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RE: Strategies (was: Re: Improv loops (was Re: Upcoming gig)



 
On Jun 14, 2005, at 21:45, Hartung, Kris wrote:

> Since I started looping and playing mostly improvisational, 
> spontaneously composed performances, I don't practice or rehearse for 
> them...

>> That's interesting! I guess it depends on what you actually read into 
>the word "practicing"? I like to practice very much, almost all my waking 
>time, but more in the essence of "preparing". 

Definitely different than my approach. The only time I play my instrument 
is if I have a new piece of gear and I'm trying to work out new 
sounds...that forces me to play my instrument. One reason why I don't 
practice anymore (I say "anymore" because 8 years ago I practiced hours a 
day) is that my technical ability from playing jazz and progressive rock 
all those years has surpassed my improviational learning curve. I can play 
scales and arpeggios and rudimentary exercises at speeds I would never 
used in an improv context until the end of time, but they don't improve my 
improv ability. What improves my improv ability is to make my mind a blank 
slate (as much as this is possible) and simply perform or record. And I 
know my fretboard well enoug that I can turn the lights off and express 
myself emotionally on the fretboard.  For instance, on my debut solo CD 
"Places", I simply sat down and started improvising. About 50% of the 
pieces that I finished in one take made it on the CD. The rest I threw 
aside...I guess you could have called that practice material! :) But in 
the strict sense of sitting down and practicing as in playing the 
rudiments - scales, arpeggios, runs, phrases, chordal progressions....I 
never do it.  I only play my instrument if it's a performance or something 
that I would hope to make it on my next CD. So, you are right, the word 
"practice" is sort of ambiguous. I practice if you call working on a CD or 
performing practicing...I don't practice if you mean sitting down and 
working on scales, reading charts, technique, etc. When I was playing jazz 
standards with combos, I HAD TO practice. I sat down and read charts for 
the tunes, memorized the heads and chord progressions, and practiced 
soloing over the changes (if I had the tune on Abersold's CDs). 

>> Sometimes the best preparation is to isolate oneself from any music at 
>all and try not to hear music in your head all the time. 

So true. On a related note, I once read an interview where someone asked 
Robert Fripp if he had heard one of his peer's new CDs. His response was 
that he never listened to other musicians' music while he was working on 
his own CD, especially musicians he admired, because he was afraid it 
would influence his work. 

>> Very difficult, but if you only succeed half ways it will pay you back 
>enormously when you finally pick up an instrument to improvise. 

Yes! It's like discovering your instrument for the firt time, but your 
fingers and brain already know how to play it and play what you hear in 
your head miliseconds beforehand.

> Sometimes I play a lot as preparation, but use a different instrument 
>than I will be performing with. Or I play a different musical style. One 
>of the greatest advices I have ever been given was to never ever practice 
>"the easy way"; When you do a mistake during practice, take it seriously. 
>You have to do mistakes to avoid them or turn them into something good.  

I believe Miles David once said that if you're not making mistakes, then 
you're not playing jazz...or something like that. I like to play off my 
mistakes during performance. For instance, if I'm playing a run or phrase 
that is totally diantonic, and I hit an outside note that is 
non-intentional, I use it again as a platform to play outside of the tonal 
center.

> Do not make a difference between "practicing" and performing!  (By 
>"mistake" I'm not talking about a sloppy note here and there, merely the 
>attitude of being lazy, delivering a fad expression which leads to not 
>feeling inspired by your own playing). Before given that advice I did not 
>improve much (musically) by practicing. I'm glad things have changed now.

It is easy to become a cover musician of your own cliches.  This is part 
of that laziness of which you speak. Again, back to Miles Davis, he once 
berated a sax player on stage because he played a lick he had played the 
other night...guesss that pissed Miles off, because he said that wasn't 
improvising. It is re-inventing yourself....become Nietsche's "Ubermensch" 
of music, constantly overcoming oneself...easier said than done of course, 
but I get your drift.

> But in a shorter perspective - like the last five to ten minutes before 
>you will perform - it may be a good thing to fool around a little with 
>the instrument without actually playing anything. Just letting your body 
>melt into the instrument while emptying/focusing your mind.

Good point, especially for guitarists who play more than one 
guitar...fretboards vary, etc.

> I'm very interested in mental attitudes concerning performing and 
>practicing, since it seems to play a very big part for what comes out as 
>music. I would be delighted to read what others think and what you are 
>using for tricks to get it right.

Generally my attitude is one of concentrating on taking risks and playing 
something other than myself. I can tell when I play something that I've 
played before - a phrase, run, cliché, progressions, etc - and it pisses 
me off on stage. I feel ashamed because I know I can do better. So I focus 
my attitude on runnning into the unknown blackness of 
creativity....sometimes my brain will produce something that sounds random 
and chaotic when I do this, but I learn from it, piece it a part and throw 
the good stuff I my bag of tricks. Sometines I just close my eyes and 
place my index finger on some random place on the guitar fretboard and say 
to myself, okay....this note sets the stage..,what are you going to do 
now? I'll start on the first fret by accident and end up at the 24th fret, 
like a spider creaping up a ladder, creating twisting and new melodies.  
Playing the box pentatonic scales, same old minor and major scales that 
you see in thousands of books....screw that. That's aint improvising in my 
book. Any fool can do that in his sleep because it is all finger memory. 
Create new scales that you;ve never played before, on state...force your 
fingers to stretch and synthesize a chord you won't find in any 
book...these are thing I like to do. That song "Place" on my CD "Places" 
you have...the first part and unlooped section was like this...I just let 
my fingers flow. I couldn't reproduce that piece now if you asked me too. 
It came, and it's gone like the wind. 

Kris