note: I’m plugging the performance here because Franziska’s appearance at the Lab in November ’08, and Bruce’s in December ’08 and in May ’09 rode on the back of this project.

I grabbed my very old, slightly damp-damaged guitar strap off the wall and headed out the door.

It may be as much as fifteen years since I performed standing up with the guitar (and the last time may have been for a game piece by Pedro Rebelo that required a degree of physical and theatrical mobility).

I expected the experience to be physically and psychologically… odd, but I wasn’t prepared for the oddness of keeping my boots on.

And, hey, I never realized how (socio-musically) useful it is to be able to move fro and back as you signal the move from foreground to background.

I figured if I couldn’t carry the 15–20 minutes I’d be playing in the relatively safe space of the Lab without the usual resources (of variable volume envelopes, of the familiar posture), I’d be in trouble playing with the old-timers at OTO. I needed to know….

So I’m up there with John Godfrey: I’ve heard him play over the years, of course, but this was our first on-stage meetings, and I wanted this to be different—to provoke a different kind of music.

And without my usual resources, the volume pedal in particular, I’d figured it would be relatively easy to contrast with John’s highly technically mediated sound (‘sound,’ again, in the afrological sense).

I wanted the performers (myself and John) to work. In a similar maneuver to the encounter with Evan Dorrian, I wanted to create a context in which we’d have to exert effort, to labor; to push him, and, hopefully, to be pushed and pulled in return.

From a curatorial standpoint, however, a problem with this approach is that, as the Lab progresses though the evening, and as many more people engage on-stage (which is a good thing), there’s often gradual downward slope in terms of densities, complexities and energy levels. The format in which the relatively experienced improvisers do their shtick early on during the evening was a created in response to comments from audience members that they desired to witness “how it should (or could) be done” before the relative rookies took to the stage.

But that energy dip….

As curator and club-runner, how might I solve this problem without wrecking the Stet Lab mission? Is it a problem?

Talking to Owen Sutton (drummer) and Tony O’Connor (bass player) after the five (count ’em) guitar ensemble that closed the Lab, I remarked that one of the complications (and one that I worried about prior to the guitar quintet’s performance ten minutes to venue close) stemmed from guitarists generally have bad braking times.

We’re not like our true rhythm section brethren (drummers, bass players, etc.) or our frontline counterparts (horn players, fiddler, vocalists). A braking latency is a trait we share with other idiomatically polyphonic instrumentalists (keyboard players, pianists). Many of us came from the bedroom and can too easily get lost in our little worlds; solipsistic and oblivious to anything but the neat stuff flowing from under our fingers. [Seriously, listen to the track and count how many times you think this happens.]

During the quintet Kevin Terry deploys a moment of near-verbatim quotation. It’s funny and it’s effective.

Sometime later (for me significantly later in the context of this ditty), Enda Buckley also throws one in.

I’m reminded of one student who would, with impeccable timing, while the rest of the ensemble were doing the Make-A-New-Music-Noise-Here routine, would throw in a beautiful open DΔ chord on his guitar at exactly the wrong (thus entirely right) time. It would send the self-fashioned New Music Ensemble reeling from the comfort of its plink-plonks, bloop-bleeps and scratch-crashes.

Fantastic!

This is what Cage never understood. For the Cagian doctrine, all sounds can be sounds as long as it had (ostensibly, and according to culturally and ideologically (and racially) specific criteria) was ‘free’ of history and context. What Cage (and his followers) were barricading themselves from was not convention, but power—the power to disrupt their cozy, easy liberalism.

But that’s a story for some other time….

The pleasure / utility / power of a quote is to throw a big fat spanner into the working of group improvisation.

The drawback / hazard / weakness of a quote can be summed up by the question: now what?

A single quote (as opposed to an explicitly and contiguously idiomatic performance, or a scatter-brained collage of channel-hopping) can have interesting and problematic consequences for interaction. The effectiveness of the quote—to be able to collapse and redirect and improvisation—is also what makes them hard to deal with. Now what? Given that this quote redefined and reconstructed the performance up to this point, now what? I wonder what consequences Kevin and, in particular, Enda were expecting?

