Re: Blank slates / free improv (was: The Artist's Right To Be Boring)

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

Matt and everybody,

That was a damn fine post. I enjoyed it so much that although I have  
nothing to say I reply only to give rotation, if someone should have  
missed Matt's post on the first loop.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)


On 29 jun 2007, at 01.57, Matt Davignon wrote:

> A funny thing about free-improv is that here in the San Francisco Bay
> Area there's a lot of jazz-influence (especially European jazz) on
> 'new music' performances. So if you tell someone you're going to do
> some free-improvisation, most folks assume you're going to play in a
> very jazzlike form (and the instruments are usually stand-up bass,
> drums, and sax/clarinet/trumpet/guitar).
>
> So, folks who want to communicate that they're really doing free music
> and not jazz have started adopting Derek Bailey's "Non-Idiomatic
> Improvisation" term.
>
> However N.I.I. has developed its own recognizeable musical traits as
> well - mostly acoustic groups (perhaps with one token member playing
> the further-unspecified "electronics") playing small, non-commital
> sounds, and avoiding like the plague anything that may sound coherent.
>
> I'm doubtful that there is or should be such a thing called "free
> improvisation" or "non-idiomatic improvisation", so I guess there has
> to be an understanding that performers are going to be pulled in
> directions based on who they are, what they've heard, and the nature
> of the instrument they happen to be holding. Personally I like to
> think of the individual musicians I know as microgenres in themselves,
> and the fun is learning what they're all about, and hearing how they
> interact with other microgenres.
>
> Matt