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Re: Improvising vs. composing
Improvising vs. composingDan Soltzberg asked:
>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.<
Perhaps it's not the song-writing but the compositing process that you're
not enjoying. Try another project. Maybe the material will be easier for
you to work with. I wouldn't just paste the entire process as something
you
don't like if it's one job that makes one think this. Um, forgive, no
coffee yet.
>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. <
I concur with Mr. Tobenfield on his other points and won't repeat 'em. I
didn't quit being a support person because one of the jobs I did (Hughes!
Ugh!) was a Hell-on-Earth. I just went somewhere else to do my thing. So
perhaps it's the project you're weary with, not the process itself. Try
something else, or perhaps put the instrument down for a week, and then
pick
it up and see what happens. Things change upon new perspective. Don't
give
up for a single excuse.
Steve Goodman
* EarthLight Productions
* http://www.earthlight.net