one guitar titles

At first I wanted to keep the music pure and devoid of words. I devised a code, based on the time and date of the recording. Here is what I wrote about the code in early 2005:

All song titles will contain the date stamp of the original recording file, which I will turn into one continuous number. I will use military/european 24 hr time and a day/month/year configuration. If the original recording was made at 3:47PM on May 13th of 2005 the title of the track would be simply: 1547130505

and

Since there won’t be any sign-posts in the form of words in the title, the emotional content will need to be discovered by the listener on his/her own without any suggestions from me. It might be interesting to publish my thoughts on each track online a few weeks/months after release of the album.

This was based on my realization that music, especially instrumental music, is a co-creation that involves the performer AND the listener. Later I re-thought that concept and decided that a title is only a small signpost that can guide the listener to the section of the map that a piece of music might live on. Easily enough ignored in any case.

I figured out some of the titles myself and also asked a number of people, including several readers of this blog, to title a piece of their chooseing. The initials of those people follow the titles. The first title, Not One, Not Two, was given by JHR, Joan Halifax Roshi. The beautifully poetic title Nachtreisende Regentropfen (Night Traveling Raindrops) was given by BB – Boris Bartels.

In this spirit of co-creating I asked if a reader of my blog had taken a photo of me during my 2006 solo guitar guitar tour that I could use for the album cover. Ritch Fuhrer kindly sent me the photo on the album cover. For the inside photo I lit a lot of candles in my studio and took some long exposures with the camera on a tripod.
One Guitar
OL CHOP

one guitar release on Bandcamp

one guitar is now available on Bandcamp in all file formats up to 24/96kHz.

From the March 2007 issue of Guitar World/Guitar One magazine:

…he’s taken his flamenco/world-music hybrid to a new, more introspective level here, with beautifully haunting six-string explorations that are, impressively, mostly improvised. And the Lieb doesn’t just show off his chops, which include walking intricate bass lines over tremolo picking, or ripping out blazing Spanish Phrygian scales. He’s got passion to go with the speed—and that’s what counts, dammit.
MOMENT OF TRUTH: “Night Traveling Raindrops: Nachtreisende Regentropfen” (1:30–2:52) Liebert’s phrasing gives space and evocativeness to the airy single-note melodies before he unleashes a cyclone of countermelodies and arpeggios.

From CultureCourt.com:

In his famous novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” the Colombian writer Gabriel Marquez has a scene where a Conquistador is recovered from the bed of a river, a husk within a heavy suit of armor. This piece of folk archaeology is part of the imagery that drives the story as a cultural echo. There are similar echoes in Ottmar Liebert’s new CD of solo acoustic guitar, that is, the ghosts of Spanish flamenco within the dreamscapes of the New World. One Guitar: 13 tracks of contemplation, meditation, exhalation, levitation… and exquisite solitude.

From Disc Reviews: December 2, 2006 : The Morning Call Online:

The individual tunes, all of which he composed, could be considered scrumptious tapas in an alternative cafe. But actually, they’re small prayer rugs — brilliant-hued weavings of pensiveness and feeling.

And this quote from Ken Wilber:

Music that is haunting in its beauty and depth. Highly recommended!

Here is what I wrote in March of 2006, when one guitar had the working title Tears in the Rain.

I added a few more pieces to the Tears in the Rain album-in-progress in the ListeningLounge and there are now 13 altogether. I honestly cannot tell you whether the music is good or not, whether the guitar playing is excellent or lousy, whether the pieces are altogether sublime or silly, gold or crap.
These pieces are too close to me (still) and I can’t see them, can’t judge them, nor do I want to. All I can tell you is that I enjoyed playing them, discovering them, and I very much enjoy listening to them. They tell me something. They take me places. Eventually I will title the new batch. Eventually there should be a CD.

The album was released a few months later and was nominated for a 2006 Grammy.

More reading about the project here, here, here, here, and here.