1. Is ‘success’ (however that’s defined) a meaningful idea in approaching (as listener or performer) improvisation?

I’ve tried to address this issue from the other side before, so let me paraphrase that here:

What is the status of ‘success’ in improvisative performance? Is the notion of success relevant to improvised music? If relevant, is it important in the ongoing practice (evolution, mutation or adaptation) of improvisation?

And does that success or failure depend on a more-or-less autonomous criteria (whether or not you call that criteria ‘musical’)? Furthermore:

Not withstanding the desirability of both, is it better to fail as a piece of music, yet leap into the unknown, or is it better to craft a listenable piece of music, but remain in a safe space?

2a. If yes to question 1, what might success mean in an improvisative practice?

I’ve circled around this issue without necessarily addressing it.

It wasn’t going to be great every time. It can’t be. We aim for greatness (however you define that) perhaps (I know I do), but we often fail.

…[The right attitude for improvisation is one] that encompasses a personal (or shared) understanding that some outcomes are more desirable (however you gauge that) than others. Add to that a sense of how to improve (evolve, mutate and adapt)—a creative intelligence—that makes the next one likely better than the last, and you have the model improviser. Aren’t we, to borrow a term from Mark Dresser, involved in a personal pedagogy?

That logic seems a little circular to me—I’ve failed to define many of these elements—and I fear that I’ve sketched out a practice that is defined largely by reflexive criteria (“I did that because I felt like it”). Certainly that does not tally with my professed skepticism of wishful, transcendental musicality.

Aside: I find it interesting that Dominic Marcella points up the YouTubified duo with Bruce Coates as an example of unsuccessful music. Bruce and I would probably agree that it was not our best moment by a long shot (I’ve referred to this performance as our “first crash and burn”), but I wonder if Marcella’s invocation of a holistic ideal music helps or hinders ongoing practice?

I think there are broader social, cultural and ideological forces here that make this question answerable (or at least addressable), but I want to know what you think.

2b. If no to question 1, how does the next day’s performance build upon the previous day’s?

There appears to me, at least in theory, possible ways of approaching evolution (at least in the Darwinian or Braxtonian senses) without the explicit mandate of ‘success’.

Sometimes the less than satisfactory improvisations bring into relief approaches or contexts that you are not able (yet) to deal with… or a performer highlights your relative lack of inventiveness or skill…. Even if these are musically less than successful (whatever that means), all these are valuable and are worth participating in as a performer and as a listener. [Read the rest…]

I still haven’t really defined the criteria for this here. I have my own ideas (primarily to do with politics and the sociality of performance) which I may write about at a later date, but what do you think?

3. Do prepared means (plans, schemes, compositions) define the criteria by which an improvisation is successful?

I was curious about the game plan that Paul and Nick Williams has for their duos at the March Stet Lab. By their reckoning, it didn’t quite work… but is that relevant either as performer or as listener? Similarly, the game of tag that opened the March Lab; was the game important or was it peripheral? It certainly affects the dynamic of real-time music-making, but in what way (if at all) is it important to the gauging of success?

In other words, if you have a plan, is success dependent on how closely you follow it? Is the criteria for judging success based upon the shape, form or effect of the plan? or can it be something else?

How much baggage do we bring to (improvisative) play? I’d argue that, as improvisers, our activities and engagement with real-time play might be more… constructive if we step-off this line between Cagian denial of agency and authorial determination. As improvisers, I value your (and my) identity and history (maybe even our prejudices), but I hope that there’s a possibility of their mutation through playful engagement.

I’m asking: what do you think?

The Vortex, London, November 22, 2009

Ingrid Laubrock leans forward, the tenor just about balanced on her right thumb. She shakes the horn, her fingers barely press the keys. There’s a flurry of (imagined? quasi? pseudo?) notes.

Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast, May 16, 2009

First time I hear Justin Yang play, I hear something similar. His approach is nothing like Laubrock’s, but, in Justin’s sound, I hear an approach that seems almost exclusively made-up of these complex of gestures.

To call them ‘extended techniques’ would be problematic; techniques extracurricular to orthodoxy might be a better description.

If I’m making Justin out to be anything like John Butcher, that would also be misleading.

