Christopher Tignor – Queen City Sounds and Art

Christopher Tignor’s “Off-Centered Hearts” is a Sublime and Stirring Performance of the Possibilities of Processed Violin and Electronics

Composer Christopher Tignor has made a name for himself as an electro-acoustic violinist who as a live performer has fused the aesthetics and live performance style of acoustic instruments with computerized processing and use of pedals. His 2023 album The Art of Surrender showcases the broad spectrum of his experiments in minimalism and the subtleties of musicianship and expression available once you open up the possibilities of modifying tone in real time and pairing it with unconventional rhythms and song structure. The single “Off-Centered Hearts” has the soaring melodies one might expect but Tignor angles the long themes of the song to come together in elegant dramatic convergences with the mood of the song augmented and anchored by electronic low end and steady, finely syncopated percussion. When the violin glides seemingly along in a space of cosmic background drones near mid-song it’s a passage of sublime contemplation that segues into a short moment of atonality and directly into lightly plucked and processed violin tones and reminds one of the creative potential of an instrument most of us think we have heard taken to its sonic limits already. Listen to “Off-Centered Hearts” on YouTube and follow Tignor at the links below.

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Christopher Tignor Articulates the Anxiety and Concern of the Modern Era on “The Resonance Canons”

ChristopherTignor1_sm — Christopher Tignor, photo courtesy the artist

“The Resonance Canons” by Christopher Tignor sounds like something that might have come out on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label in the 90s. It is tightly composed but feels spontaneous. The track is over eleven minutes long but because its sounds and dynamics are organic driven by Tignor’s prepared piano and violin, and his tasteful use of electronics, it feels like you’re on a journey through a sacred space in your mind and plumbing psychological spaces you’ve neglected. The glittering melody halfway through the song is the sound of personal illumination after a passage through personal darkness. Music with similar emotional resonance can be brooding but this song sounds like some of the heaviness that weights on so many people right now with the state of culture, politics and the environment, a persistent concern mixed with hope. As the track progresses into its last chapter, spare textural melodies and low end swells accent a sense of uncertainty about the future even as chimes and the constant, beat loses its tonal quality into pure minimal percussion like a sense of acceptance of the pervasive sense of the pervasive tentative mood about our future potential as a species. Deeply emotional stuff from a guy who has been steeped in the worlds of avant-garde and modern classical music not to mention his job as a software engineer for Google but maybe that’s the background that helps in putting together a complex and moving piece such as this. The song is a part of the forthcoming album A Light Below due out on Western Vinyl on 10/11/19. You can listen to the track on Soundcloud and follow Christopher Tignor at the links below.

open.spotify.com/artist/4fHCEeChre5Ajrkk2ktKdG
twitter.com/tignortronics
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At the Intersection of Atonality and Urgency, Christopher Tignor’s “I, Autocorrelations” is a Modern Classical Analog of the Multiple Perils Facing the World

ChristopherTignor1_crop — Christopher Tignor, photo courtesy the artist

“I, Autocorrelations” is Christopher Tignor’s lead single from his forthcoming album A Light Below due out on October 11 on Western Vinyl. The album is a record wherein the sounds are done by “prepared violin and percussion.” While that may sound very academic the effect of the piece is deeply emotional. Tignor’s violin bowing and plucking over a drone and hitting a broad range of the scale suggestions an anxiety, urgency and tension that strikes one when coming to a sudden realization of a truth that must be acted upon immediately. Hitting the occasional atonal figure adds greatly to the sense that formalities must be dispensed with to address the issue at hand before some impending menace comes to fruition. The percussion accents, perhaps bass drums and xylophone, provide the stability and calm to give the song a grounding when it masterfully threatens to go off the rails. Listen to “I, Autocorrelations” on Soundcloud and follow Christopher Tignor at the links provided.