----- Original Message -----
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!!
