[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.

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.