottom of this page. The event runs from 3-5pm and is FREE and open to all.

Created and produced by composer and performer Patrick Grant in 2011, TILTED AXES is an event designed to pull together players of varying abilities in an edgy yet harmonious whole in which there is a musical role for everybody. The performers will be led by a Tilted Core of a dozen veterans from previous processions with whom the new participants can work and learn from closely. The new participants will be assigned mini-amps which they get to keep after the event. All that is required is a guitar, a strap, a pick, and your presence.

Rehearsals are necessary and players are required to attend at least one workshop and to be present the day of the event. With the addition of new sponsor Discover Guitar, the event is also open to acoustic guitars that are equipped with built-in pick-ups since they will be playing through mini-amps as well. The event is open to players 16 years of age or older.

TILTED AXES is open to any guitar players who:
1. Have the ability to read tablature (reading traditional notation is a plus, but not a requirement)
2. Are willing to work as part of an ensemble (though individual improvisation within a pattern could be needed)
3. Not a “shredder”? Not a problem. There’s a part for you in this too.

The musical content of the event consists of a number of processional themes and musical games that the ensemble will have memorized by the day of the event. PDFs and MP3s of the material will be made available weeks prior to the first rehearsal.

There will be a simple application process beginning October 21st since mini-amps, batteries, and space in the procession has to supplied for all players. To be a part, interested musicians will be asked to go to the following page and apply: http://www.peppergreenmedia.com/2013TiltedNYCapps.html

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TILTED AXES: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars is powered by:

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2013 SCHEDULE

1. Workshop 1 – Saturday, December 7, 12 noon to 3pm
at Spectrum NYC, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd floor, NYC

2. Workshop 2 – Saturday, December 14, 12 noon to 3pm
at Spectrum NYC, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd floor, NYC

3. Workshop 3 & Dress Rehearsal – Saturday, December 21, 12 noon to 3pm
at Spectrum NYC, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd floor, NYC

4. TILTED AXES NYC 2013 – Procession from 3-5pm
with food and refreshments for the musicians afterwards at Spectrum NYC

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* Please note these 2 additional workshops at The Music Building if it’s to your convenience

* Music Building Workshop – Wednesday, December 11, 6:30 to 9:30pm
584 Eighth Ave. (btwn 38th & 39th Sts.), Community Room 505

* Music Building Workshop – Wednesday, December 18, 6:30 to 9:30pm
584 Eighth Ave. (btwn 38th & 39th Sts.), Community Room 505

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AFTER THE EVENT: Psychedelic Psolstice Pselebration – 6:30pm until…

This will be the official after-party at Spectrum NYC and will be open to the public. This event is entirely optional for all Tilted Axes participants but we are invited to perform some selections from our repertoire indoors to kick it off after our break. Also on the this program will be performances by various configurations of the members of the Tilted Core with their own ensembles and other musical guests. Members from other Make Music Winter events will also be invited to perform.

More details to be announced soon.

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TILTED AXES NYC 2013 Procession Map

www.peppergreenmedia.com

Great stuff, People of Earth. You know, despite my personal FB postings, most of these yearly events exist because folks find it a worthy, albeit whimsical cause, and run with it. Whimsical? Maybe. I do think that anything we can do to get ourselves to pause and reflect is substantial. As a musician, that was my entry point: listen to something unusual, with attention, that just might not only broaden your ears, but also your outlook in general. Everything being relative, it is always interesting how this is interpreted in different cities, different countries, different cultures. We’re always surprised.

For me personally, this year’s standouts were the radio shows that dedicated programs to the day: Justin H. Brierley’s Music for Internets in Rhode Island, Joel Krutt’s Pushing the Envelope in Connecticutt, and Radio Mongaguá in São Paulo, Brazil, among many others. Live performances took place. In NYC, Glenn Cornett’s Spectrum NYC had an afternoon of exceptional strange-makers playing music for the event.

There was even a number of original songs composed for the day thanks to the 50/90 Challenge.

The strangest surprise was when McDonald’s restaurants seized upon the opportunity in sending out a Strange Music Day tweet to promote their product. That gave me mixed feelings but, after a posting of Devo’s Too Much Paranoias, I rationalized to an astute friend, “I’ll make an exception for the 1.5 million Twitter followers who were encouraged to stretch their ears (not just their stomachs) for today.”

Still, and always, the biggest pleasure was knowing, from afar, that there is the growing number of summer schools that took the opportunity to make music with children, to create instruments, to pause and reflect upon what it means to listen without prejudice and see where that takes one (New Delhi, India, Japan, Germany, and Ireland especially). It is satisfying to know that in the end, a future of good music will be assured for the rest of us as the talents of these children develop.

That said, and this is me now, I give a big shout out to David Soldier with Komar and Melamid’s piece The Most Unwanted Song that I heard today on Joel Krutt’s radio show. It is a piece that, through empirical scientific investigation, was created to afflict us in every worst way possible. The result is one of the funniest pieces, intelligently so, that I’ve ever heard.

So, it’s a two way street: you have all turned me onto so many new sounds and to new ways of thinking about what music can be, that I can never thank you enough. I know many people the world over (and the emails are still pouring in like crazy) feel the same.

Until next year. Thank you!

-Patrick Grant

www.strangemusic.com