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Looper's Delight
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>There is power and beauty to be found in the "tension" between
>the extremes of chaotic freedom and the restrictive geometric
>"grid" of looping. It's just my opinion though. It's one of the things
>that "gets me off" about looping . . . two textures . . . two elements .
>. .
>one sort of free form . . . another sort of regular . . . patterned . . .
>yin . . . and yang. Some folks just like yin. Others just like yang.
>To each their own.
very interesting, Ted. and you get this dialectic twice, somehow:
- the looped and the not looped part
- the precise repetition character of the loop and the (possibly)
chaotic character of what is recorded in the loop
>But, of course, I'm not thinking about any of this while I'm playing
>(if I'm doing my job right). I'm not thinking very much at all -- except
>on a reptillian/insect, instinctual sort of level. I'm trying to "feel"
>something heart-wise and gut-level and extrude it through my
>fingers. My brain needs to get the hell out of the way to do this.
I feel what you are saying, but I am also fascinated by another
version I heard:
The brain needs its full power for improvising, thats why there is no
free power for the monitoring of the thoughts left.
>It's when my brain doesn't get out of the way that I have "bad"
>performance experiences. Folks have a variety of ways of
>describing where their "muse" comes from. This is mine.
yes, specifically, as soon as I think "this is great" (specially in
the sense of: "I am great"), its not any more :-)
>When that happens for a whole group of musicians all at once
>it's a really special, transcendent experience. It doesn't happen
>very often I am told (nor have I experienced it more than just a few
>times myself). Sometimes an audience can tell that something is
>"going on" per se . . . and sometimes not. It's elusive.
I established a free improvising group here in Salvador since
February. The members keep changing exept me and my partner Danilo,
who is rather into rhythm, while I rather care for tuning. We let it
run. Most participants are not musician. the process even works when
noone ever played music. The result is not pleasent, most of the
time, but its very intense for the participants, and most time its
not chaotic. Its amazing that even if you dont want, some
organization always grows out of chaos! Its just a matter of time, or
patience with the chaos. Once its runing, it goes on for 3 hours or
more, and often though all kinds of styles including animal voices
:-). When there are more educated musicians, sometimes it turns into
barok poliphony and amazing a capella choirs. Very rarely we stop for
a moment or I say something about the process. Recently I had good
experiences when restarting with only voices and body sounds after
the first instrumental part worked out. Kills shame...
Its a big kick to see some shining eyes in the end of people saying:
I thought I could not play music
I play for many years but never felt this
Its like brain washing
...
I thought about inviting people of all over the world to participate.
I just dont quite know yet how to organize...
When there are 3 or less musicians, loops help a lot to get there,
when there are more, the loops fill up too much and hold back. With
more than 10 people (we had up to 25!) the problem is to hstopp
people from playing all the time.
>Music making is more "mystery" than mechanical "method"
>for me.
the same for me. What I just described is a method in a way, but I
could not really fix it, and none of the participants ever wanted any
rules...
>I wish I understood some of that "mystery" just a
>little bit better. Working in groups is restrictive too. Unless
>some level of common understanding is reached the end
>result will really be chaos.
I doubt it. The Tao loops between Chaos and Organization.
>We're all back to "understanding" again. There's a loop.
is the a parallel to "compreensao - entendimento"? Comprehension
instead of understanding which is rather intellectual?
--
---> http://Matthias.Grob.org