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.

Here’s a little back-story: in my first semi-public attempts as an improvising guitarist, I had my guitar, amp and volume pedal… plus a compressor, a distortion box, a delay pedal and a chorus unit. Eventually, this chain would be joined by a wah. (I did, incidentally, my first recordings (a piece by Pedro Rebelo) with more or less this complex of equipment.)

Why am I going through this guitar-geek fetish confession? I started as an improvising guitarist of the ‘if-only-I-had-a-gizmo-I-would-rock’ school of wishful, self-delusion. Somewhere in my head, I had this naive idea that what separated me from the Frisells and Friths of the world was the hardware. (Oh, I almost got myself, don’t laugh, an SG thinking that this would get me closer to Frisell and Zappa.)

Yet Bailey never got better than with a guitar, terrible sounding fuzz box, a volume pedal and amp. Heck, Braxton, age 24, got two LPs from a single alto.

Who was I kidding here?

I only got through my personal-political-musical-technical hiccups and hang-ups by jettisoning, first the wah, then the compressor and delay, and eventually the distortion and the chorus boxes.

Fast-forward to the present…

I feel I’ve melowed from my fundamentalist, luddite stance from years ago, but, as I sat watching Katie O’Looney setup her behemoth kit, as I helped her carry her atomized percussion setup out of her van, up the stairs, into the performance space, I couln’t quite figure out what I was feeling.

My mentors include those who enroll gargantuan complex of musical resources and those who do not. How do I figure in this equation? There are, of course, pragmatic dimensions to this (I travel from one gig to another, by and large, via public transport), but nonetheless what are the political/ideological implications of subscribing to one position?

Part choice, perhaps: I did, for example, suggest to Owen Sutton that he might want to “decide whether you’re an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink drummer (a la Tony Oxley), or happier with a more spartan approach (like Joey Baron). Neither [is] the wrong choice, of course….” Sure, neither’s wrong, but neither are they neutral; they have very different implications and possibilities.

It’s an issue that popped up before (I briefly touched on this last month, Bruce Coates talked about with the Risk Managers in November ’07, and Chick Lyall in February ’08), but it came to the fore after talking with members of OPKA the day after the Lab. It strikes me that, as good as OPKA’s performance was this month (and there was some fine playing), there’s perhaps a danger that this is as good as it’s going to get; that OPKA is getting a little too comfortable with the current mode of interaction and their roles within the OPKA micro-society.

avoiding chamber music

As both an improviser and a sometimes orchestral double-reedist, Murray contrasted the (useful? successful?) mode of operation in improvised music with what he called the “chamber music mentality”. In chamber music, every part is essential—there is no string quartet without a viola, you cannot have SATB without the alto. Additionally, in every section (and to some extent, between parts), ‘blending’ is the primary criteria for being a good ensemble player. And these parts, these musical roles (viola, alto, second oboe, etc.), are predefined; every player inherits this role and, to some extent, is subsumed into it.

Let’s call this the chamber music criteria…

• every part is essential
• ‘blending’ is the primary goal
• every role/part is externally defined

…and keep this in mind in the subsequent discussion.

meanwhile, in improvised music…

Murray told me that growing familiarity, in performing with Randy McKean in recent years for example, actually leads to a move away from the comfort zone. Murray told me that the duo with Randy really took off with the realization that, whatever Murray did, it would not ‘break’ Randy. Additionally, the acceptance that Murray was ‘dispensable’ (this isn’t exactly the right word, but Murray and I struggled to find the word that encapsulated this idea): if Murray stopped, the performance would go on just fine without him.

In other words, whatever Murray did, Randy would handle it.

I’ve been prone to sports metaphors in the past, but Murray came up with a new one: table tennis. A great game of table tennis is not one that you score points, but in which all your resources—your body, your mind, your training—tells you one thing, but circumstances outwit you. You reach for the ball, but it ball heads in a completely different direction. You loose a point, but you go wow, how did that happen?

On the other hand, a boring table tennis game, from both the players’ and the spectators’ points of view, is one in which the players know exactly what’s going to happen. Lob, lob, lob, lob…. Table tennis ain’t chamber music; we can’t all be reactive, we need to inject left-field choices into the mix.

Thus, going back to our chamber music criteria, Murray posits that not only are these, at best, peripheral issues in group improvisation, they can become liabilities.

