![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/aaron_price_offering.jpg\")
Aaron Price is one busy musician. He plays bass guitar and keyboards in the nationally-recognized tribute group Wham Bam Bowie Band; he plays barrelhouse piano in a duo with vocalist Peggy Ratusz; he collaborates with guitarist, singer and songwriter Jeff Thompson. But his latest project is an expression of his longest-held musical focus: an album of sacred music.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth sides of my family were pretty much church going families,\u201d Price says. \u201cSo I guess the sacred music went hand in hand with my initial process of learning music at the piano.\u201d He was a member of the Raleigh Boy Choir as well. But by the time he was in college, Price had seemingly left that kind of music behind. Yet once he returned to Asheville and opened his own recording studio, he was offered the job of Music Director at West Asheville Presbyterian Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never imagined I would still be doing this 15 years later,\u201d he says. \u201cBut here I am. And these songs are still coming out of my fingertips and going to my mind.\u201d Price’s newest album is Offering: Hymn Improvisations, Vol. 1<\/i>. The album is an answer to numerous requests from parishioners. \u201cFolks at the church have always encouraged me to make recordings of the improvisations that I do in the service,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
One might not think that sacred music played in church would pair well with improvisation, a technique more readily associated with jazz. But in the capable hands of Aaron Price, the combination works. \u201cI always start off referencing the truest sense of the melody and harmony that I know, specifically the way it can be found in the hymnal,\u201d he explains. \u201cI get centered by playing through the tune a couple of times, and then I use the feeling that it gives me as inspiration. I just let my fingers wander.\u201d<\/p>\n
Price says that he knows the tunes well enough \u2013 songs like \u201cPrecious Lord, Take My Hand,\u201d \u201cGreat is Thy Faithfulness\u201d and \u201cJust a Closer Walk With Thee\u201d \u2013 so that playing them is a kind of meditation. \u201cI just empty my mind and let my subconscious and spirit guide me along in the improvisation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
People expect to hear sacred songs in a recognizable fashion, so Price can’t (and doesn’t) wander too far from the basic melodies. But even within the confines of well-known hymns, he manages to explore and convey his own distinctive musical personality. He compares his improvisations to holotropic breathwork: Price says that when someone listens to his take on sacred music, \u201cI want it to be a very stimulating \u2013 and yet meditating and relaxing \u2013 experience for the listener.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Price’s varied musical background manifests itself in some very subtle ways within the sacred improvisations. Midway through \u201cHow Can I Keep From Singing,\u201d he inserts a quick flourish \u2013 lasting mere seconds \u2013 that’s very much in an African American gospel style. And his approach to \u201cHappy the Home When God is There\u201d has a feel reminiscent of early 1900’s music a la<\/i> Stephen Foster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stride piano style of ‘Happy the Home’ called to me,\u201d Price says. \u201cAlthough it’s typically a slow, plaintive hymn, one day I was messing around with it, and started to boogie. And I thought, ‘Oh, this works really well!’\u201d He notes that although the songs on Offering<\/i> each have their own style, when he plays them in church, they might be quite different. \u201cI never play a tune the same way twice,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And though he approaches sacred music in a manner very different from, say, a David Bowie tune, in some ways the two styles aren’t as different as they might seem. \u201cI’m sort of an adventurer,\u201d Price says. \u201cSo everything that I learn goes into the same big giant bag.\u201d And even at one of his secular gigs, he might bust out a sacred melody. \u201cIt’s really fun to juxtapose interesting tunes when I’m playing in public,\u201d he says, \u201cjust to sort of show people \u2013 and remind myself \u2013 that it’s all<\/i> music. And it’s all<\/i> spiritual.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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