my first thought is for someone to start a piece using sounds we notice around us / in the world as a jumping off point. some ideas that spring to mind: screeching trains, small birds, Tibetan bells, alpine wind, the forest at night, a car factory, ocean waves, fingers on a blackboard, the hum of a computer, footsteps echoing down a hallway, a church organ, a breaking glass, tearing paper, a semi truck going up a hill… as i write this, i’m realizing how hard it is for me to write about improvising, and also how cheesy it could quickly become to focus on consciously imitating these sounds. hmmff. thoughts?
Cheesy is always a risk you take when you try something different. Seems to me that you choose your parameters and then you create in the moment. You never know until you are in it if it will work. Lets try something like this on Saturday.
Anybody else in?
Reed’s list of everyday sounds makes me think of the piece I wrote for Darrell’s Advanced Jazz Improvisation class at PSU. The assignment was to compose an open ended framework for improvising, including some musical information and guidance for the musicians- but not too much. I had inspiration in this idiom from a couple tracks from ‘Steve Lacy + 16′, of which I still wonder how much information and structure was written amidst the compositions.
I wanted the theme of my piece to be based on one of the natural elements and I chose the wind. Sequentially for each instrument involved, I wrote one or two of the following to help guide their improvisation: a few specific notes or a range to play within, a rhythmic figure, an embellishment, a suggestion for tone, a dynamic range, etc. After each instrument had entered and a collective climax had been reached, each instrument then exited in reverse order of their entrances. Of the four elements of music, focusing on tone and rhythm, this piece proved to be an interesting musical journey without emphasis on melody or harmony. It would be challenging to make a whole program of music like this, but a single piece in this vein can certainly be a breath of different air.
I’m in. I think trying it in earnest could yield some interesting results.
I think another interesting concept could be playing a free form piece in which one of the guidelines was that the majority of notes should be held for a reasonable period of time. Very few short or staccato notes (maybe just as accents) over a bed of drones.
Maybe pass around the opportunity to play lines while the other players sound a drone-ish bed of tones that shift freely between pitches and textures. Plenty of contrasts can evolve without a song structure on a piece like this.
I like Reed’s notion—it opens up your ears. I think asking people to think across into another discipline (say Painting or Film or Dance) can be useful: thinking about texture, densities, brush stroke; cinematic qualities of tones and space; gestural qualities of instruments. Tone becomes a springboard or auger to nurture strata of texture, timbre, contour and like abstract expressionism defy the frame of the canvas. Key is freeing yourself from the burden of what you know and allowing the production of sound to direct it.
my first thought is for someone to start a piece using sounds we notice around us / in the world as a jumping off point. some ideas that spring to mind: screeching trains, small birds, Tibetan bells, alpine wind, the forest at night, a car factory, ocean waves, fingers on a blackboard, the hum of a computer, footsteps echoing down a hallway, a church organ, a breaking glass, tearing paper, a semi truck going up a hill… as i write this, i’m realizing how hard it is for me to write about improvising, and also how cheesy it could quickly become to focus on consciously imitating these sounds. hmmff. thoughts?
Reed,
Cheesy is always a risk you take when you try something different. Seems to me that you choose your parameters and then you create in the moment. You never know until you are in it if it will work. Lets try something like this on Saturday.
Anybody else in?
Reed’s list of everyday sounds makes me think of the piece I wrote for Darrell’s Advanced Jazz Improvisation class at PSU. The assignment was to compose an open ended framework for improvising, including some musical information and guidance for the musicians- but not too much. I had inspiration in this idiom from a couple tracks from ‘Steve Lacy + 16′, of which I still wonder how much information and structure was written amidst the compositions.
I wanted the theme of my piece to be based on one of the natural elements and I chose the wind. Sequentially for each instrument involved, I wrote one or two of the following to help guide their improvisation: a few specific notes or a range to play within, a rhythmic figure, an embellishment, a suggestion for tone, a dynamic range, etc. After each instrument had entered and a collective climax had been reached, each instrument then exited in reverse order of their entrances. Of the four elements of music, focusing on tone and rhythm, this piece proved to be an interesting musical journey without emphasis on melody or harmony. It would be challenging to make a whole program of music like this, but a single piece in this vein can certainly be a breath of different air.
I’m in. I think trying it in earnest could yield some interesting results.
I think another interesting concept could be playing a free form piece in which one of the guidelines was that the majority of notes should be held for a reasonable period of time. Very few short or staccato notes (maybe just as accents) over a bed of drones.
Maybe pass around the opportunity to play lines while the other players sound a drone-ish bed of tones that shift freely between pitches and textures. Plenty of contrasts can evolve without a song structure on a piece like this.
Right on. I’ll bring a melodica for that one.
Darrell
I like Reed’s notion—it opens up your ears. I think asking people to think across into another discipline (say Painting or Film or Dance) can be useful: thinking about texture, densities, brush stroke; cinematic qualities of tones and space; gestural qualities of instruments. Tone becomes a springboard or auger to nurture strata of texture, timbre, contour and like abstract expressionism defy the frame of the canvas. Key is freeing yourself from the burden of what you know and allowing the production of sound to direct it.