Upcoming Bandcamp (re)Releases

I re-released Up Close today. Headphones only. There are a few bonus items, including a video. Here is a roundup of the next releases. After these three I will re-release a remastered version of The Scent of Light, and sometime in January there will be the brand new vision 2021 – the Full Version of the new album.

These three upcoming re-releases are offered in high definition, with a bit depth of 24 and a sample rate of either 88.2 or 96kHz.

Up Close (Binaural)

Ever wonder why your ears are on opposite sides of your head, earthling? On an axis six inches apart, pointing in opposite directions? And ever wonder how come everything sounds so good, so three dimensional, so spacially accurate… and how come your stereo isn’t set up like this because recently you’ve been messing around with five or six speakers and even a bass woofer to try and get what any two ears can hear at any concert any day or night.

What about binaural recording — does this represent acoustic space accurately? Binaural… “bin” from the Latin, meaning two or twice, same as “bi”, also from the Latin, meaning two or twice, but for some reason “bin” is favored by these recordists, maybe because of the mathematical “binary” association, maybe because of the German work on the technique. No matter. Yes, binaural recording uses two mics as in conventional stereo recording, except that they are positioned exactly as are the diaphragms inside your ears: six inches apart, back to back, pointing along the invisible axis that runs straight through your head, earthling.

read more CultureCourt.com on Up Close (Binaural)

slow

Love whispers while hate screams, and this year I decided to whisper so softly. I wanted to raise my guitar against the sound of billions of smartphones beeping with the latest news, mentions, likes, and comments, keeping us in a state of constant alarm. I hope that some of you will switch your devices into airplane mode and let this music take you on a flight.

read more Album Notes for slow

one guitar

In his famous novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” the Colombian writer Gabriel Marquez has a scene where a Conquistador is recovered from the bed of a river, a husk within a heavy suit of armor. This piece of folk archaeology is part of the imagery that drives the story as a cultural echo. There are similar echoes in Ottmar Liebert’s new CD of solo acoustic guitar, that is, the ghosts of Spanish flamenco within the dreamscapes of the New World. One Guitar: 13 tracks of contemplation, meditation, exhalation, levitation… and exquisite solitude.

read more
CultureCourt.com on one guitar

Bandcamp Fridays

Bandcamp Fridays in 2021, on February 5th, March 5th, April 2nd, and May 7th – https://isitbandcampfriday.com has the details.

On the first Friday of every month since March, we’ve waived our revenue share to help support the many artists who have seen their livelihoods disrupted by the pandemic. Over the course of these nine days, fans paid artists and labels $40 million dollars, helping cover rents, mortgages, groceries, medications, and much more. If you’re among the nearly 800,000 fans who participated, thank you.

Although vaccines are starting to roll out, it will likely be several months before live performance revenue starts to return. So we’re going to continue doing Bandcamp Fridays in 2021, on February 5th, March 5th, April 2nd, and May 7th.

If you’ve started to feel guilty about buying music on any day other than Bandcamp Friday, here’s something to keep in mind: on Bandcamp Fridays, an average of 93% of your money reaches the artist/label (after payment processor fees). When you make a purchase on any other day of the month (as 2.5 million of you have since March, buying an additional $145 million worth of music and merch) an average of 82% reaches the artist/label. Every day is a good day to directly support artists on Bandcamp!

Full Version

Today I spent a few hours in the studio working on the Full Version of vision 2020. I added Robby Rothschild’s cajon and djembe performances to the music. Dance 4 Me sounded amazing with Robby’s percussion and JQ’s trumpet section. Walking Beside U sounded glorious with the percussion and trumpets. Powerful. The working title of Walking Beside U was BLM100, where BLM stood for Black Lives Matter and 100 was the tempo of the piece. Listen to the song again and perhaps the sections of the piece feel different with the overlay of that information.

I really looking forward to hearing the Full Version of the album! Hopefully we can record Char Rothschild sometime this month. Then I should be on track to releasing the Full Version in late January.