Stet Lab is, and has been for some time, on indefinite hiatus. [More info…]

Tag Archives: marian murray

Stet Lab October 12th 2009: audio recordings

Audio recordings of the October 12th Stet Lab are now online.

Stet Lab October 12th 2009 (reminder)

Stet Lab returns this coming Monday (October 12th 2009), upstairs @ The Roundy.

Stet Lab October 12th 2009 (update)

Stet Lab with Marian Murray, Tony O’Connor and Han-earl Park, plus Piaras Hoban and David O’Regan, takes place on Monday, October 12th 2009, upstairs @ The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland.

Lab report January 12th 2009: healthy disrespect for the comfort zone

A couple of days after the January Lab, I was discussing with Murray Campbell how you avoid getting too comfortable in the context of group improvisation, and he said something interesting, that you should have a “healthy disrespect for the comfort zone”. It’s an issue that popped up before (I briefly touched on this last […]

Audio recordings: proposed terms and conditions

The audio recordings on this site have been made available courtesy of the performers. The current handshake agreement, however, is a little haphazard, and (potentially) prone to misunderstandings. I am therefore proposing to move these recordings onto the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Lab report November 10th 2008: out of my depth

I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Not exactly coasting, but I’ve been fairly comfortable with the tactics, strategies and lexicons I’ve deployed at Stet Lab. Minor criticisms here and there of course, but nothing that seemed to warrant a wholesale rethinking of what to play or how to improvise. But those […]

Lab report July 10th 2008: consequences of a noisy head

Normally, nothing runs through my head when improvising. Occasionally, a thought will suggest, in an unobtrusive way, “Oh, that’s quite cool, you should copy that”. Or, as when I was first messing around with extended techniques on my bass, “My luthier’s gonna kill me…” But, at this Stet Lab, for the first time, a thought […]

Lab report July 10th 2008: fitting the square piece into that triangular hole

It’s good, I think, to think tactically about improvisation, and group improvisation in particular. You know, however, that you’ve lost the game in improvisation when you’re preempting the music. You don’t want to be thinking this is how it should be, goddamnit, and I will fit that square piece into that triangular hole. Much more […]

Stet Lab July 10th 2008: audio recordings

Audio recordings of the July 10th Stet Lab are now online.

Lab report June 12th 2008: being the odd-one-out

There’s a lot to be said for being the odd-one-out: you can be lazy. 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 […]