The Vortex, London, November 23, 2009

Henry Grimes is not walking, he’s not playing lines, he’s not holding tones. His left hand shifts in steps, but what you hear is something else. His free fingers—‘articulate’ is so much the wrong word, ‘delineate’ ain’t much better—draw out problematic complexes—clouds of… stuff.

Stet Lab, Cork, December 7, 2009

And Marian Murray does something that’s not a million miles away from Grimes’ technique. Sliding her left hand on the fingerboard, her fingers moving ‘randomly’ (which is not quite the right word), and her bow draws out unexpected harmonics sound one register then another. She creates unpredictable, angular, jumpy phrases through deploying a, when you break it down, simple technique.

The term ‘randomly’ articulates the problematic of improvisation in our consciousness.

If I were to switch on my Composer’s Brain™ (© 1971, Pierre Boulez Inc.) for a moment, I might have heard echos of Ligeti in Grimes’ playing.

…or maybe Xenakis.

Chick Lyall once remarked that improvisers are, in a sense, lazy. He claims an inspiration in Xenakis, but responds to this inspiration with his own improvisative ‘shortcuts’ to obtain analogous results.

These terms (‘lazy,’ ‘shortcut,’ ‘random,’ etc.) articulate the problematic of improvisation in our composerly consciousness.

Another one of my teachers, Richard Barrett, also sees Xenakis as an inspiration—as model—and also problamtizes the boundary between improvisation and composition.

And how did I and Justin arrive here? Both of us with teachers from both the AACM and (so-called) New Complexity?

Department of Music, Edinburgh, date uncertain, 1996?

I remember watching Pedro Rebelo hit some clusters on the piano.

Let me rephrase that.

I remember watching Pedro Rebelo ripple some clusters on the piano. It’s almost fractal—characterized by a self-similarity—a technique for embedding detail and information at different scales.

The effect is almost an information over saturation while avoiding the homogeneity of noise.

On the guitar, I first encounter a technique for generating this kind of complexity in Fred Frith’s playing, and later, almost by accident, I’d find a technique to do that myself.

I’d later call these techniques, for lack of an, AFAIK, existing term, ‘futzing.’

Teaching this technique—‘throwing your hands around the fingerboard and hoping for the best’ or ‘sweeping though the strings and catching a surprise’—turned out, I’d later discover, to be a difficult thing to do.

How do you teach something that is so under theorized? (and how did Coltrane, Taylor, Sanders learn/develope it?) Neither ‘intentional’ (‘deliberate’ and ‘authorial’) nor ‘noise’ (e.g. the Cagian denial of agency). These things—‘noise’/‘intention’—exist on a line, and it isn’t so much about riding the border between them, but steeping off that line. We want to enter a space that is not about control, nor the lack of it, but about surprises, densities and irregularities; about relationships—differences and negotiations… maybe cyborgs.

As someone said elsewhere:

Let me put my cards on the table at this point and say, that for me, virtuosity is a significant element in how I relate to the instrument, how I relate to performance, and how I approach improvisation. Leave aside that vision of a raw, competitive, athletics concept, and I might argue for virtuosity as an interface between the instrument and the instrumentalist. If performance in general, and improvisation in particular, is the (re)enactment and (re)negotiation of identities, boundaries and relationships, then the space between actors (human and non-human) must be a site of (re)construction and (trans)formation.

I suppose what I might be arguing for is, taking my hat off to Donna Haraway, a cyborg improviser—the (un)natural, contradictory, partial identity that is techno-organism (Haraway, 1991). Should I insist on the stable category of human (me), or the stable category of the artifact (guitar), or the hard-edged boundary that separates us, no music can be made. It is in the re-negotiations, and the fluid motions, of the boundaries, the (temporary) creation of hybrids and networks that music (as side-effect) can be improvised.

Virtuosity, to me, means the confusion and connectedness of the (blurry) categories of the musical, the social, the cultural and the technological. On a good day I’m not sure where the cultural ends and the technological starts. Sometimes I wonder if my body stops at my fingertips, or whether it continues through to the fingerboard….

references

Haraway, Donna J. (1991), ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’ in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge), pp. 149-181.

