(Thanks for the clarification, AS. I sometimes tend to read an implied
hostility into peoples writings where it is not intended, as I am sure
they sometimes unintendedly read it into mine. Im very tense tonight
for some reason. Sorry if I overreacted.)
My short, silly list was meant to apply to written compositional
variables, or to switches on a foot pedal for live performance. For
instance, you want a particular passage you are playing on a MIDI
instrument to sound breathy, you press the ctrl-B button on the pedal.
Crude, simple stuff, like a guitarist has with fuzzboxes, wahs, etc.
only more localized and nuanced in the effect.
I dont think that an Ayler of today would feel too deprived of his
black spirituality if he was playing a MIDI instrument of sampled
sounds. He simply would find workarounds to create the effects he
wanted, and while he wouldn't be the Ayler we know and love, he still
would sound marvelously human. Look at somebody like Sun Ra, who was
playing a clunky old DX7 when I saw him a few times. I dont think that
the rise of session players using digital instruments has much to do
with the coldness of todays music, as there were plenty of cold, boring
session players working in places like Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley many
decades before there were commercial digital music programs and
instruments. I see todays coldness has as much to do with a basic
shift in attitude towards performance, -- from an existential
being-in-the-world attitude, such as you described so well, to a more
aloof, canned one that you get in rap, raves, etc. I dont see the
latter necessarily as a musical regression of any kind, or as a
diminishment in musics spirituality. If that causes Ayler to spin in
his grave, well, every new generation has that effect on its elders!
I haven't addressed your point about live vs computer at all, even
though it was fundamental to what you were saying, because I basically
agree with you and see nothing to add.
m
being preposterously verbose, as always, and now I will shut up and go
into a long self-imposed glottal hibernation...
On Dec 18, 2005, at 8:46 PM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
On Sun, 18 Dec 2005, mwp wrote:
[Arggh, I feel the hostility meter starting to flutter into the red
If thats the case, Im outta here.]
No hostility intended.
Dont know why such a list of commands wouldnt cut it to bring some
sense of life to a piece. Composers use such notations all the time to
indicate precisely what they need from performers, and Talan Ms work
is a composition, not a performance, however much he may intend it to
sound performed. And theres no reason these controls couldnt be
implemented live in real time with foot pedals or something, so
theres plenty of room for overlap between composition and
performance.
It may well bring life into a piece. That's not what I was on about; of
course I agree with you here.
I dont believe improvisation can ever be totally in the moment.
Improvisors are always recycling and borrowing from buried experience
and spinning motifs, etc. The idea of the mind as blank slate creating
order out of nothingness just doesnt cut it for me.
No one ever said improvisation came out of a blank slate; of course it
doesn't. But it is in real time, and all that recycling etc. - more
important where you are in the piece - can't be a second-take; what you
do then is what you get. And there's no 'nothingness' - there are chops
and what you're doing.
There's a whole politics behind this, which Ayler and New Thing music
in general came out of. It came out of the black revolution of the 60s
as well, and the rhetoric around it was part of it; with people like
Baraka it entered linguistically into the pieces as well. And this
politics was connected with notions of black soul, black body, black
spirituality, even the black church. At least for myself, I can't put
this aside. In other words improvisation - being-live-in-performances
was _inherently_ part of the music of these musicians.
And by ctl doesn't cut it, what I meant was, take your commands -
SAXOPHONE:
Flatten the pitch in the upper registers YES
Squeak SELECT PHRASE + ctrl-S
Pad SELECT PHRASE + ctrl-P
Breath SELECT PHRASE + ctrl-B
Force virtual fingering SELECT PHRASE + ctrl-V
Etc.
- Take the first. How much flattening? In relation to what? In what
phrase? What do you do about the control and dimunition with the upper
overtones that occurs when you slack the reed a bit? Etc. etc.
This doesn't mean you can't 'set' an Ayler-type solo, note-by- note
modification; you could always build something out of sine- waves note
by note. It's not magic. But it is missing the point - when 'squeaks'
are used, they mean something about the soul and positioning of the
musician at that point; they're not devices. It's also very hard to
program a squeal (if that's what you mean, you generally don't get pad
squeak, so I think you're referencing the reed?), which has
incredibly-fast changing overtones resulting from
teeth/lip/pressure/moisture-degree/breath/-
pressure - all changing dynamically at an equally incredibly-fast
speed.
I do agree with Talan's take, which seems a bit different than yours.
In any case I've heard a lot of electronics, as I'm sure you have as
well, and the types of sonority that Talan uses seem fairly accessible;
on the other hand, I've heard nothing approaching, say, Bells, in that
regard.
- Alan
