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Looper's Delight
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A quick disclaimer: After my last post, which upon rereading was unecessarily vague and poorly worded, I should really say that I probably hacked Bateson's thesis about mind and certainly made it stupidly sophomoric (sp?) compared to the brilliance and elegance of his presentation of it to me some 25 years ago. I apologize. I'm musing here. I am no expert and I can't hold a candle to the philosophical knowledge that Krispen has. That being said and done: About the notion of causality, I did not mean to say that Bateson believed that all things were causal. Not at all and thanks for all the accurate refutations of that idea. No, what I meant was that he said that because of the limitations of our neurophysiology that we are forced to make causal maps of reality....................or at least binary maps. It's probably more accurate to use maps that are arranged with patterns that we 'percieve'. It is an interesting, the Jungian notion of synchronicity: I think it is a particularly human perception. Because, according to the binary/synaptic model of human perception, we try to see patterning in our attempts to survive and live in the world and because we imbue those patterns with significance, we have a tendency to align percieved patterns together and they line up with each other (the Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd's "The Wall".................Ted and Jeff's improvisations with the premade video animations of David Tristram from the other evening). Does it mean that outside of human perception that there is a connection between the two. Maybe yes, maybe know. Frequently in improvisations with musicians, audience members have come up and said, "You guys were so psychically linked with each other during that last piece." When, however, we talk about it later as musicians we realize that the listener had projected this alignment of pattern onto their aural experience and it has no resonance whatsoever with the experience of the musicians. This has happened to me far more frequently than the sublime experience of having all the musicians thinking, "Wow, we were really in the zone together on that one." Even so, though, because we are pattern oriented (and remember eschewing pattern is a still has much predictability in it----------witness all the predictable 'free improv' shows that we've all suffered through) it can be argued that the musicians are still responding with some set of 'strategies' to each other so there is a relationship. I know a great bass player where I live who if I lock into what he's playing rigidly (with a pop aesthetic) he will immediately change his bass line and move away from me. If I start a groove that is repetitive (as is my want as an acknowledged trance/groove oriented pop percussionist) he will purposefully eschew playing any subset or 'skeletilization' of the drum beat I'm playing. His response to me is so predictable as to almost be laughable. He just doesn't want to be 'locked' down. I think he is an amazing and truly unique, creative musician but I , personally, have absolutely no fun playing with him. The only thing that works (with my aesthetic of playing) is to play a completely non-syncopative 'framing' rhythm to sound good with him. Still if you see where I'm going, he is using pattern orientation in his approach. He actually writes great ostinato bass lines......... just don't try to lock in with him..........lol What I'm really trying to get at is the initial impetus for my first post which is a response to Matthias' original fascinating and provacative musings about the tyranny of simple binary form in music. My only contention is that is that if you took a bell curve analysis of all the musical expression on this planet that the 'bell' would firmly rest on music that has fairly predictable binary form. I just think this is because we are human beings and that we have limitations in what we can percieve (Bateson's thesis, if he's not rolling in his grave with my oversimplification of it.) If you are interested in what he has to say, I suggest that you read his brilliant and somewhat difficult book, "Steps Towards and Ecology of Mind". His thesis is far too complex for me to butcher it here so please forgive me trained philosophers, neurophysiologists and aesthetes out there. I would suggest that you start with the essay, "Form, Substance and Difference" which is in the middle of the book. If you dig it, I'd be happy to let anyone know the order that Bateson had us read the book in. He begins it with a whole group of conversations with his daughter called 'Metalogues' that he said should have been at the end of the book, not the beginning of the book. We truly wanted people to approach what we was saying in a non-linear way and felt constrained by the linear nature of a printed book......beginning, middle and end, but confessed after it was published that it was the wrong way to publish it. Because of the seeming lack of connection in it (he was seminal in creating accepted theories in art history, anthropolgy, family systems, schizophrenia, dolphin and whale intelligence.............an incredibly brilliant thinker who eschewed getting PHDS in subjects (some thought arrogantly) and moving into subjects that he had no expertise in and truly changing their paradigms. Krispen wrote: "In any event, what sort if relevance does this type of synchronicity have in the group free improvisation context? Trey Anastasio from Phish once commented in an interview that when Phish improvised, the music did not come "from" from, but "passed through" them. This is the first time I heard someone say this." Yes, I have heard this from many many master musicians that I have read about or had the privilege to play with. There seems no doubt about it, whether in sports of in art: there seem to be 'peak moments' that occur. I know that neurophysiologists have attributed these phenomena to the brains production of theta waves (which are associated with creative thought and trance). I know that every couple of years I will wake up in the middle of the night and my mind will just pour creative idea after idea out. For those rare occurences I now keep a small notebook with a pen by my head when I sleep because I have learned that everything I right down when I"m in that state is a 'gem' and a potential for a very creative project. "It is as if we get in this state of mind when improvising in a group setting, and events occur, but it isn't obvious that they are caused by us. Certainly, our fingers and hands are moving and causing the fluctuation of air pressure, but we are talking about something more fundamental here. "Passing through" as in "unfolding"? Not sure, but it's worth some investigation. I'm now entertaining the thought that free improvisation could benefit from Synchronicity, if one can actually harness the principle...which is a whole different matter." Yeah, Krispen, this is intriguing....................I keep going back to the amazing performance I saw with Mssrs. Killian, Kaiser and Tristram. There were seemingly amazing synchronicities in that performance where Ted, Jeff and David's performances (two in real time...........the latter 'canned). It was just stunning, but I imagine if I polled all the musicians and all the audience members that each person would have a really different take on what had 'happened'. I keep coming back to projection of patterning onto experience that we do naturally as human beings. In group therapuetic work that I have participated in years ago, I discovered that probably 90% of all assumptions that we make about members of our family of origin are false when they are examined by both parties. In those same exercises, done with three different families with completely different socio-economic backgrounds, we were all impressed with the fact that nearly 100% of all assumptions that we made about what we assumed our family members had were wrong. There's a whole lot of projection going on in performance.........by performer and audience alike. But that's what so wonderful and mysterious and unpredictable about playing live and why I keep coming back to live looping as a great love instead of precanned looping (which I use extensively in my composition). ******** Okee dokee, I'm well aware that I'm just too fucking chatty on here at times and write too much. If anyone is still with me here, I thank them profusely for letting me muse a little. rick