According to the director of the gallery, Fiona Kearney:

As a result of the unprecedented flooding in Cork city on Thursday evening, 19 November 2009, the Lewis Glucksman Gallery has suffered extensive flood damage to its basement. The flooding poses a severe problem for the gallery, as the basement area housed the art stores, a major plant area and the kitchens….

The Glucksman Gallery is grateful for all the support it has received to date which has allowed the gallery to respond to this unprecedented situation with maximum effect. The gallery now faces a major financial challenge to reinstate the award-winning building for public use, and to restore damaged works in the collection.

[Read the rest…]

See also the Glucksman’s facebook page.

[I’m typing this up in Cork several days later, however….]

My initial idea for this report, fueled by my less-than-wonderful playing with Paul Dunmall (Paul, of course, is never less than fantastic) [info on this performance…], was to write about the tightrope balancing act between playing something—crafting something—‘musically’ satisfactory (however you gauge ‘musicality’) versus taking what Steve Lacy called ‘the Leap’ (Bailey, 1992, pp. 57–58). Playing with Paul, it seemed a shame that I didn’t throw in the kitchen sink; after all, there’d be nothing I could do that Paul (with those extra two decades or so experience) wouldn’t have been able to handle. I’m not going to be too hard on myself (I did have a pretty bad cold on the day of that performance), but a lost opportunity is a lost opportunity however you cut it.

Witnessing Filippo Giuffrè’s playing at the November Lab, I thought I heard a… familiar voice; someone with a sound (in that Afrological sense—an approach to musical construction and to the instrument) (Lewis, 2002, pp. 241-242) that I could parse with… ease. Every little gesture, I could almost hear the footnotes: yes, I know that technique, I know that lick, I know that gesture. And though there were elements that are part of Filippo that are not part of me (the shadow of Rowe and touch of Reichel), and probably vice versa (not much sign of Frisell in Filippo’s playing on that night), there was a significant overlap between us. And any exclusion zones (the Rowes, the Reichels) were nonetheless familiar to me (as a listener, if not a practitioner).

Like I said, I could almost hear the footnotes.

Okay, my reaction may have not been a million miles away from that ‘I can do that too’ reaction when Mike Hurley performed at the July ’08 Lab, but the effect was different. Perhaps that difference stemmed from my hoped that being in a crowded space with Filippo would slingshot us into new socio-musical spaces.

In the event, that didn’t happen. As enjoyable and as invigorating as that on-stage encounter may have been (and it’s a shame that it failed to be recorded), we seemed to occupy the same space. ‘Musically,’ I think it worked, but I, for one, failed to take ‘the Leap.’

Anyway, like I said, I’m sitting in London writing this, and another issue is on my mind.

I’ve heard act-after-act, musician-after-musician, each competent, at times with impressive technical proficiency.

And, unlike the lazy magazine critic, I don’t mean that patronizingly; certainly not as an insult. I know that technique is important, and that, in navigating that cyborg (non-)boundary between instrument and instrumentalist, that there is, perhaps, no such thing as ‘empty virtuosity.’

But there are so many performers who sound like countless others; and I ask why I should listen to one as opposed to another.

Yet, thinking of another performance (this one a little while back in Cork), it isn’t enough just to have a niche; not for me, if you are technically incompetent.

I suppose what I am saying is this: I want, at bare minimum, to be able to play—to have a relationship with the guitar that is technically accomplished—but I also want to want to be heard—that listeners/audiences would seek out my playing and my performances. Ambitious? yes. Cocky? probably. But I owe, if not myself, my elders and my tradition nothing less. (I’ll happily take accusations arrogance since the alternative would be insulting to the music—its history, its practitioners, its audience, its community—I’ve chosen to be part of.)

Vijay Iyer’s talk at the Southbank Centre:

Iyer talks of creating “opposites” in performance; of a need for someone or something to be a “foil”. He talks about a dialog with history, with the instrument, with the audience. He talks of “improvising an identity” powered by, and as a result of, social history.

references

Bailey, Derek (1992), Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music (London: British Library National Sound Archive).

Lewis, George E. (2002), ‘Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives’, Black Music Research Journal, Supplement: Best of BMRJ (Vol. 22), pp. 215-246.

The CD includes an excerpt from the improvisations by Murray Campbell, Marian Murray and Han-earl Park from the June 2008 Lab.

