Re: Improvising vs. composing

[bruce tovsky <bruce@skeletonhome.com>]

dan, et al
i'm a little late getting in on this, but thought i'd
still throw my hat in the ring. i do both live sound
and live video improvisation - occasionally both at
the same time - and have used improvisation at the
root of most of my work over the past 20 years.
when i'm playing live what i generally do is prepare
an outline of what i will do at a show; set up a patch,
devise a technique to explore, map out a tonal
territory, etc. i may stay within those bounds or
strike out into the unknown when the event happens.
when i do things in the studio, i do a similar process,
explore the direction i want to go, improvise and
record, take elements of those recordings and add
more layers or process and manipulate the elements.
i do this for both video and audio. for many years i
composed music for choreographers, where i often
had to work with counts or beat charts, so i found
ways to adapt my process to those needs. every
project is a different problem, with a unique solution.
cheers
bruce