EAI in 2007

[Dohol]

I guess it comes down to musicality/musicianship/vision, and the willingness to fail, to risk.

Yeah man!

So, of to the shop to pick up some potentiometers to control electromagnetic waves, caused by a radio, and send them in the pianostrings. Very different from an ebow. Very exited.

That I've gotta hear.

[user_4575]

Right now we are in a situation where there is an extreme overload of material. There are too many cd's, cd-r's, cassettes of abstract improvised music for anyone to hear. What makes certain ones stand out? Personally, i have no idea. I have have begun to feel that everything is blurring together into a kind of grey porridge.

How to deal with this situation? One response is the PaperRad-type aesthetic, art that embodies that kind of information overload. The other response is the one i'm more drawn to, that of reducing everything down to the simplest and most direct expression of one particular idea. (example: works of alvin lucier).

What is needed is more specificity, more singularity. Two ideas of how to get there:

1. singularity related to a particular unique medium.

early mego releases, for example, had a particular sound related to their embrace of the quirks of their chosen medium (the then-new sound of misfiring computers). See also keith rowe's tabletop guitar or nakamura's mixer feedback. To achieve this kind of singularity it is necessary to discover new mediums to exploit that have new sonic properties.

Another way of achieving this is by using homemade instruments (whether that means acoustic, analog electronics, or software). I enjoy people like jessica rylan who make their own particular sound quite literally by making their own particular instruments.

2. Singularity of form.

The insistence on improvisation gives an all-over flatness and sameness to many releases. I would like to see a return to composition, especially on recordings. I would like to see works that have a more focused topography/architecture. less abstract expressionism, please.

[jon abbey]

The insistence on improvisation gives an all-over flatness and sameness to many releases. I would like to see a return to composition, especially on recordings. I would like to see works that have a more focused topography/architecture. less abstract expressionism, please.

there's a huge amount of this right now, probably too much for my tastes (I believe it's very easy to lose or water down the spark of the music in post-production or via composition, obviously depending on the project).

but if it's what you're looking for, you can start with radu's 12 self-released discs of composed material (another development since the 'EAI in 2006' thread), you can't have much more of a 'focused topography/architecture' than that.

[user_4575]

Another thing I would like to see more of -- improvisations that occur within fairly restrictive structures (often technological structures) or with a very specific goal in mind. I am thinking of a lot of the experimental electronic music from the 60's and 70's, from before the notion of improv was as fetishized as it is now. Pauline Oliveros circa Bye Bye Butterfly, Gordon Mumma circa Hornpipe, Terry Riley circa Descending Moonshine Dervishes. I guess what I am describing is "systems music" -- music where the composition is the system itself, and the performance is a sort of playing freely within the system.

I think Shawn Greenlee's approach is an especially good contemporary expression of this.

[Cornelis]

The insistence on improvisation gives an all-over flatness and sameness to many releases. I would like to see a return to composition, especially on recordings. I would like to see works that have a more focused topography/architecture. less abstract expressionism, please.

Nope, I see enough stuff made by composers over here (Amsterdam) and there is the same "all-over flatness and sameness" there (if not more.....). It's not so much the method, it's the vision I think from the person that makes (improvises, composes, developes etc) that is decisive.
I'll stick to improv, but that's not something religious, it just works best for me.

[user_4575]

Nope, I see enough stuff made by composers over here (Amsterdam) and there is the same "all-over flatness and sameness" there (if not more.....).

devil's advocate: at least in this case they made the choice in favor of flatness and sameness, instead of stumbling across it through a lack of structural focus or vision.[/i]

[potatocircle]

[quote="future] Since ifs formation in the 60s, improv has remained on the edges; it's simply too dangerous to handle. With the blurring of improv with trendy electronica (of most varied kinds), I suppose it hopes to capture some of the crossover with he kinds of music covered in the Wire magazine. That, after being "uncool" for so long, improv can finally be trendy, and just become one among many possible styles. With this regression, the reasons for improvising in the first place, its philosophical origins, can be quietly swept under the carpet.[/quote]

futurenow is quoting one of his friends with this point, but i think it's valid and important (though the wire has certainly covered improv before eai)

There is deep suspicion on the part of many longtime acoustic improvisors i've talked with about the pop-ifying influence of electronics, and the ease with which electronic improvisors seem to be able to relinquish musicality.