Han-earl Park: Hello.

Eliza: How do you do. Please state your problem.

Not exactly a problem, but a kind of…. I’m wondering about what happens when old… when there’s a meeting of improvisers.

Is it because you are wondering about what happens what old that you came to me?

Sorry? No, what I mean is what happens when there’s an on stage reunion I suppose.

Please don’t apologise.

Okay. Take the performance by Marian [Murray], Tony [O’Connor] and myself. How does that compare with the work we’ve done in the past?

Why do you ask?

Well, Marian’s been out of the Lab equation since July ’08, and Tony, spare the cameo appearance in January [2009], the same.

In what way?

In what way? I haven’t really been performing with them, and they, with each other, for a while. The last Lab was, in that sense, a kind of reunion.

Does that question interest you?

Well, that is the question.

I’m not sure I understand you fully.

Does the most recent musical meeting accentuate past patterns, or do you bring new stuff to the table?

We were discussing you—not me.

Okay, do we bring new stuff to the table?

Please go on.

If the purpose of the Lab was to bring improvisers (their practices and approaches) from far afield, how does this reunion play into that?

Do you think its likely that the purpose of the Lab was to bring improvisers (their practices and approaches) from far afield?

Well, I did write the mission statement!

You say you did write the mission statement?

Well, I did.

Can you elaborate on that?

I’ve already done that elsewhere so no, not really.

Are you saying no just to be negative?

I feel I’m getting off topic.

How long have you been getting off topic?

Probably from the start.

What does that suggest to you?

That I’ve not got a clear picture of the situation.

Do you feel strongly about discussing such things?

Yes.

You seem to be quite positive.

Thanks.

I’m not sure I understand you fully.

Take the meeting with Thomas Buckner earlier this month. There’s a dynamic, between Jesse [Ronneau] and myself, and the negotiation between us and Thomas.

Please go on.

The first-time, real-time, on-stage meeting with, in this case, Thomas creates interesting tactical problems for the improvisers. And I get to interact with Jesse in a totally new environment—context.

Do you say and you get to interact with Jesse in a totally new environment / context for some special reason?

Well, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it’s no particular secret that Jesse and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on things improvisative.

Don’t you really mean this in a bad way?

Not at all. That difference is surely what fires the engines of improvisation.

What is it you really wanted to know?

I suppose what I want to know is whether that Murray-O’Connor-Park trio was familiar or unfamiliar.

What would it mean to you if you got to know is whether that Murray-O’Connor-Park trio was familiar or unfamiliar?

Okay, how about this: to what extent, and in what way, was that trio a familiar retread, and to what extent was it something outside the comfort zone?

Are such questions much on your mind?

Given some comments by Paul [Hegarty], Mel [Melanie L. Marshall] and the recent encounter with Thomas, yes.

You are sure.

Yes.

I see.

But perhaps I am simply fetishizing the novel and new.

You don’t seem quite certain.

Most of my work in the last few years has been in the jam session mold. People fly in, or I fly out, and there’s an ad-hoc meeting. What I miss is the band.

Your work in the last few years has been in the jam session mold?

Yup. Even the concerts.

Does that have anything to do with the fact that your work in the last few years has been in the jam session mold?

Well, I suppose one leads to another.

That’s quite interesting.

But I miss the bands. The time to work on specific tactics and approaches.

You say but you miss the bands?

The Church of Sonology, say, or even the ensembles that exist for a few days or weeks. That gives the performers enough time to develop stuff that doesn’t happen in one-off meetings.

What does that suggest to you?

I’m neglecting stuff?

Do you believe it is normal to be neglecting stuff?

Well, it’s good to abandon stuff, not get too attached to it.

Do you feel strongly about discussing such things?

Well, [Evan] Parker admired [John] Coltrane for his ability to abandon. [1]

I’m not sure I understand you fully.

Again, I’m not sure about the fetishizing of the new.

Do you enjoy being not sure about the fetishizing of the new?

Not that—I wonder about the politics of it.

Can you elaborate on that?

Oh, I don’t know. Is it a form of middle-class, upward mobility—transcendence?

Why don’t you know?

Because it [the new] can also be about revolution.

Is that the real reason?

