Re: Improvising vs. Composing

[Dan Soltzberg <d.ans@rcn.com>]

Title: Re: Improvising vs. Composing

Thanks everyone for your responses— it’s very useful and interesting to talk about this. There were a couple of things people said that especially struck me--


Tom:
 
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".

That’s really fascinating to know. It also makes me realize how little I know about other people’s composition processes (other than the really famous examples like Cage). I’d love to hear more anecdotes on this subject. What’s your process, anyone? Know any good stories about how others work? 


Per:

When you start out an improvisation you have to understand that you let go of all control. It is indeed a method to put oneself in situations where you loose control and have to rely entirely on instinct. A trick to achieve innovation.

I guess that’s part of what’s bugging me— that my instincts seem to be so much more evolved than my rational mind. I feel kind of illiterate-- like I should be able to compose with as much disregard for “the rules” as I improvise, but it isn’t working that way. 

My understanding of this is that composition is an act of will power, while improvisation is just an expression of life. 

That’s very well said. I guess I tend to come down more in the life camp than the will power one, which is something I often struggle with.


To say a little more about Orange, the project I referred to in my first post on this topic, what we had been doing is  improvising songs, which I always felt was kind of a cool approach to playing rock clubs. Since I do all of the “instrumental” on bass and loops, it’s just a matter of coordinating with the singer and drummer. We just follow where the first noise goes, and then drop in lyric pieces, and spin them out in a totally different way each time we play. Maybe in a way, I’ve let all my baggage of past band experience and the whole way the rock scene works psyche me out of feeling like this is a legitimate way to work. At the same time, it is so totally unpredictable. Lots of people have suggested to just semi-structure loose compositions, but even doing that has been kind of stealing the fire from it for me.

Hmmm. Anyway, it’s great to hear from everyone who wrote on this topic. I think I don’t participate in musical community as much as I should— it makes things much less scary and weird.


Dan

-- 
ghost 7/ Orange
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d.ans@rcn.com