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MONSOON SEASON
Richard Peikoff
acoustic/slide guitar
Parsuram Sherla
tambura and tabla
Recorded in Ahmednagar, India.
Engineered by Hugh McDonald.
Mastered by Barry Wood at The Other Room.

"Splendid acoustic playing, combining cutting-edge fingerstyle technique with a raga-inflected slide style…Peikoff weds East and West and makes the twain meet, big time."— Jas Obrecht/Guitar Player Magazine

The making of the album, Monsoon Season, was unplanned and unexpected. After traveling 10,000 miles around the globe and taking a few days to recover from jet lag, I began my daily schedule of guitar playing and composition. This continued daily for ten weeks.

The opportunity to record direct to DAT was a real blessing. Hugh Macdonald, a field engineer and electronics wiz, was in the area at the same time. We arranged two days for recording, and decided to record in the Meher Baba Study Hall. All of this was taking place at Meherabad, Ahmednagar, India, about 150 miles inland from Bombay. This was the home of Meher Baba in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. The study hall was originally a British military water tank. In the late 1930s, a second floor was built on top of the structure.This was a place of much meditation, prayer, & silence. The atmosphere was serene & spiritual. The acoustics were excellent: tiled floors, high vaulted ceilings, hardwoods and archways.

When I arrived in India I had seventeen compositions on the drawing board in various stages of development. When I started playing daily, I began developing them simultaneously. Later, when I met Parsuram Sherla, I altered some of the rhythmic structures to better facilitate an East/West musical meeting.

Most of my day was spent sitting at the desk in my room. My window opened out onto a veranda which overlooked the neighboring village of Arangaon. As it was the end of the monsoon season, there was a large pond that had been created by the rains. This ultimately dried up by the end of my stay, but in the early period, the local villagers would cool their cattle off in the waters. Village children would also come to swim. Sitting in my room with this as my view, and playing guitar, both in Western and Eastern genres, was my daily experience. This was a window in time and space that had been opened for me for a brief cycle. I was grateful.

Parsuram Sherla, who plays tabla and tambura on this recording, lives in the neighboring village of Arangaon. He was 25 years old at the time. He worked as a general laborer and was a student of tabla. He had been playing seven years and took his studies very seriously.

There are other stories about this trip, but this gives the idea of the musical connection, and the meeting of two musical brothers from cultures thousands of miles and tens of thousands of years apart. Music is sacred to me, as it is with Parsuram. For us, Music is God. I hope that we have honored this path of communion through this serendipitous occasion.

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PATRIOTIC MEDLEY
Richard Peikoff
solo acoustic guitar

1) The Star Spangled Banner
2) My Country 'Tis of Thee
3) America The Beautiful

"Richard creates beautiful audible emotion." Steve Vai/Favored Nations Acoustic

Because of the events of September 11, 2001, I was moved to start playing the national anthem on a daily basis. Actually, nightly, for about 12 weeks. I also began arranging "America, The Beautiful" and "My Country 'Tis of Thee" as well. "The Star Spangled Banner" features slide guitar. The medley is played solo in CGCFGC tuning.

I've shared this arrangement several times with the public. Each time it's aroused a deep response. I therefore decided to record it and release it as a single.

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VG-8 Sessions 1999
Richard Peikoff
solo guitar synthesizer
fingerstyle & slide

"Richard is an innovative and brilliant guitarist whose intricately crafted solo guitar compositions convey a deep sense of meditative connectedness as well as a finely tuned aesthetic."
Kit Walker~Windham Hill

1 Soft Clocks
2 Horizontal
3 Floating
4 Smile
5 Pilgrim
6 Mantra
7 Gentle Rain
8 Lydian Meditation
9 Blind Lemon Krishna

Recorded on a Tascam dat field recorder, using a Godin wired for a Roland VG-8. The slide used was a Metallic Mudslide made by Jim Dunlop (no longer available). I went stereo direct to the Tascam. I tracked across 2 days. No overdubs. 50-50 improv/composition. TRT= 46 minutes.

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HORIZONTAL
Richard Peikoff
acoustic/baritone/slide guitar
Jeff Miley
acoustic guitar

"The contemplative, resonant, and honestly heartfelt world of Richard Peikoff's guitar music creates a restful, harmonious, and ample space in which to immerse ourselves and allows us to gaze into distant horizons, familiar and yet new."—Jorge Strunz/Strunz & Farah

Liner Notes:

"Déjà Vu" is a short ambient opening, stating the lush atmosphere of this recording.

"Pilgrim" is played in CADEAD and focuses mostly on shifts between A Mixolydian (ABC#DEF#G) and A Dorian (ABCDEF#G).The piece moves freely between meters of 3 and 4.

"Mirrors" is played in CGCFGC. It is the most consonant piece and is entitled such because section B uses a pair of motifs that are mirror images of each other.

"Soft Clocks" is played in DGDGAbD which is a Phrygian tuning (5151b25) in G. The meters change seamlessly from 3 to 4 to 5. It is mostly in the keys of G Phrygian (GAbBbCDEbF, key of Eb), and G Phrygian Dominant (GAbBCDEbF, an inverted C harmonic minor scale). I also use what I call a G Double Octatonic which is an 8-tone scale produced when the above two scales are superimposed (GAbBbBCDEbF).

"Horizontal", the only solo piece, is played in DADGAD. This composition draws primarily from D Major, D Harmonic Major (DEF#GABbC#), and G Ascending Melodic Minor (GABbCDEF#).

"Baquista" is also played in DADGAD and is based on F# Phrygian, F# Phrygian Dominant, and G Hungarian Minor (GABbC#DEbF#). The G Hungarian Minor mode is used in the 5/4 section, which feels like a 2½ to me, and produces an interesting 4-chord phrase: G Minor 9, D Major 7/11 #5/F#, Eb major 7 #9/#11, and D #5.

"Ram Narayan" is an improvisation inspired by the Indian Sarangi master, Ram Narayan. The sarangi is a lap-held cello-like instrument that is bowed with the right hand and fingered with the cuticles of the left hand, producing an eerie, ethereal tone. The mode used for this piece was CDbEF#GAbB.

"Epilogue", which is an extension of "Ram Narayan" and the closing meditative piece on the album, was created with loops and samples of tabla, tanpura, Japanese bells, crickets, birds, water drops, and some cool Australian frogs.

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COMPILATION 2008
Richard Peikoff
acoustic/baritone/slide guitar

Solo, duets, & ensemble featuring Michael Manring, John Barnes, John Keane, Kit Walker, Jeff Miley, Cliff Novey, Paul Livingstone, & Buzz Feiten. This is a limited edition of all original pieces released on MuktiMusic & BMG/Killer Tracks.

"Richard has developed an extremely cool approach to solo fingerstyle guitar, informed by the tradition of the instrument, but with his own unique twists. He uses his thorough understanding of Indian Classical music to expand the expressive palette of the guitar and create a sound that is rich with possibilities." Michael Manring/Windham Hill

All compositions ©2000-2005 Mükti Music ASCAP

Additional Tunings Used:

BF#BF#BE
CGCF#GC
C#G#C#GG#C#
DADG#AD
DGDGAD
DGDGBbD
AEC#EAE
AEADEA (High Strung~Nashville tuning variation)

Richard Peikoff :hmm: