Ben Miller

Like I said... I apologize for the intrusion. I'm a merchant, and sometimes it's not easy to reach your audience. Pete, thanks for your post. Really, thanks for everybody that took the time to listen, for better or worse. I am on the tip (intellectually) about the natural-imitation thing, but when I said "abstract sound environment," I was only referring to the tracks where I am destroying a 1920's upright piano with a sledgehammer. What else would that be called other than "abstract sound environment?" Perhaps super-angst! But I'm not claiming to have hit these high truths of the Pythagorean bent with this recording. But as far as honesty, that's what this is. I could have made a nice version of Greensleeves but that's not where my head's at. I'm developing my own language. As for taking the listener on a trip, dynamically, or compositionally, perhaps you would be so kind as to accept this as the beginning of a long journey, expect the journey to go somewhere, but you have to look at the 'big picture.' If you so happen to come across Ben Miller in 20 years, you may come back to this recording (if you can find it!) and say, oh ****, he really put his neck out there! But y'all will never know even half of that story. My favorite guitar players are along the lines of Jean-Paul Boullery, David Gilmore, I dig Kenny Burrell and Rodney Jones, and dig Jimi Hendrix with a fat shovel...Vernon Reid...As for musicians, I'm big into Steve Coleman (his work inspired this recording, he just put out a masterful work of solo alto on Tzadik), Anthony Braxton, Stockhausen, I dig La Monte Young, but clearly I don't line-up with the academic Western thing, and also, for another thing, I don't listen to guitar players who make records like this. I like funk, hip-hop, I get my ideas from listening to great composers, speakers, painters, etc. I just wanted to lay a little groundwork for my career with this disc. The next one will be more acceptable, a jazz trio, but I probably won't post up here... The guitar is a bad ****. Vigier Surfretter Excalibur! I tune to EADGCF, because I really like the symmetry. I also dig Pythagoras, but I think music theory has advanced since the teacher from Samos (who was taught in Ancient Egypt). But I'm sort of "partial" to j.i. because as E is 1, A 3, D 9, G 27, etc. in pythagorean tuning it's cooler in j.i. with E 1:1 A 3:2 D 9:4 G 12:5, C 13:8 (approaching phi)...etc. but this is only if you're in a drone-world of E. I didn't want to play with a drone. Or another cat. I wanted to keep it raw. That's my personality. And what I was thinking about on the train this morning (I live in Philly) is that I talk with a lot of people every day, and the fact that sometimes the conversation doesn't go anywhere, doesn't mean that it doesn't bring some light into my life. Oh by the way, why do I play the open strings and then the second "fret" bar chord in a dotted quarter-quarter-eighth-eighth rest rhythm? Not sure, but I like it. I think that those chords that McCoy Tyner was getting into with Coltrane, which are now part of the standard vocabulary are beautifully rich. My tuning is a pentatonic scale + 1 fifth. So it has a lot of tonality in it. On the unfretted records compilation http://www.cdbaby.com/fretlessguitarists I do the same tune and I am playing all the other instruments myself except sax. For the CD release party I did the same groove with Gene Lake, who tore it up. There is a video of that on Youtube. If you can check out the album Anthony Braxton put out with Muhal Richard Abrahms in 74, there is a sick track that has a similar rhythm as the base. Oh and for the next disc, expect to hear some cool melodies and permutations, of the same thing. Peace... BCM pps. as for the technique, I'll use the mircotones at the right time and place, I'm too new of a student yet. And I believe really strongly in the metaphysics of number alchemy, so I'm not taking it too fast. Right now I'm studying Kepler, Lubicz, hindu temple architecture, plato, basically in the vein of gaining a knowledge of the architecture, numerically, of the universe, which can then be expressed artistically, the fruits of which will not surely manifest for 40 years. But dig music! It's that damn deep!

Hey folks, Sorry for the intrusion.... Please check out my guitar work on a fretless @ http://www.cdbaby.com/bcmiller I think the album turned out pretty good, but I'd love to hear what you thought of it bencole.miller@gmail.com Thanks for checking out my post! Peace, BM