So, let’s put together an alternative list:

• every one is ‘dispensable’/‘inessential’
• it’s important to add something unexpected/incongruous/different
• you have the possibility, and the responsibility to, (re)define you role

random observations and questions

Performing in a virus fueled haze…

As I was battling through a cold, my recollections of the whats, whens, hows and whys of this month’s Lab are a bit hazier than normal. (That, incidentally, is why I’ve concentrated on more general points in this report, though I plan to return to a more focused agenda next month….)

The duos with Murray (who was also suffering from a cold) were not, I think, up to our usual standards (we did, for example, much better in June). But I’d be less than honest if I said I wasn’t disappointed…. (And, yet again, I do that tired, lazy whump at the 1:31 mark on ‘the one that almost got away’—yuck, yuck, yuck.)

However, I’m curious how much did work considering my mind and body seemed to be unable to grasp anything other than the most rudimentary tactical decisions. How did it sound to everyone else?

Trusting your (former) students?

Back in July, I wrote that

…sometimes I seem to be the one holding the group back in performance. Listening back to, for example ‘evening echo’, it’s the guitarist holding the group back. Marian Murray, Neil O’Loghlen and Veronica Tadman do not need me to make concessions. They know how to swim, and I don’t need to provide the floatation device.

And that’s my problem during my duet with Tony: an unjustified lack of trust in Tony’s [Tony O’Connor’s] abilities. I think I’m still stuck thinking that I’m performing in a classroom context, and not in the big bad world.

The two ditties (the two ‘versions’ of ‘the one that almost got away’) with Murray, myself, Tony O’Connor and Veronica Tadman were, perhaps, the first time when I finally managed to let go of certain issues of trust.

Do you know your improviser-teachers’ moves?

Apropos of nothing to do with Stet Lab, but one thing I noticed during the recent performance by FURT was how much I could anticipate Richard Barrett’s gestures. Now, Richard was my teacher, and I also noticed something similar with another of my (former) teachers, Chick Lyall, when he performed last year. So my question: do you know your improviser-teachers’ moves? Can you anticipate, with unexpected, above average accuracy, their gestures? Do you share their timing—their rhythm?

I ask partly because I got the feeling that, during this month’s Lab, Tony and I were sometimes spookily locked together.

There’s also a lot to be said for putting two ‘alikes’ together; be it the same instrumentation, or people who share a name. Okay, AFAIK, tactically, as an improviser, that latter factor doesn’t make an iota of difference, but I can vouch for the former.

Murray Campbell and Marian (that’s Marian Murray) fit that bill, and, as the odd-one-out, I get to play lazy. (And as one of my teachers pointed out recently, improvisers are, to some extent, lazy; we’re often attracted to methods, strategies and practices that get immediate results.)

Here’s one thing that was premeditated on June 12th: the line-up. I figured that by doubling the fiddlers, that they’d be pushing each other to interesting places, or at least out of each other’s way. And all I’d have to do is ride the wave.

So let me talk you through the tactical hits-and-misses of two ditties from the POV of the odd-one-out. Open up the listen page, look-up the recordings entitled ‘nine fifty-nine is divisible by seven’ and ‘toilette bourgeoise’…

nine fifty-nine is divisible by seven

Here’s another premeditation (with the usual improviser’s caveat that given the right circumstances I might change my mind): I decided to walk off stage and let the fiddlers sort themselves out; find their own vibe. Once that vibe was established, I anticipated that it’d be a fairly straightforward task to re-enter the fray, with the added luxury of having plenty of time to think about my (re-)entrance.

Incidentally, Marian, Neil O’Loghlen and I tried something like this in the May Lab with, I think it’s fair to say, mixed results. I thought, however, we might be in a better position to pull it off this time.

I was pushing for an opening with some strong, broad gestures.

Aside: the opening guitar ‘licks’ were a followup to Tony O’Connor’s entrance earlier in the evening (listen to ‘ruined train of thought’). …and, in my case, it’s also a straight Frith rip-off if you’re wondering.

Of course (and I don’t really need to tell you this) it didn’t turn out as expected. The high-energy opening wasn’t, instead becoming a set of semi-autonomous statements.

