Re: Improvising vs. composing

["Emile Tobenfeld (a.k.a Dr. T)" <emile@foryourhead.com>]

I struggle with this all of the time, lately mainly in the video 
realm. Among the problems I find are

1.      The clearer the idea I think I have about what I want to do, 
the harder it is to get started, and the less I feel I accomplish per 
unit time.

2.      No matter how much I tell myself I'm going to focus on the 
original idea, my explorations always point me to something else -- 
usually some detail or image  or  side idea catches my eye and 
distracts me from the intended structure.

3.      By the time the piece is halfway finished I'm so tired of the 
idea I can't tell if my changes are making it better or worse.

In addition, and more unique to my genre, its hard to get the 
musicians to follow what I do, which reduces the point of having a 
preconceived structure unless I'm working with a structured group 
long enough to learn their material and compose sections for each of 
their pieces. 




At 12:30 AM -0500 2/1/04, Dan Soltzberg wrote:
>Hi gang,
>
>
>Would love to hear people's experiences with this dilemma:
>
>I've been doing a project, Orange, for a couple years. Tonight, I 
>packed my gear out of a rehearsal space and turned in my keys after 
>3 months of struggling with trying to take this improvisational 
>project and make it more structured- i.e., take stuff we'd made up 
>and recorded at various shows and sessions and re-learn it and make 
>a bunch of songs out of it. I just found I wasn't enjoying the 
>process of trying to do this.
>
>So it seems I'm no longer very interested in writing and playing 
>songs- what I really get inspired doing is going out on a limb and 
>making the music up as I go. I can't seem to get the kind of 
>spiritual high I get when I'm improvising if I'm playing stuff 
>that's pre-structured. Not that I don't like structure- I just like 
>creating it on the fly.
>
>Problem is, 1. It's kind of intense to go to every show having no 
>idea of what I'm going to play, hoping the muse is on the guest list
>
>2. It's hard to bring other musicians in without having at least 
>some structure.
>
>
>Thoughts? Similar experiences? Solutions?
>
>
>Dan
>
>
>--
>ghost 7/ Orange
>http://www.envelopeproductions.com
>d.ans@rcn.com


-- 
"Any universe simple enough to be understood is too simple to produce 
a mind able to understand it"  --  John D. Barrow

This conjecture strikes me as a logical extension of Godel's 
Incompleteness Theorem.


Visit "Before the Fall -- Images of the World Trade Center" at 
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                Emile Tobenfeld, Ph. D.
Video Producer                  Image Processing Specialist
Video for your HEAD!                    Boris FX
http://www.foryourhead.com              http://www.borisfx.com