Chord progressions, Multi Lateral Improvisation (looping) (Miles Davis, Bitches Brew)

["Per Boysen" <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:

>  I've read that Miles envisioned percussion loops freeing up the whole
> ensemble in much the same way
>  that playing modally freed the melodic soloists from the tyranny of 
>static
> chord progressions


I find this post highly interesting because it hints at an important
"change of rules" that has been brought in thanks to live looping
technology. Back in the days chord progression were looked at as
"tyrannic" restrictions in improvised music. With the modern looping
gear this has not to be, since loops can be instantly changed to
evolve and also "pitched" on-the-fly into any chord progression. In
essence the "background" chord structure can be instantly improvised
as well as  melody lines. In my praxis I prefer to call this Multi
Lateral Improvisation. And I predict a revival for chord analysis
based improvisation!

Another way of working around that traditional obstacle was causing
Ornette Coleman to speak about "playing the music rather than the
background". That view is also obsolete now in the days of modern live
looping gear that makes it possible for musicians to improvise a
background to a written lead line, letting everything float
dialectically or even to play solely backgrounds in an improvised
manner (thus making the listener "create" the lead lines in his/her
imagination, a "psychedelic" technique I like using very much).

BTW - that expression "modal improvisation", isn't it actually
describing a musical restriction? I've never fully bought into it
because fact is you can as well vary your modal expression even while
moving through a harmonic landscape! So there's no need anymore to
"dumb down" the music by taking away chords just in order to make room
for more modal expression. A bit of both takes makes music more
interesting IMHO.

-- 
Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)
www.stockholm-athens.com