And this is where things get interesting…

…and all the best laid plans…

As soon as I walk off stage, the vibe changes. Heads to some in-bred sibling of some radiation-poisoned cousin of some Second-Viennese-School-by-numbers. Odd (as in delicately odd), beautiful (beautifully tasteless) and, I think at the time, where the f*ck did this come from? If I was expecting Murray and Marian to push each other to interesting places, I certainly got that.

Secondary problem with this strategy: although “having plenty of time to think about my re-entrance” is indeed a luxury, like a lot of ‘prepared means’, they come with Improviser’s Hazard No. 697: exactly when would be a good time to act?

I’d anticipated that the aforementioned vibe that the fiddlers had setup would remain in place for my re-entrance, but, as it happened, Webern-for-Dummies™ instantaneously evaporated when I sat back in. (Berg-for-Dummies™ would later pop up during ‘what is the avant-garde? (discuss)’.)

Another aside: I thought that the physical orientation of the trio (left-to-right: violin, violin, guitar) would make it hard for me to pick out the individual fiddle players. Murray was playing right into my ear while I couldn’t even see Marian. Turned out, however, not to be a problem, although I found myself interacting with Murray and Marian very differently. All interactions between Murray and myself could be a little more elliptical—the relationship was implicit, almost taken for granted. With Marian, on the other hand, I found myself almost telegraphing a call-and-response; all the gestures were slightly broader, a little more explicit, delivered with almost no overlap. (But I wonder if the audience could catch any of that…)

toilette bourgeoise

You can almost hear the guitarist’s thought processes on this one. Goes something like this:

Given that it’s pointless to compete with violins on timbre, sustain, or (micro-)intervalic stakes, what’s the poor guitarist to do? Since there’s no way that the poor guitarist can keep up with a fiddle player who decides to go the extreme scratchy, droney, slidey route, the poor guitarist should stick with the percussive and the polyphonic.

So the guitar goes tappity – tap – tap – t’thump
and the fiddles go krrr’shhhhhhh – scrrrrreeeeechhhh – scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
(starts at around 0’20″).

Or guitar: t’tap – tap – p’pop – pop’p’p’p
and fiddles: weeeeeeeee – eeeeeeeeeeeeeee – eeeeeeeeeeeee
(at around 1’23″).

I tried for the Oxley-esque meters gear-shifts, but the body-mind-instrument complex was not cooperating (I think I had a better shot at this last month).

…or I may have consumed one drink too many (there’s a cautionary tale here somewhere).

Then the question: now what?

I tried a half-hearted juxtaposition of gesture-types, but that really didn’t go anywhere (interesting). Having said all that, listening to the recording right now, I don’t think that particular failure made any difference to the overall performance.

I think we owe the faux-bluegrass moments that starts and sputters across this ditty (beginning somewhere around the 4’20″ mark, and coming to the foreground at about 6’50″) largely to Eoin Callery’s and Barry Twomey’s playing / instrumentation earlier in the evening.

In retrospect, the most interesting thing about these ditties was how easily / clumsily, fluidly / abruptly, imperceptibly / overtly the trio configures and re-configures itself. One moment it’s two fiddles + guitar, another it’s one solo fiddle supported by the guitar-violin duo. One moment the guitar-percussion it met by violin scratches and subtones; a single violin in scratch’n’subtone mode is met by guitar-percussion plus violin-percussion; or the guitar-percussion morphs into pseudo-country-finger-pickin’ which recontextualizes the scratches and subtones.

some random observations

Susan Geaney may have done some of her best (most interesting and oblique) playing at this Lab. Rumor has it that she was hung-over. Whatever the case, her usual reserve seems to have gone out the window. (Hope this state is achievable without constant recourse to alcohol.)

The potential volume discrepancy between Eoin’s and Tony’s instruments (unplugged dulcimer vs. amplified bass guitar) offers some challenges. As it happens, Tony spent the bulk of the evening at very low volume levels, and Eoin was whacking the dulcimer senseless, but given how sensitive a player Tony was being, I wonder if Eoin was ever tempted to play quieter?—bringing the whole ensemble down with him—or was Susan’s new-found boldness going to prevent that from happening?

Although it’s by no stretch of the imagination ‘good music’ (whatever that means), the quartet of Murray, Marian, Tony and Veronica Tadman (filed under ‘kentucky fried music’) may be my favorite for its shear technicolor, psychotic strangeness. No, Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.