Stet Lab is, and has been for some time, on indefinite hiatus. [More info…]
…a celebration of the practice of improvisation in all its diversity, complexity and, perhaps, contradictions
A quick heads-up: I will be removing some of the audio recordings of Stet Lab’s first year (prior to the November 2008 event). [Listen…] I’ll be removing the audio recordings in August 2013, so you have a few months to download any recordings that you may want to listen to again. I hope to keep […]
Between June 2008 and April 2011, fourteen author-practitioners documented over nineteen events from the POV of the stage. The Lab reports were an opportunity for the improviser-musician-performers to explore and explode the processes and practices of music in general, and improvisation in particular. These reports ranged in tone from the oblique, the whimsical, and the […]
As previously announced, after thirty-two events over three and a quarter years, I’ve stepped down as curator of Stet Lab as of February 2011. The duties of running the Lab now are in the very capable hands of Veronica Tadman, Tony O’Connor, Athos Tsiopani with curatorial duties handled by Kevin Terry (Kevin and Tony performed […]
Not strictly speaking a Stet Lab event (see note below), but the musical automaton and machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++ will be performing with Stet Lab founder/curator Han-earl Park (guitar) and past guest artists Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder (saxophones) at Blackrock Castle Observatory (Cork, Ireland) on Wednesday, May 26, 2010. [Details…] note: I’m plugging the performance here because Franziska’s appearance […]
I’ve said previously that “I’d be lying if I said I did not have allegiances—in idiom, in tradition, and in practice—I do, but I want to stress the possibility of trans-cultural meetings and creative (mis)understandings.” I don’t subscribe to a silly ideology of some impossibly impartial, neutral, transcendental performance, free of tradition, history, identity. I’m […]
Stet Lab with Juniper Hill and Han-earl Park; Piaras Hoban and Veronica Tadman plus guests; and Síofra Fitzgerald and Kevin Terry takes place on Monday, June 8th 2009, upstairs @ The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland.
We rocked. I think I did some pretty damn good playing on December 9th. Nothing life changing perhaps, but I think it was a reasonable contrast my contribution to October and November’s Labs. But here’s the question: how do I know when I’m getting a little too… complacent is the wrong word—comfortable? Let me clarify […]
While in the past I’ve generally worked through group improvisations intuitively, the concept of working strategically has become more and more appealing for a number of reasons which I’m not going to get into here. No revelations, just re-considerations. The aspiration for this month’s Lab (though I admit I decided on it less that five […]
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 […]