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Audio Clips

Jazz

Almost Like Being in Love


Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars


Easy Living


Nature Boy



Improvisation

Latin Improv 2008

From the SongRise Recording Sessions April 2008. 5 nights of spontaneous composition with 17 singers. (Laurel Murphy solo.) These tracks are being mixed down to one or two cds that will be available in the not too distant future.


Live Looping 1999

Improvisation with vocal percussion and looper. One of my first live looper performances. Using the Carole King song "I Feel the Earth Move" as the inspiration but improvising contents on the fly.



Video





Improvised Trio 2001
Left to right: Laurel Murphy, Rhiannon and Ysaye Barnwell in a moment of spontaneous vocal invention. Filmed during a week-long singing retreat at Hollyhock, Cortes Island.






SongRise 1995, New Year's Eve
Very rough footage from SongRise 95 (with participants comments.) The first event of its kind in Canada. This 5-hour improvised vocal creation brought together 200 singers and 1300 audience members on New Year's Eve 95 at St. Andrew's Wesley Church (Vancouver, Canada.) Featured in this video in order of appearance: Rhiannon, Dee Daniels, Jon Washburn, Sal Ferreras, Ann Mortifee, Modesto and Laurel Murphy. Not shown: Coco Love Alcorn, Lovie Eli and Kate Hammett-Vaughan. Producer: Laurel Murphy.



SongRise 1999, New Year's Eve, (approx 1:30am Jan 1st 2000)
Where were you Dec 31st 1999? More than 850 people in Vancouver, Canada came together to sing in the new millennium, in spite of Y2K and other fears. This clip shows Laurel Murphy (vocal solo) composing parts in the moment for a vocal creation started at 9pm Dec 31st 1999 and ended at 2 am January 1st, 2000. She is joined by Rhiannon, lead conductor of the event. The evening also featured conductors Joey Blake, Pepe Danza, David Hatfield, Shari Ulrich, Jon Washburn and the Vancouver Chamber Choir. Producer: Laurel Murphy.




2010 Caesar's Palace
Looper improv: Improvising and looping on the theme of Autumn Leaves.






Raffi's "Cool It" Song
In 2007, I went into the studio to record some background vocals for the video of Raffi's fun environmental song.

Experiments

Ancient Voices

A quick improvised experiment created on the tjoon site (low res, built-in mic.) Each quadrant is recorded one at a time and then posted to the site, at which point it can be added to by the creator or by others around the world. In this case, each frame contains one vocal part. I was having fun playing with the visual (holding my laptop in all sorts of dangerous positions) and going for a flower shape of heads when this fellow from France submitted a guitar accompaniment--amazing since it was after the fact and I wasn't tuned to an instrument. I loved his ideas so kept it. So great to be able to collaborate with complete strangers!


Far Away

Another improvised experiment on the tjoon site. All vocal, this time using a handheld mic (instead of the built-in.) Each quadrant consists of one vocal part (from right to left: long tone, harmony, vocal percussion, solo.) Voted one of 5 top tjoons of 2007/08.


Collaboration

In this improvised experiment on the tjoon site, I am using voice and delay, then looping a pattern, all in the first frame (top left.) I am joined in the second frame (top right) by a fellow in France adding a rhythmic guitar part (too bad I didn't tune to the piano before starting, but he did pretty well at matching my tonal center.) Third frame is a mysterious fellow from I'm not sure where. He is playing slide guitar. 4th frame is blank.