Re: memory and improvisation

[jim palmer <jimp@pobox.com>]

some things come to mind about when i was first learning this concept:

i found that i was trying to pseudosophisticatedly make "good use of 
negative space."
while i think it's important to be aware of the polar forces of sound and 
silence,
it is easy to fall into the trap of intellectualizing the process rather 
than 
"letting it happen." in other words, the hose can be filled with 
water/silence, 
but pinching off the flow is a different thing altogether...

i remember stopping in the middle of a jam session because i thought i was 
adding
to the "fog" and the drummer thought something was very wrong with that.
i think he experienced it as "suddenly colliding with a brick wall."
i wasn't looping at the time but it seems to illustrate your point. 
on the other hand, my thinking was that, though i was playing guitar at 
the time, 
if i had been playing trumpet i don't think he would have expected me to 
play continuously...


>>...
>>An interesting point in regards to improvising loops as well. I have 
>often 
>>noticed people fall into the looping lobster trap, where stuff keeps 
>going 
>>into the loop and never comes out again. The loop space gets all filled 
>up 
>>and layered deeper and deeper and it turns into the giant wall of sound 
>>loop that demolishes everything in it's path. And then they don't know 
>what 
>>to do with that, so at the end they just turn it off, which for me as a 
>>listener is rather like running through a very thick and noisy fog and 
>then 
>>suddenly colliding with a brick wall.
>>...

> > silence in the loop is good. leave some there to begin with. But also,
> > learn how to add silence to the loop. when the loop has gotten busy, 
>learn
> > to take some things out of it to make it change to less busy. Add 
>space.
> > Learn to make it more empty, in addition to more full. learn to make 
>it go
> > down sometimes instead of always up....
> > 
>>kim
> 
> Very true. Silence is precious, it lets you underline the value of the 
>sound
> that is about to follow, it allows time for taking your breath in, 
>listen to
> the trail of the sound that's going away. Silence lets you take a step 
>back
> to observe the whole picture before you dive in again to craft the 
>details.
> Mastering the silence is not easy but it gives much more depth to the 
>music.
> 
> Roberto
>