Chris Justice - The Great Wave - 2026 Tiny Desk

Описание: My favorite artist is Winslow Homer, whose marine paintings depict the north Atlantic hammering the rocky coast of Maine. Through that lens, the marine woodcuts of Hokusai are nonetheless readily accessible to someone oblivious to the nuances of Edo woodcuts as I am.

I wrote “The Great Wave” 40 years ago, and par for my MO, I have revised and reworked it a good bit for this incarnation. Every time I play it it is different, and over the years the song’s title has changed too. I rearrange the bits and pieces as the spirit moves me, I experiment with phrasing and dynamics and there are also a couple spots that allow for improvisation.

I recorded this version on a 1992 Taylor 555c in a kind of odd dropped tuning (BF#BF#G#C#) that I use for maybe 30 – 40 of my songs. The piece is kind of a bear to get decently right, so for this recording I cut myself some slack and swapped in some light gauge strings to be able to play the main theme cleanly. It was a knuckle buster to manage on the usual John Pearce medium set I use.

It is also my Tiny Desk 2026 contest entrant, this is the fifth year I have submitted a piece to the NPR Tiny Desk contest. I tried to record it outdoors on the terraza, but it was too breezy, so I settled for the bedroom instead. I hope you like the tune!
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