The Baltimore-based interdisciplinary artist Liz Durette recontextualizes the Fender Rhodes, an electric piano best known for its classic rock connotations (heard in The Eagles, The Doors, The Doobie Brothers, and the like), as the outlet for her solo improvisations informed by classical theory. The instrument is the basis for Duretteâs setup heard on her two latest albums: the 2016 tape âSix Improvisations,â and her debut LP âFour Improvisations,â released this past September. Both are available on the prolific Baltimore experimental/avant-garde label Ehse Records; other notable soloists on the label include saxophonist Andrew Bernstein (with whom Durette has improvised live), noise/visual artist Jimmy Joe Roche, and pianist Leo Svirsky.
I met up with Durette at her home studio in Baltimoreâs Hampden neighborhood, to find out more about her evolution as one of the underground/DIY communityâs most acclaimed soloists, and how she uses classical influences to broaden the possibilities of improvisation. There was downpour throughout the evening. She made us tea, and when I was about to head out after our conversation, Durette gave me an umbrella of hers to take on my walk back to the bus stop.
VAN: Do you still improvise on electric organ?
Liz Durette: No. I play Rhodes, electric piano. Theyâre different, the action on a Rhodes is more like a piano. The way I improvise depends a lot on gesture, so I need to use a very touch-responsive instrument.
Where did you first play the Rhodes? Iâve always associated it with classic rock.
One of my friends had one and I bought it from them. Yes, the Rhodes piano has very specific connotations with a few certain types of music, even specific songs. Iâm using it in a new way. Often when people ask about my instrument, they say, âOh I love the sound of Rhodes!â I feel neutral about the sound itselfâI use it because it is very flexible and sensitive, I can make it sound a lot of different ways, and itâs simple, too. At this point I just use a booster pedal and an amp, it doesnât need a lot of pedals to make it sound great. I donât need to mess with a lot of extra gear. The only downside is its weight, which can be pretty hellish going up stairs.

The electric organ music which Durette was making right after graduating from art school wasnât as tethered to pianistic comprehension and methodology as her latest music. In the past handful of years, she has been practicing piano more regularly. Shostakovich, whose Preludes and Fugues âloosened some unconscious constraintsâ (a quote taken from her artist bio on Ehseâs website), has been especially profound. Accounting for Shostakovichâs impact along with the high touch-sensitivity of the Rhodes, loosenessâarguably the most integral element of improvisationâhas both technical and spiritual significance to Duretteâs current approach.
When was the first time you heard Shostakovich?
His music was definitely a catalyst to the music I am making now, though at this point there are other composers that have more of a direct influence on me than him. I would have first heard his music at orchestra concerts, I would go when I was growing up. I practiced cello and I remember working on his cello sonata, I loved the opening movement. His way of letting melodies drift around is definitely an impulse I can relate to, and tend to exaggerate, in my own music. I heard Keith Jarrettâs recording of the Preludes and Fugues, and that really blew my mind. I guess I would have been 20 or so. At that point I was starting to practice piano again. Iâd taken lessons when I was a kid. I wasnât very good then, and now, still, Iâm only a proficient enthusiast at playing classical music. Eventually, as I became a better sight-reader, I got the score. A lot of them are very difficult, especially for someone at my level, but I started working on them.
At the same time I had been making my own keyboard music and was into it, but not taking it super seriously. I went to school for painting; after I graduated I was making music but was mostly focused on art. After I started working on the Preludes and Fugues, it felt as if the keyboard was cracked open for me and I could play my own music. It happened in a day, and everything made more sense to me than the music I had been making before.
Was it Shostakovichâs chord shapes that you found unique, or something else?
It was more his way of moving around the keyboard. I had been practicing the easier parts of Mozart and Beethoven pieces. Just something different about moving around the keyboard. I donât really know how to explain it. With chords, Schubert is more of an influence, once I started practicing his sonatas, I really love those. Those come through in my music a bit, the way he tucks the melodies into his chords, that is a direct influence on my playing.
