Re: looping with other musicians

[mungenast@earthlink.net]

>I wish I understood some of that "mystery" just a
>little bit better.


Me, too...just as Zen masters are often hesistant to describe Zen, other 
bigger-than-life moments (like the mystic transport that can occur with 
music) seem better left undescribed: you want to explain what it's like, 
but when you try to describe it, it seems to cheapen the experience, just 
as over-thinking can bollix-up a musical performance. 

When I play, I have a pretty good idea of what mental/spiritual/younameit 
place I want to travel to, and I open myself to playing whatever might 
take me (and the audience) there. See? Already I have sullied the 
experience...in a mere sentence, I have made it sound silly and not the 
warm rush of joy that I feel when I play. 

One of my many hats is Writer, and a writer must describe and explain, but 
in trying to describe something as powerful and personal as the places I 
go while listening or playing, I sometimes feel the need to simply cop out 
and use vague terms lest I look like a complete idiot or a 
blissed-out/burned-out pseudo-nu-age casualty ;-)

Ooops, I 'm thinking too much again...d'oh!   

~Tim
www.mungenast.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Matthias Grob <matthias@grob.org>
Sent: Oct 19, 2004 10:55 AM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: looping with other musicians

>There is power and beauty to be found in the "tension" between
>the extremes of chaotic freedom and the restrictive geometric
>"grid" of looping. It's just my opinion though. It's one of the things
>that "gets me off" about looping . . . two textures . . . two elements . 
>. .
>one sort of free form . . . another sort of regular . . . patterned . . .
>yin . . . and yang. Some folks just like yin. Others just like yang.
>To each their own.

very interesting, Ted. and you get this dialectic twice, somehow:
- the looped and the not looped part
- the precise repetition character of the loop and the (possibly) 
chaotic character of what is recorded in the loop

>But, of course, I'm not thinking about any of this while I'm playing
>(if I'm doing my job right). I'm not thinking very much at all -- except
>on a reptillian/insect, instinctual sort of level. I'm trying to "feel"
>something heart-wise and gut-level and extrude it through my
>fingers. My brain needs to get the hell out of the way to do this.

I feel what you are saying, but I am also fascinated by another 
version I heard:
The brain needs its full power for improvising, thats why there is no 
free power for the monitoring of the thoughts left.

>It's when my brain doesn't get out of the way that I have "bad"
>performance experiences. Folks have a variety of ways of
>describing where their "muse" comes from. This is mine.

yes, specifically, as soon as I think "this is great" (specially in 
the sense of: "I am great"), its not any more :-)

>When that happens for a whole group of musicians all at once
>it's a really special, transcendent experience. It doesn't happen
>very often I am told (nor have I experienced it more than just a few
>times myself). Sometimes an audience can tell that something is
>"going on" per se . . .  and sometimes not. It's elusive.

I established a free improvising group here in Salvador since 
February. The members keep changing exept me and my partner Danilo, 
who is rather into rhythm, while I rather care for tuning. We let it 
run. Most participants are not musician. the process even works when 
noone ever played music. The result is not pleasent, most of the 
time, but its very intense for the participants, and most time its 
not chaotic. Its amazing that even if you dont want, some 
organization always grows out of chaos! Its just a matter of time, or 
patience with the chaos. Once its runing, it goes on for 3 hours or 
more, and often though all kinds of styles including animal voices 
:-). When there are more educated musicians, sometimes it turns into 
barok poliphony and amazing a capella choirs. Very rarely we stop for 
a moment or I say something about the process. Recently I had good 
experiences when restarting with only voices and body sounds after 
the first instrumental part worked out. Kills shame...

Its a big kick to see some shining eyes in the end of people saying:
I thought I could not play music
I play for many years but never felt this
Its like brain washing
...

I thought about inviting people of all over the world to participate. 
I just dont quite know yet how to organize...

When there are 3 or less musicians, loops help a lot to get there, 
when there are more, the loops fill up too much and hold back. With 
more than 10 people (we had up to 25!) the problem is to hstopp 
people from playing all the time.

>Music making is more "mystery" than mechanical "method"
>for me.

the same for me. What I just described is a method in a way, but I 
could not really fix it, and none of the participants ever wanted any 
rules...

>I wish I understood some of that "mystery" just a
>little bit better. Working in groups is restrictive too. Unless
>some level of common understanding is reached the end
>result will really be chaos.

I doubt it. The Tao loops between Chaos and Organization.

>We're all back to "understanding" again. There's a loop.

is the a parallel to "compreensao - entendimento"? Comprehension 
instead of understanding which is rather intellectual?
-- 


          ---> http://Matthias.Grob.org