Safety First

general comments

I did a little too much of a lecture in class (I suspect the desire to play more and talk less is a response to this).

I also somewhat jumped the gun, indicating the exit out of our current dilemma. I wonder if this will turn out to be a mistake: the last thing I want is for the class to regress into a model in which the teacher generates direction. I hope everyone holds on to their responsibilities (and I don’t exercise too much executive control).

Playing wise, for me, this is the class when we hit it, and it really starts to cooking. (I have no real explanation for this, but I’m also interested that no previous Safety First course has hit such a high mark so soon into the course.) It remains to be seen whether we can keep this up, or if the spark, fired by the various revelations (and reevaluations) of this week’s class basically die down. Either way, the next few weeks shall be interesting.

towards a improvisative tactic

Quick summary of the dilemma: avoid both the autocratic command-and-follow model and the Cagian denial of agency. …and can we (and should we) bring our egos, histories, prejudices, etc to the negotiating table?

What do you want to do? Kevin say talk about Taylor and Oxley.

reverse engineering Stylobate 1

Kevin: Oxley just keeps on following Taylor.

Kevin talk us through what Oxley is doing. Here, Oxley picks out this from Taylor; here he picks something else out.

Question: but what about the other moments when Oxley’s playing doesn’t correspond to Taylors?

Andrea says his initial impression was also that Oxley was following Taylor, but then began to hear the reverse as well.

The rhythm sometimes ‘locks-in’, other times it does not.

How is Oxley following Taylor.

Kevin hears a myriad of ways in which Oxley follows Taylor (imitation, accentuation, etc).

Owen hears Taylor as the dominant voice—the leader.

Question: that’s what it sounds like, but is that how it’s constructed. What’s the underlying mechanism? (Note to myself: we should try and separate audience POV and the reverse engineering of performances.)

Kevin: Perhaps Oxley is accompanying Taylor.

Question: What do you mean by accompaniment? (I didn’t ask this in class, but the question, in a sense, is what does it mean to accompany, when idiom, and style (the usual reference points for this kind of break down of roles) is up in the air?)

Kevin: following… trying to compliment.

demonstration of accompanying

Duo: Kevin as Oxley, Owen as Taylor.

Sounded good. Very interesting playing.

Andrea and I had a hard time deciphering who was accompanying who.

what’s the Oxley algorithm?

What generates that complexity [of response]?

Kevin suggests that Oxley takes his cues from Taylor selectively.

Question: Under what conditions does he take his cues?

my take on what’s happening

Taylor is jump-cutting between several contrasting, distinctive ideas/gestures. Oxley also jumps between contrasting ideas/gestures, locking his changes with (what he perceives to be) Taylor’s changes.

They are, in a sense, missing out the aesthetic or idiomatic ‘judgment call’ (“he’s done that, ergo, I’m going this”).

Thus, sometimes the music ‘locks’ and other times he doesn’t.

Talk very briefly about how the performer’s negotiations are partial (e.g. Oxley’s take on when Taylor makes a jump is subjective). May need to return to this idea…

the audience and ‘active listening’

We return to the idea that the audience’s interpretation of the onstage relationships is subjective. Thus, as performers, all we need to do is generate a certain degree of complexity, and the audience hears the rest. In reference to Andrea’s notion of ‘active listening’, I add that audiences are active because they actively create meaning. Performers delegate responsibility to the audience, the audience (partially) creates the relationships onstage.

play: try out the algorithm

Trio: Andrea, Kevin and Owen.

Playing wise, for me, this was a high point of the course thus far. High-energy, interesting and complex; as audience, the relationships and negotiations were just that little bit out of grasp (that’s a good thing).

Andrea liked having a tactic: not worry too much about shaping the music. I say that the shape should sort itself out if you do your part. (There’s my tired soccer game metaphor…)

what does Taylor do?