Hard to say. How can I perform one political maneuver while avoiding the other?

What answer would please you most?

That it is about change, but not…. Not sure. That I’ll need think about that.

notes:

1. Graham Lock (1991), ‘speaking of the essence’, Wire (issue 85, March), pp. 30–32.

I don’t subscribe to a silly ideology of some impossibly impartial, neutral, transcendental performance, free of tradition, history, identity. I’m not necessarily saying any one performance is going to be better than another (although I won’t strongly dispute such a claim), but some are, for me, more (for lack of better word) worthwhile than others; they were worth doing, and worth participating in, for reasons of demonstrating promising avenues of future research, or for putting into motion the results of such research. And I hope that the worthwhile performances / tactics / relationships / modes-of-interaction outweigh the others, or that the others lead, eventually, to worthwhile performances / tactics / relationships / modes-of-interaction.

I don’t want to confuse this sense of lack-of-‘worth’ with misfires that nonetheless do point to avenues of future research. Sometimes the less than satisfactory improvisations bring into relief approaches or contexts that you are not able (yet) to deal with (e.g. my playing with Franziska Schroeder at November ’08 Lab [read my report…]), or a performer highlights your relative lack of inventiveness or skill (e.g. Paul Dunmall blowing just about all of us off stage in February [read my report…]). Even if these are musically less than successful (whatever that means), all these are valuable and are worth participating in as a performer and as a listener. (An example of a performance that I wouldn’t have been entirely happy with as a listener would perhaps be the the duet with Bruce Coates in November ’07.)

Does that make any sense?

Okay, what does this have to do with the June Lab? As much as audience feedback was to the contrary, from my POV at least, my playing at that Lab felt like a retread. As much as the Stet Lab audience, prior to June, may not have heard Han-earl Park, the modal player, Han-earl Park, the practitioner of prepared guitar, or Han-earl Park, the deployer of imitative tactics, these all had a sense of, for me, been-there-done-that.

Also it didn’t offer (again, for me) enough in terms of complex relationships. As I wrote in regards to the previous month’s Lab:

I want the listening experience to be rich and interesting. If you’re sharp, you’d have caught it, made connections, and patted yourself on the back for being a clever listener; if not, well, no biggie, hopefully there’s enough complexity to provide ear-candy and (unintended) connections.

verbatim imitation

One thing I did during the June Lab that I haven’t been doing in a long time was (more or less) verbatim imitation.

I did have fun, but I think I also realized (remembered?) why I’d been avoiding this particular mode of interaction. It’s too easy; the choices are the most obvious. It’s like movies that, uncertain of the intelligence of their audience, get loaded with too much exposition. Hey, didn’tcha catch that? No problem, pal, I’ll tell ya again….

And again, as much as the post-performance feedback was positive, I would have liked the performance (the world onstage) to ask more of the audience. I would prefer to have the audience work to make connections and construct, I don’t care what you call it, ‘significance’ / ‘meaning’ / (projected) ‘intent.’ If I were a member of the audience, I’d want the connections to be more… oblique.

the prepared guitar

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the guitarist / banjo player sticks a couple of chop-sticks into the strings, woo-hoo. Yeah? boring. What’s the point?

I’m not dissing Frith or Rowe, but, seriously, who do I think I am. Am I able to get anything interesting out of this (beyond simple-minded novelty)? Who am I kidding?

And isn’t appealing to “simple-minded novelty” again like that movie that pitches at a less-than-intelligent audience?

audience participation

This was something that I’d wanted to see more of. I’d attempted to stage audience participation at the Lab with mixed results in the past, but it was great to have Juniper Hill’s more direct approach.

…but perhaps the chamber music vibe of the evening (established by Piaras Hoban, Veronica Tadman, et al.) conspired against a riotous on/off-stage engagement from really taking off.

…and I can’t play the banjo

Now that may have been the single most striking impulse to deploying a single tactic. Not having much of a repertoire on the banjo meant that, well, I had a pretty narrow line to walk. Do this, then that, uh, what do I have left, okay, that, that, and, finally, this. Not sure there’s much milage available for Han-earl Park, the banjo player, and necessity ain’t always the mother of invention, but that was, in terms of my playing, the most interesting tactic for the evening.

