Re: Improvising vs. composing

["Tom Rex" <tomrex1@cox.net>]

JS Bach did some of this with "The Royal Theme" as it's now called.  He improvised for the King on the theme in the palace, then later after he went home, he wrote up what he remembered and sent it back to the King as "A Musical Offering".

 

 

 

Naji Hakim - Composer - Organist - Improviser

BACH'ORAMA

Orgelfantasie über Themen von Johann Sebastian Bach

 

 

This organ fantasy develops several themes from Johann Sebastian Bach's works. The succession of motives inspire different metrical, contrapuntal or expressive textures generating a rhapsodic form. The royal theme from the Musical Offering followed by a fugal development of Kyrie II from B minor mass appear in the middle of the structrure as climaxes to this homage.

 

http://www.najihakim.com/works/notes/bachorama.html

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: loop.pool

To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com

Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 4:40 AM

Subject: Re: Improvising vs. composing

I've been doing nothing but pure improvisation for the last four years of my life in

live looping situations and am ready to get down to some rigidly composed music again.

 

I found inspiration in the famous Shoenberg quote:

 

"All Composition is just very slow Improvisation."

 

and have added it's corollary:

 

"All Imrpovisation is just very fast Composition".

 

 

What I've found in my life's work is that I tend to oscillate between the two modes.  Early on it became

obvious that group improvisations could be a very fertile source for composition.   Obviously this is mitigated by the relative strengths (and desires) of the musicians one plays with.  Other times, purely composed pieces of music (which frequently have some problems because other musicians don't always have a way of 'being part' of the process when you hand out written parts) yield really great results.

 

I have to say that some of the great moments of my life were improvising with musicians that I just met

but I also am in the mood lately to have rigidly controlled and formalistically composed pieces of music.

 

Consquently, I've been kind of following the loose formula of doing a live improv CD followed by a formal composed Abstract Electronica CD.    I just broke mildly from this mold by releasing a CD that has both

elements in it, though which leads me to believe that it is probably best to eschew formalized approaches to this dialectic.

 

This is where modern software and hardware technology comes in.  On my last tour, I saved every loop that I loved onto my Repeater (and if only the EDP had the same kind of saving function that was quick, like the Repeater).  

 

I recently revisited these loops and realize that I have the basis for several formal compositions using these live loops.

 

I also love to record everything to minidisc because I can import a live concert into my computer and then

cast about to find ideas that are so strong that they can then become the basis of a formal composition.

A lot of loops that I love but haven't found a good compositional home for , I send to several artists that  I love to collaborate with in the hopes that they may stimulate some collaborative recording.

 

It's the wonderful thing about using loops as a way of making music.  They are fodder for many different kinds of creativity including things that we don't actually control ourselves.

 

I say.............no all or none.................just use your musical output in every way you can..........improvisationally or compositionally.

 

It can all be good!!