My strange music
What distinguishes it from other musician's work: I always play at my limits; I don't play what I know, but nearby areas, what I might extend myself into, where I might fail. So it's not a question of comfort with improvisation or instrument, but pushing past that to discomfort; at times, everything falls apart. The limits of my ability are the limits of my world. The limits are the limits of my body in its functioning, of muscle memory, musical kludging. I played electric oud last night at the benefit; I hadn't played it before the previous night (in fact I hadn't played oud before the previous night). The instrument is fretless, of course, with a fingerboard over two feet long that goes almost up to the bridge. The pickup is piezo. So it was a gamble; I kludge on fretless, look for fifths and consonance and proceed from them. It's harder with chords. So playing it involves a problematic - what can be done with limited recourse and recourses - what happens near the boundaries of failure - how can one tunnel through them - how can one survive on the other side? This is different than knowing what one's doing. Myk knows what he's doing (I think!), has amazing sureness and grace on the lap steel. Azure works with songs that are relatively fixed: there's constant structure. I'm broken, playing broken, assembling, bricolage; instead of lost in music, I'm lost in a thumb muscle that's not responding the way I want it to. What to do? Skip the thumb, let other fingers take over, slow things down. Go back after a while; try the thumb again. If it works, use it sparingly. If not, try the fourth finger, for example. That partially- flattened second is giving another problem; hit the octave (for example, e' on d' octaved with the e two strings down: e/a/d'(e')), and work backwards to the flattened second (i.e. between major and minor), which might be checked by the minor third. Once that's down, construct a riff that might help me remember the position later on (repeated complex flurries of notes bury the problem, create rhythm and backup for Myk and Azure). Argh! The thumb's fine, slight cramp in the right index finger; try the third finger as replacement. For this reason, most of the time I don't think of myself as a musician, but as a fraud; my music is fraud music, in a neurotic world of its own. On the other hand, there are times I feel I'm playing well, and I lose myself in the playing - only to smile, and watch (as if from a distance), the smile break through everything, and self-conscious- ness rules again. http://www.alansondheim.org/lineout.mp3 http://www.alansondheim.org/lineout.mp3 - this is a different recording (line out, in the club) that may be clearer beauty shredding; the piece sounds other than the first (there are no perfect recordings) (there is no perfect music) (there are no musicians, in the sense that there are no authors) (of course we're dreaming in the wrong direction) (rewind) http://www.alansondheim.org/lineout.mp3 (rewind) Azure, voice; Myk, lap steel; Alan, electric saz, electric oud. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
