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On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 11:04 PM, Byron Howell <howell.byron@gmail.com> wrote: > While not on looping - this might be useful as it talks about the >origins > of using the term instant composition instead of > improvisation:http://www.icporchestra.com/ I chose to use the term "instant composition" but for a different specific reason, having to do with the live looping context. For starters, you may get a good feel for it by contemplating that any instant compositional activity may also be called improvisation but any improvisation can not be called instant composition. The most simple form of improvisation is to simply react on sound by making sound, that causes a reaction, that you then react on by making another sound etc etc. This may cerate interesting music both from the interplay between human musicians and the interplay between musicians and looping devices. It's a developing spiral of questions and answers. It's a bouncing fun game. Now, besides pure sound, introduce playing bricks as "structure", "direction", "time span", "density", "harmony" and things alike. Improvising with those sort of blocks/clusters makes instant composition possible. As for praxis in a technical context it can be done as Willem Breuker and Misha Mengelberg does it, by providing some guidelines to musicians (here even "not giving any directions what-so-ever" is also understood as "a guideline", although extreme). It can also be don by utilizing live looping techniques. When live looping you are not restricted to simply reacting to immediate sound you hear, react on that and build complex music from there. You are also free to react on what doesn't yet exist as sound, except for in you time expanded mind, and improvise with that. Since the improviser knows the looping gear as his/her instrument, he/she is swimming not only inside an immediate pool of sound but also inside a hothouse that stretches into possible futures as well as back into the past, making it possible to bring back earlier parts of the performance. Live looping expands the time line as one of the bricks the improviser has at hand to dabble with on-the-fly and blurs the lines between performer, conductor and composer. Isn't this the essence of "instant composing"? We experienced a funny example on this during the 2nd Swedish Loop Tour in may. One particular night was labeled "Instant Composing Music Show" and there were seven acts performing (plus workshops in the day). Most of the acts performed along what I called "reacting to sound etc" above, which still is a sort of tradition for improvised music here in Sweden. Rick and I were the only ones that "improvised with structured blocks" and to be honest I didn't think it was such a big deal right there. But the day after the daily magazine came out with a review that mentioned exactly that - so I felt a bit more confident in "instant composing" not only being just another of my self indulgent fantasies. The review went like: "Per Boysen's live looped ambience music with layers over layers of sax- and flute melodies was a real experience, and it was obvious that he is utilizing the electronics as his personal expression without being a slave to the technology. And Rick Walker's spectacular sound collages were both entertaining and exciting. Also with him you could tell the strong musicality was drawing from somewhere else than just the electronics". So this journalist had obviously felt the longer time bows Rick and I were improvising with and it appealed to his personal taste. -- Greetings from Sweden Per Boysen www.boysen.se (Swedish) www.looproom.com (international) www.myspace.com/perboysen www.stockholm-athens.com