Notes on "The Gathering" 30/03/2015
Lats night I attended ‘The Gathering’ in London. Starting in 1989 stemming from people from London Musicians Collective Maggie Nichols describes it ;“It started with improvising musicians but quickly expanded to include anyone who wanted to explore and experiment in a welcoming environment. It's a place where experienced musicians use their skills to encourage rather than exclude others.” It is now a loose group of players who meet weekly in London and also in Wales. What struck me yesterday after my post to Net Behaviour was ‘The Gathering’ and its relationship as a way of working and communicating. There was a complete absence of judgement or ego among the attendees. In fact, there was no discussion as to the value of the output itself, the musicianship or anything produced. The real value appeared to be in the interaction, the actual process of communication in the midst of a collective creative act, and the ability for players to connect to each other beyond language or structure. What was evident is this process of listening and response, was a subtle dialogue of maybe mimicry, repetition, and awareness of the other players and silence. It functioned like a network of individuals responding to feedback physical, sonic, aural. A system. It is a real social network of musicians and makers. Tea, playing, talking in between. When we played, yes it was improvisation. Technically you might call this ‘Free Improvisation’. We worked without structure or planning, key, rhythm or style. People used speech, percussion, drums, violin, flutes, guitar, voice, and vocal sounds. The atmosphere there was a genuine creative freedom, where you tried new things because you knew there were no consequences for right or for wrong. Risk did not really exist because creative fear was simply not present. Each participant is autonomous but in an act of collective co creation. A creative network of individuals working towards an unknown creative emergent output. If there are any doubts about the precision of this ensemble these are dispelled at the point where the pieces conclude. There is an innate sense of knowing when playing comes to an end, an acute awareness of each individual, their role and the connection between each player, and collective sense of exactly when to stop. -- @gomespete
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