Know the Enemy
Aside from catastrophe interruptions (which generally com from outside music making), sound has few enemies, many of which are not true threats at all. These "enemies" are often of unwitting and questionably intellectual shorts. Human nature type of deals: inattention, indifference, prejudice.
Musical prejudice is particularly inconsistent with musical curiosity. Disliking a music by dint of some generalization. "I hate clarinets". This line of thought can be extremely limiting, ruling out some of the most potentially useful shorts of sonic invention.
Also, you have prejudice 'in favor of...' This limited view of music gets channeled into a kind of romance with a given music, as in an extreme adherence to a particular type of pop music, say. Rock bands, this or that jazz; it could be anything that is liked so much that other music is excluded.
For example, when I was a musically underexposed kid, the Rolling Stones or the Yardbirds seemed like heroic forces, somehow under attack by the Monkees and Wayne Newton. Meanwhile, I just didn't notice other sorts of music. Jazz, orchestral music, whatever was not already of interest. Heard it maybe, but paid little attention to what it actually sounded like.
Entertainment industry notwithstanding, this prejudice is most often self-imposed. "I just don't like ryde cymbals." Really; I don't.
All illustrations from Jan Lenica
Dave Williams
SOLO GIG
i CALL IT ANYTHING YOU WANT
ii CONCERNING ACCIDENTS
iii DISLIKE OF MUSICAL NOISE EXPLAINED
iv CHOO-CHOO
v TRUTH in MUSIC APPRECIATION
vi WHAT IS MUSICAL FREE IMPROVISATION
vii OUR UNIVERSEVIII WORKING JUNG´S RIFF
viii PREFERENCES
ix WHEN IT'S OUT OF OUR HANDS
x GLAD WE DIDN'T ORDER THE SPECIAL
xi WORKING JUNG'S RIFF
xii Know the Enemy
xi WORKING JUNG'S RIFF
Based in a noted musician's decades of personal experiences, his book Solo Gig: Essential Curiosities in Musical Free Improvisation (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011) examines some crucial and far-reaching aspects of musical free improvisation, with particular regard to live performances. In this illustrated collection of narrative essays, the author looks both into and from inside this uniquely paradoxical, challenging and rewarding way of making music, within the context of an inherently eccentric milieu.
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