Iâm not setting out to make classical musicâwhat I do with practicing and learning classical music is the ground for what Iâm doing. Practicing new pieces opens up different ways of playing that I wouldnât necessarily come to if I was just improvising on my own. Also, when Iâm improvising, I want to be able to go wherever I want, to have the facility to do that. Working on classical music helps a lot with that; the patterns and intervals get in your hands a bit while youâre playing the same thing over and over, and that comes out in improvising.
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For both âSix Improvisationsâ and âFour Improvisations,â were there guidelines you followed while improvising? Did they differ from those of past improvisations?
Not so much with âSix Improvisations,â there was no specific goal or plan beyond my ideas about improvising. I was feeling out being in the studio, I hadnât done that before. A lot of the âshapeâ of each album happens during editing. For both âSixâ and âFour Improvisations,â I recorded about six hours of music each, and I spent a long time listening to find the starting and stopping points of songs, and spent a long time cutting out anything that doesnât feel completely essential. There is no editing within the songs themselves.
âSix Improvisationsâ has some distortion on itâfor âFour Improvisationsâ I wanted to see as much as I could do with a very straight, clean sound. I wanted very little room sound, if you play it on your stereo then itâs in your room. I wanted the sound to be very simple and straight, so that all of the musical interest or excitement is coming from the playing itself. Where the music tends to be very free and sometimes complex, I wanted the sound to be very direct, nothing is hidden.
The pieces on âFour Improvisationsâ are longer than those on âSix Improvisations.â Was that natural or intentional?
Itâs just how the music is. The music has its own start and stops. I listen and try to follow what it wants. If itâs long, Iâll leave it long. Part of what I âpracticeâ in improvising is trying to keep track of longer amounts of time, while still being in the momentâas I practice this, over time the songs sometimes get longer, as I can gradually keep track of more information in my head as Iâm playing along. The 20 minute song on the B side [of âFour Improvisationsâ] was recorded after I spent a day alone at the beach, I felt so full of sunshine and ocean sounds, all that sun energy organized itself in a piece. If it sounds complete, then it is, and I leave it that way even if it gets long.

Have you ever thought about giving your pieces different titles?
No. If it was up to me there would be no titles at all (right now I number them). But, you canât have a blank titled digital file! So I use numbers, it seems like the most neutral. The music is not verbal, and I donât see any need to add any content or context to it.
Because Duretteâs approach is so technical, itâs unmarked by defined sensory cuesâshe doesnât associate any visuals, symbolism, or feelings with her compositionsâyet listeners in Baltimoreâs underground arts community have had sensational experiences at her live performances: A showgoer once approached her after a set and told her about vividly imagining some kind of magnificent, luminous field.
When you listen back to a song, do any particular images or feelings become apparent?
No, not for me. Iâm thinking more about musical form. But people tell me all the time that they have a lot of visual experiences when I play live shows. People will tell me afterwards things like, âWhile you were playing I saw I was in a clearing in a forest, and there were these floating lights,â all kinds of things like that. A few people have told me they have intense feelings, that they cried, or that they felt bad before and much better after. It does seem healing and ecstatic to listen to free, direct music, and itâs cool people are feeling this way and seeing things. But I donât come at it from that angle, nothing visual from me. For me, itâs more about the structure of what Iâm doing, the process of improvising.
Iâm not thinking, Iâm paying attention. Itâs a mindset of trying to be in this weird balance-space. On the one hand, youâre opening to thingsâbeing open but then, also, finessing whats going on with your own ideasâfor me that area in between is the most important part. I always want the music to leap off, but sometimes it can really go too far; I know, then, itâs not communicating with anybody for any good. Itâs important to me for the music to communicate. So itâs this back and forth between those two poles of balancing it.
It is spiritual, itâs not something to describe in words, I use music. ¶
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