Thanks for the kind words and thanks for reading. (My guess is that you’d have a story or two to tell…)

Veronica, that’s a great idea. Hint: would you like to draw one up?

If there are worries about publiity, may I suggest a survey should be drawn up so that we can find out where to focus our efforts from the findings?

What did you mean by ‘bruising’ about the Jan 08 ‘juggernaut’ StetLab?

I didn’t mean much more than the “tug-and-pull I experienced during, and immediately after, the January 2008 Lab”, and that the event didn’t adhere to Stet Lab’s purpose.

As I said, sans mission statement, that was perhaps due to a communications breakdown between myself and Tony, but that event only half-heartedly encouraged newcomers to play (despite delegated the curatorial duties to Tony, it was I who had to run around trying to engage people to perform), nor was there much pro-active interaction between old-timers and new.

My feeling was that the old-timers were there to perform with each other, and any engagement with the newcomers was, at best, an afterthought. Stet Lab isn’t supposed to be an “exclusive space for performers and practices already catered for by existing clubs, venues, festivals and concert series”. (Besides, although I consider myself a club-runner by necessity, I have no interest in being a promoter for someone else’s music.)

Additionally, and I don’t know if these comments were recorded in the Cork Music Collective minutes, that was also the point at which Stet Lab became something a little ‘scary’ to other members of the collective. After all, the January ’08 Lab—its participants, its audience—didn’t exactly give David Backhouse, who performed after it, a wonderful time (or a fair chance).

In my opinion rookies who might be interested in improv are put off by students due to their own fragile egos…

Wonder what the solution might be…

You don’t mention the change of day from Thursday to Monday….

Necessity is the mother of invention. We could get a venue for free on Mondays

Thanks for the questions and comments!

A couple of responses…

What did you mean by ‘bruising’ about the Jan 08 ‘juggernaut’ StetLab? I didn’t realise if it hadn’t gone well… then again I was downstairs on door for alot of it I think… there’s clearly a story there but I think it’s weird to mention but not explain.

In my opinion rookies who might be interested in improv are put off by students due to their own fragile egos, because students are getting formal tuition and the perception is therefore a) that they may be significantly ‘better’ and make the rookie look bad, b) that they may criticise (albeit silently) the rookie’s less developed playing styles c) that they are going to be coming from a place theoretically that you can only get to by going to college and therefore there is no point (sic) in trying to get involved. (It might be worth noting that when I entered UCC to study music is exactly the time I stopped performing for good having played keenly and naturally all my life til then. I remember in particular a fellow student dropping into me during one of my last practise sessions saying (I’m sure she didn’t mean to be unkind, though I’m equally certain she didn’t mean it as a compliment) “I’ve never seen anyone play like that before!”.)

You don’t mention the change of day from Thursday to Monday I think that’s very significant and worth talking about for the potential club-runner who might read it.

Think that’s it,

N

Thanks for the comment.

Yes, that does make sense… but I was trying to make a parallel point.

I wasn’t very clear in the article, but what I wanted to say wasn’t that there were problems on-stage, but that the other (rookie) improvisers would be reluctant to go up there in the presence of formally educated musicians. We’d often not get as far as a real-time musical meeting between those groups…

I’d never encountered this phenomenon until recently, and I’m curious if this is specifically an issue with Stet Lab (or with Cork, or with Ireland). In my experience, in other improv spaces (in other towns, in other countries), there would be the narrative of the ‘self-made’ musician that would act as a counterpoint and complement to the formally educated musician. With Stet Lab, it’s almost as if that rhetorical / ideological / cultural alternative doesn’t operate here.

Anyway, thanks again for the comment, and thanks for reading.

Inhibitions tend to arise from a lack of communication. Accordingly, it’s a good idea to have a talk with all of the performers involved beforehand. See what the musicians are willing to share, what’s meaningful to them, and whether they actually listen to each other. That last one’s important. In open discussions, I can quickly determine who has really done their homework. After a while, one’s training at conservatory or whatever is irrelevant. I’m more interested in what a performer can contribute, in real-time, to a given ensemble.

Hope that makes sense. Thanks for posting this essay.