RE: memory and improvisation

[Matthias Grob <matthias@grob.org>]

>
>shure, if you want such a structure, you may be right (although I am 
>surprised sometimes how themes come back without me remembering 
>them).
>
>** then you've remembered them, no?  ;-)

Maybe I am not quite accurate with the use of the verbs 
"remember/recall/remind":
Sometimes I listen to old recordings and suddenly some theme sounds 
familiar and in a few cases I managed to track the other version and 
they were really similar, though years apart.
Another situation is that I suddenly feel I play the same theme as 10 
minutes ago.
In other sessions its as if a theme or style dominates the night and 
keeps turning back in several ways. Some partners then complain and 
want to "get rid of it", but I dont care. In a reggae or blues 
concert there is not much variation either, and the public does not 
complain, so why not treat a theme thoroughly when it comes up.

But its very different from "wanting to remember": The mind works 
(apparently) as a monitor and compares results rather than feeding 
the music.
I often loose track if mind makes such observations, because it 
immediately wants to interfere, but (in my case) its not able to 
reconstruct what happened before.

Somehow it feels like the fingers know what they want to do. Must be 
true to some degree: There are typical movements, positions the 
motoric system is familiar with and such falls into a pattern, 
reproduces a lick or a chord. But then again, why would the fingers 
want to execute a complex musical trip?
Similarly, when driving the car automatically: The leg knows how to 
use the clutch and the arms how to take a curve, but what knows the 
way to go and how to react when pedestrians approach? The mind would 
never be able to control all those situations!

Last year I met Peter Gregor, the loudspeaker genius I recently 
mentioned, and was amazed to hear from him: "I am sure now that we 
are controlled somehow. I had a shop at a crossing and time to 
observe the movements and there were so many situations where an 
accident had to happen if people would just rely on their senses, 
mental reactions and probability, and in most cases due to some 
*luck*, the accident did not happen."

You can call it angels or higher senses or collective consciousness 
or left brain or whatever, but there is something we can and do 
profit from while playing.
Sorry if I repeat myself, you probably all agree on that anyway :-)

To bring it back to T: The most fascinating about looping for me is 
the possibility to grab this influence and instantly throw it back on 
us and make us realize it, react to it

>  But I observe that I dont need this structure as a listener. Most 
>musicians teach me that its necessary for understanding, but I am 
>not sure.
>In the last century, we got rid of so many cages, music without 
>melody, without rhythm, without tonal scale, without tonal center 
>was explored, but hardly music without "structure", but I may be 
>totally wrong here...
>
>** well, structure is only one tool/possibility. in my experience, 
>many people who improvise negect form as a basic building block; 
>they seem to concentrate on other things more. in fact, many who do 
>"free improv" seem to be "against" tonality, rhythm or form - - to 
>which i say, "what's free if i can't do that?"

right! But why not keep some tonality or rhythm (some language that a 
public can deal with) and let the form grow freely? Thats what I 
hardly heard so far. Could you give an example of such music?

The song form is important if you want the public to learn your song 
or if you want to simplify the work of the musicians that execute 
your composition, but I doubt that it is necessary to bring the 
message through.
I suffer from my position because so far all interested producers 
gave up on me when they understood that I am not teaching my music to 
the public: "you need to establish your melody that sticks in peoples 
minds if you want to make success". Why? If they like every concert 
although (or: because) they are all different, isnt that enough to 
make them come back an buy CDs? Will they go home sad because I did 
not reproduce the piece they liked on the CD? Maybe...

>I think the atitude is important: I find it much different to repeat 
>some cliche because it just comes up, or to repeat it because I 
>think its smart or necessary or different or whatever.
>
>** are we talking about one's own cliches, or those of others?

well, I didnt think it matters much here... I mix a lot of common 
folkloric clichees into mine...

>I wonder how the new technology with non volatile memory for lots of 
>loops influences this.
>The memory can be used to save the "cliches", or to free you from 
>the effort (distraction?) to remember the theme (once you want to do 
>such structured music).
>
>** well i sometimes use loopers to put in a spontaneous theme and 
>fly it back in at "appropriate" times.

thats a way I would like to learn (and get a Repeater for :-)
When I try it with the EDPs NextLoop feature, I usually get shocked 
how little "appropriate" the old loop is and loose track...
I hope that will become more fluent with several tracks that we can 
bring in slowly.

>You save a loop and bring it back the next night, save another line 
>with it and such make the composition richer each time you improvise 
>it...
>
>** that's more of a composition with improv than it is free improv, no?

Yes, I guess so... the boarder get more and more loose. Once you 
bring in several old loops, you may as well call it a free 
composition, maybe?
-- 


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