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I've been doing nothing but pure improvisation for
the last four years of my life in
live looping situations and am ready to get down to
some rigidly composed music again.
I found inspiration in the famous Shoenberg
quote:
"All Composition is just very slow
Improvisation."
and have added it's corollary:
"All Imrpovisation is just very fast
Composition".
What I've found in my life's work is that I tend to
oscillate between the two modes. Early on it became
obvious that group improvisations could be a very
fertile source for composition. Obviously this is mitigated by the
relative strengths (and desires) of the musicians one plays with. Other
times, purely composed pieces of music (which frequently have some problems
because other musicians don't always have a way of 'being part' of the process
when you hand out written parts) yield really great results.
I have to say that some of the great moments of my
life were improvising with musicians that I just met
but I also am in the mood lately to have rigidly
controlled and formalistically composed pieces of music.
Consquently, I've been kind of following the loose
formula of doing a live improv CD followed by a formal composed Abstract
Electronica CD. I just broke mildly from this mold by
releasing a CD that has both
elements in it, though which leads me to believe
that it is probably best to eschew formalized approaches to this dialectic.
This is where modern software and hardware
technology comes in. On my last tour, I saved every loop that I loved onto
my Repeater (and if only the EDP had the same kind of saving function that was
quick, like the Repeater).
I recently revisited these loops and realize that I
have the basis for several formal compositions using these live
loops.
I also love to record everything to minidisc
because I can import a live concert into my computer and then
cast about to find ideas that are so strong that
they can then become the basis of a formal composition.
A lot of loops that I love but haven't found a good
compositional home for , I send to several artists that I love to
collaborate with in the hopes that they may stimulate some collaborative
recording.
It's the wonderful thing about using loops as a way
of making music. They are fodder for many different kinds of creativity
including things that we don't actually control ourselves.
I say.............no all or
none.................just use your musical output in every way you
can..........improvisationally or compositionally.
It can all be good!!
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