Given Oxley’s tactic, talk briefly about what Taylor’s responses might be. Kevin: prolog a ‘section’ if he likes what Oxley’s doing, etc. We really need to return to some of these ideas because they are at the core of real-time tactics and musical negotiations.

egos, histories, etc.

Following on from last week’s discussions, briefly cover the idea that selflessness is often synonymous with musicianship, and how this may be a problematic idea in group improvisation.

Andrea: Oxley is slightly less egotistical.

Yes, but Oxley is keeping his own identity: he is not subsumed into Taylor’s gestures in a straightforward way. Oxley’s moves are his own, and Taylor’s has to deal with the resultant—Taylor’s life is not made easier by Oxley’s choices.

Andrea: in this music, the self is more necessary than in others. You need to bring yourself (material, background, ego) to the group.

(A peripheral issue that I didn’t say: I think Andrea’s right, but with one modifier: in other musical practices, the self is just as important, but we like to pretend it isn’t. In other words, we often value music, and musicality, that is unmarked.)

You can, and I think it would be good to, bring other traditions and idioms to the performance. You can play the Delta blues, but you cannot expect others to necessarily join in.

play

Quartet: Andrea, Han, Kevin and Owen.

We have a cooky, dramatic little ending: ppp flutters from Owen, just when it threatens to die down, I interject, others join in, etc.

what are we doing next week?

Now what? Owen: less talk, more play. Han: play until we come across a problem.

Here we go, finally got around to check the page after the busy weekend (did check it before that but was not so sure about breaking ice since nobody had posted yet) so here i am, ready to write my first post in the diary, and just realized the internet is down for some reasons.. Murphy’s Law i’d say.. i will still write the entry and post it later on if the….

yeah, the line is back now, and i figured out how to post here..

Have to say i am delighted with the first class, delighted of working with you guys… i have met Han and Kevin and worked with them before, but it was the first time meeting Paul and Owen, and the first impression was quite positive… a bit surprised because there are so few of us in the class, but at the same time the quartet/band format seems quite intriguing….it could have great benefits, but it also puts a lot of pressure on us.. guys, not a chance of missing one single class without being dearly missed

am actually listening to our improvisations from last wednesday as i write so my take on the whole class blog thingee is: how cool is that?

recordings definitely makes me appreciate Han’s perspective of outside listener being able to gauge the effectiveness of our improvisation without the bias of the participant, being it pride or self demeaning (which is probably the same thing in the end).. this reminds me of Bob Brozman’s definition ‘Recording is God’s own way of telling you that you suck’.. well, in fairness we did’t seem to be that bad

weird how those pieces felt ‘longer’ while we were playing them, and much ’shorter’ now.. strange how while we were playing sometime we get the feeling of having said all that there is to say, while from the listener’s perspective one could ask: is that it?

in any case, the class got me thinking about improvisation a lot over the last week which is quite good. had a session with Kevin in the meantime, some bonding to be done before the october StetLab.. we used electric guitars for that (and in that case i felt the similarity of sound issue a bit stronger..don’t feel this much of an issue in class.. Spanish nylon string guitar/Puertorican steel string cuatro.. more of a visual/ideal similarity than a tonal/timbre one from this angle)

as for the KarateKid vs. FreeForm i’m still a bit puzzled (i guess that was the intention)

part could be because i’m a bit used to like my improvisations free, and so far have gathered much more experience with the learning by doing method than by talking/discussing/exchanging views ..neither have experienced much free improvising in a hierarchical context (even when i found myself working with seasoned improvisers in the past) but of course it wouldnt be as worthy if there was no challenge

in this sense i’d naturally go for the free form based course, and take risks, but i feel curious about the Karate Kid method too..’guaranteed to bring results’.. any chances of elaborate a bit more on that?

(oh by the way, i haven’t seen Karate Kid..)

beginning to have some clue about ‘why improvise’.. but it’s better to leave them til the class..

roll on wednesday,

be well guys

andrea