[flies]

Nope, I see enough stuff made by composers over here (Amsterdam) and there is the same "all-over flatness and sameness" there (if not more.....).

devil's advocate: at least in this case they made the choice in favor of flatness and sameness, instead of stumbling across it through a lack of structural focus or vision.[/i]

i think cornelis got it right there. I like composed music, and i think you've got some interesting ideas, sexy. It is difficult to keep whole-song consciousness while improvising but it's far from impossible. Song structure that emerges spontaneously is not incompatible with the improvised format.

[Cornelis]

Nope, I see enough stuff made by composers over here (Amsterdam) and there is the same "all-over flatness and sameness" there (if not more.....).

devil's advocate: at least in this case they made the choice in favor of flatness and sameness, instead of stumbling across it through a lack of structural focus or vision.[/i]

Sorry, but this really proves you have no clue IMO.
Not by "choice", just by ignorance/incompetance/lack of talent/vision etc. NOTHING to do with the method.
(just to be clear, there are worse things in life than bad musicians, composers etc)

Will say no more about this because I'm repeating myself.......

[flies]

Since ifs formation in the 60s, improv has remained on the edges; it's simply too dangerous to handle. With the blurring of improv with trendy electronica (of most varied kinds), I suppose it hopes to capture some of the crossover with he kinds of music covered in the Wire magazine. That, after being "uncool" for so long, improv can finally be trendy, and just become one among many possible styles. With this regression, the reasons for improvising in the first place, its philosophical origins, can be quietly swept under the carpet.

futurenow is quoting one of his friends with this point, but i think it's valid and important (though the wire has certainly covered improv before eai)

There is deep suspicion on the part of many longtime acoustic improvisors i've talked with about the pop-ifying influence of electronics, and the ease with which electronic improvisors seem to be able to relinquish musicality.

but why should improvised music marginalize itself? what's wrong with it being 'cool'?

I think it's silly to say that EAI being 'one among many possible styles' is regressive, since that's what it is and always has been, simply because it is a style. Maybe you dont want it to be a 'style' but that's simply what happens when groups of people start getting interested in similar areas of artistic expression. How can you can claim that improvised music was at some point immune from being 'one among among many possible styles'?

[bryan]

Can I repeat it?..

It's not so much the method, it's the vision I think from the person that makes (improvises, composes, developes etc) that is decisive.

..because I cannot agree more.

A musical area that has been mined extensively can be picked back up, and in the right hands, be used to reveal something new that was hidden in plain sight all along.

[jkudler]

There is deep suspicion on the part of many longtime acoustic improvisors i've talked with about the pop-ifying influence of electronics, and the ease with which electronic improvisors seem to be able to relinquish musicality.

ugh. i hate this kind of thinking. it smacks of machismo to me. and a weird sort of neo-luddite suspicion of technology, and an old man's suspicion of "the kids" (i am, just to be clear, attacking the point you bring up, not you; i'm aware you aren't owning it).

in one sense, i'm all for relinquishing musicality! or at least broadening the definition of what constitutes "musicality." the focus on technique seems to so tedious to me. . what about ideas, form, etc.?

on the other hand, i could make a possibly contradictory defense that what someone like sachiko does is also very difficult - really focusing and having that kind of restraint, even if "anyone could do it."

i don't quite get the pop connection, aside from some obvious things. some kind of pulse or regular rhythm does not pop make, to me at least.

-jesse

[bryan]

I've come to think of placing a melodic line into a field of sound as the same thing as painting a figure on top of a field of color. The ear/eye is immediately focused onto the figurative/representational element which now dominates the space.

but once you've trained yourself to do otherwise there's no reason why you can't come to appreciate the same textural/abstract/material elements in a "melodic line" that you would in a less conventional sound.
assuming that it takes any training at all, which maybe it doesn't. maybe rehabilitation is a better word.

Rehabilitation is a good way to put it. I was using the melodic/figurative comparison because that's how I think of the way we're "trained" to connect with music. To be able to incorporate familiar melody or harmony and listen to it for its internal qualities as opposed to the extra-musical baggage it brings is like asking an audience to suspend their disbelief.

reminds me of a nice line from Metaphors on Vision by Stan Brakhage: "How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?"

I like that a lot. Once the point has been made and an awareness of the "many colors within green" is restored.. What's next? - emphasize the many colors or emphasize the awareness that lead to an appreciation of the colors?

I realize that I want it both ways - music that stands on its own as a listening experience and has a compelling enough extramusical aspect that it inspires further thought and inquiry instead of just becoming another style to mimic.

[niwi]

Right now we are in a situation where there is an extreme overload of material. There are too many cd's, cd-r's, cassettes of abstract improvised music for anyone to hear.