Snippets from a conversation between three musicians:

“Man, I should play more free jazz.”

“It’s not an idiom at all…”

“…a tradition? …a practice?”

“Just play all over the keyboard.”

“It is so much fun.”

“Why don’t I do this all the time?”

“There’s nothing better.”

“There really isn’t.”

“And it’s the simplest algorithm: play all the time, and keep out of each others’ way.”

“That’s right; that’s the algorithm.”

Stet Lab, Cork, May 11, 2009

Bruce Coates, Jonny Marks and myself:

‘is that it? (because I’m going crazy)’

this is getting familiar…

I’ve played with Bruce on and off for a few years now. After the first few not-exactly-problem-free performances (getting to know each other—Fizzle, Birmingham, November 7, 2006; interesting navigations—FrImp, Birmingham, November 1, 2007; competent but polite—Stet Lab, Cork, November 8; first crash and burn—Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, November 9), we’ve found our vibe.

We have, all things considered, relatively quickly learned that we can’t easily break each other, and we can throw in the kitchen sink without (too much) fear—without worrying about whether we can handle the result.

…But the results, well… I’ve wondered about this before, but I’ll ask again: am I getting too comfortable (complacent)? I want to give that question a slightly different spin this time: if, as I’ve stated elsewhere, difference is both sustainable and necessary (or at least desirable) in group improvisation, then should the mode, or context, of expressing difference (a kind of on-stage political protocol) also be variable?

…Does that make any sense?

taking the back seat

With Jonny delivering so much of the drama (and comedy), I feel I can take a back seat—a position that I’m happy to occupy (to own). I can coax certain elements from back here—highlighting this, discouraging that—all the while safe in the knowledge that all ears are on the two standing in from of me. This reminds me (tactically, not musically) of my days in the rhythm section of the (truly mediocre) university big band….)

Since I heard, a few weeks prior to the gig, that Jonny was a throat singer, I’ve wondered how much of my playing would (should?) evoke a kind of compatibility… no, better, affinity. There is, for example, a quasi-jaw harp effect that I do (used to be a (near-)cliché with the Church of Sonology performances) that somewhat resembles (to my uncultured ears) certain forms of overtone singing. Fast forward towards the end of ‘is that it? (because I’m going crazy) part 1’ (about the 10:50 mark). I arrive at at this quasi-jaw harp effect, trying to tempt Jonny to do that thing. When I feel he has caught on, I gradually pull back, making the result a little more oblique.

That, incidentally, is a gross simplification: there was a lot more going on—hedging of bets, tactical anticipations and adaptations—but I want to tell a simpler story today.

I do this, not with any particular mission to interrupt, but because I want the listening experience to be rich and interesting. If you’re sharp, you’d have caught it, made connections, and patted yourself on the back for being a clever listener; if not, well, no biggie, hopefully there’s enough complexity to provide ear-candy and (unintended) connections.

Somewhere in Belfast, May 16, 2009

Snippets from a conversation between three teachers of improvised music:

“I don’t know why students feel the need to park their idiom at the door.”

“Who play ‘real’ music….”

“There’s this fantastic musician who’s a fantastic… they can do bossa, they can….”

“…they can play….”

“Yeah, they can actually play, but when it comes to improvised music, it’s all bloop-bleep….”

“What’s with that?”

Stet Lab, Cork, May 11, 2009

Bruce, Jonny, Paul Dowling, Owen Sutton and myself:

‘loosened up a whole bunch of stuff’

questions for loopers

Based on a conversation between Paul, Owen and myself after ‘loosened up a whole bunch of stuff’, here’s three questions for all you delay-heads and loopers out there:

Why is it that when many of you deploy these devices, the loops are in beautifully crafted, well defined simple meters? I’ve got no problem with simple meters, but many of these electronic devices will happily loop 79/16 or √2/2 until it is blue in the face (except, to make a Zappa-esque observation, it’d never get blue in the face).

Why do so many of you never abruptly stop (or mute) a loop? Surely that effect could be stark, unexpected and, potentially, dramatic.

Why are the majority of loops in the medium scale (in the region of one to six seconds)? Why don’t you loop in units of the very short, or, with modern devices, the very long?