Highlights From 2025
From All 3 Substacks by Jack DeSalvo - Composing for Improvisers, Guitar Nexus and Soundings
It has been quite an intense year, besides my usual composing, practicing, performing, recording and teaching music, I found myself writing three different Substacks, all of which contains different material as well as different media.
Being that time of year, I figured I’d pull out some highlights from all three Substacks and present them here.
My first Substack post of the year for Composing for Improvisers, was on February and it started with an image my handwritten version of Tarium, where it was actually composed. I discussed, among other things, how I wrotr the piece in 11/8.
Solstice Blues, from Solstice 2024.
Guitar Nexus actually began as a video series on YouTube, initially discussing technical things, chords, etc. but with the aim of finding the nexus between jazz guitar and classical guitar or more generally between plectrum (pick) styles and fingerstyle as well as the divergent left hand techniques. beyond technique Guitar Nexus is about how the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic aspects of different musical traditions could enrich each other.
I then began, eventually almost everyday, creating short videos of me improvising on various guitars. With occasional exceptions these guitar improvisations are completely improvised in the moment.
Wanting to add more written material and wanting to enjoy the freedom and expanse of the Substack platform I moved guitar Nexus here.
Orbs and the New Year was the first Guitar Nexus video of 2025.
The orbs reference was from the Orb/UAP flap that occurred in the latter part of 2024.
In the first Guitar Nexus of 2025 on Substack I Showed that by keeping a string open while moving up the frets you could create some novel and sophisticated voicings.
Here’s a bit of it.
ADDED-NOTE CHORDS AND OPEN STRINGS
With guitar we try and use as few left hand fingers as possible, not just so we have free fingers to add more voices, melodies or bass notes, but also to minimize the fatigue factor.
This can be done with the use of open strings, even if the fretted notes are higher up on the neck. One possibility is to form a major triad shape - voiced Root, 5, 3, around an open string.
We start with forming a major triad voiced, from low to high, with the root on the fourth string, the 5th on the third string and the 3rd on the first string. This of course leaves the second string, B, open. This will help us as we move this triad shape chromatically up the neck with the open B remaining constant, to define each added-note chord as we go up.
Here, from Composing for Improvisers, from November 8, 2025, is an example of some novel harmonic material, useful to both composers and improvisers, presented in a depth rarely seen in music theory or otherwise.
Diads (or Dyads) - Two Note Combinations
Triads and Three Note Combinations.
Triads, more specifically than diads, are chords made up of the Root, 3rd and 5th (or altered 3rd and/or 5th. There are, of course, three note combinations that do not fot this criteria, but it’s surprising how many do, especially in inversion while still having an alternate identity.
Triads with altered 3rds and/or 5ths include: b3 for minor (m), b3 and b5 for diminished (o), #5(+) for augmented, 3rd replaced with 2 for (sus2) and b2 for(sus b2), 3rd replaced with 4 for (sus4) and #4 for (sus#4). Larger intervallic alterations can occur in the context of more exotic modal sources; double sharp 4th (sus x4).
Soundings
In 2025 I began a third Substack, Soundings. Being that I founded and run the record label Unseen Rain Records I thought Substack would also be a wonderful place to release music. Soundings is dedicated to making available new and vintage recordings that are from various groups, trios, duos and solo, that I perform on, sourced from digital files, reel-to-reel tape, 4-track cassettes, cassettes and LPs. Many recordings are from private and unpublished origin,
So from Soundings, here is an excerpt from my piece Aside. from the albums Liquide Stones where I play electric and classical guitar and Arthur Lipner plays vibraphone and marimba. The full album is available at Soundings.
May this season bring you the Greatest Joy and the Happiest New Year.
Jack DeSalvo