While I would agree that there are obviously tons of people releasing their own material now due to the increase of bedroom cdr/cassette labels and the like, and that this is causing an increase in the amount of music being released overall, are there really that many of 'abstract improvised music'? I actively look for people doing that and i'm not really coming across very many, certainly nowhere near as many as represented by other genres (I shudder at even typing that word, believe me). If you really are encountering this massive, speaker-clogging glut of 'abstract improvised' cdr releases, please feel free to forward me a list artists and titles that I may attempt to obtain them

[Richard Pinnell]

By the way, I have it on good authority that Richard Pinnell's pronunciation of Malfatti as Malfarty is a remnant of the once distinctive Oxfordshire dialect, which has been in his family since the late 13th century when the squires Pinnell owned much of Oxfordshire and the neighbouring counties and could afford to pronounce as they saw fit.

Heh. I'll 'ave you know my Mum is a thoroughbred cockernee, me old china.

[jkudler]

anyways.. . .

several good points i would like to respond to. first, i think sexes is right: there is really an overload of material now. in the past, you might hear what a big splash some group or other made when first touring to wherever - now, i can go online and hear mattin's concert from last night! so i think some of the ideas of "staleness," "it's been done before," etc. come from seeing sort of disconnected, or geographically disparate trends as united or even influencing one other, whether or not that may be the case. and people get bored so quickly, when you can hear 10 new cd's in a month of similar music. i don't mean to criticize this, just to point out that it's become a lot easier to get jaded or spoiled than it was even 10 years ago.

i also have been thinking a lot about composition lately; but maybe only in terms of musicians i work with. i have nothing against editing or "post-production" to make a stronger cd, but i have also begun to think about it in terms of live performances, where i feel like it's all too easy for things to drift into a kind of obvious flow, or really boringly amorphous form. it's a way to maybe call attention to issues beyond specific sounds. that said, i have rarely sought out music of this kind to listen to.

-jesse

[fearandpanic]

but if it's what you're looking for, you can start with radu's 12 self-released discs of composed material (another development since the 'EAI in 2006' thread), you can't have much more of a 'focused topography/architecture' than that.

You could also look into the previous millennium of composed music.

[Cornelis]

sorry to drop in, but

About pitch

Maybe you would say someone like Keith Rowe isn?t very pitch focused. But he doesn?t maybe PLAY pitch stuff so much directly but he?s very AWARE of it in his playing.
With piano playing you inevetably have to deal with pitch. Either because of some accidentally touched strings or whatever. It?s just there... Tilbury did say to Keith that his playing always made the piano sound good (Duos for Doris, rest my case). And having done a few duos with Keith I couldn?t agree more. So, if that is the case then Keith must be a great ?pitch player?.
Right?

Something more, let?s take an extreme example: Keith and Beethovens 6th (or whatever).
Whenever I have heared/played with Keith (and I have heared him play badly, stupid, anoying etc, just to make clear I?m not treating him as perfect, or idea-alizing him), I have never ever had the feeling that Beethoven?s 6th will never, ever, ever, be part of it/or could turn up etc. (and I probably never will hear it). But the feeling that it COULD have happened is what counts. This OPENNESS makes it a PROCES, a story, a journey, an adventure: = great music!
Right?

You can?t say there is music without sound or silence. (mmm maybe you can, but that?s another story....) And all sounds have pitches, so a series of sounds form a series of pitches: melody, harmonic progress. And putting this in time: you have pace, flow, rhythm! etc
So yeah, seriously: Keith Rowe swings hard........
Right?

Another 2 cents.... (mmm 4 already by now, this stuff is getting expensive)

[user_4575]

the feeling that it COULD have happened is what counts. This OPENNESS makes it a PROCES, a story, a journey, an adventure: = great music!
Right?

i kind of disagree. I feel like the pendulum has swung very far towards the ideal of freedom and openness, and nowadays i am feeling like some experimental music is becoming very boring as a result.

"openness" is naturally opposed to "tightness," and lately i am hungry for the latter. To stand out from the morass, a work should be fully and tightly realized. For improvisors, this might mean more strict self-imposed systems and self-chosen limitations.

To make a more audacious statement: sometimes "openness" is the enemy of vision.

[Cornelis]

on the other hand, i could make a possibly contradictory defense that what someone like sachiko does is also very difficult - really focusing and having that kind of restraint, even if "anyone could do it."

Yep, couldn't agree more

Cor