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Wednesday, April 22, 2015

SOLO GIG We need to talk




WE NEED TO TALK
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Whether it happens deliberately or incidentally, talking over music is one of the most effective weapons available in the war on musical experience, knocking out both one's own and possibly others' ability to hear into the music.

 
Considered rude in some performance situations (chamber concerts), talking aloud must be taken for granted in others (clubs). Wherever, it works great as a tactical deterrent in almost any musical situation. 

 
This is particularly common when listening to recordings with others, where talking occurs quite naturally, since music intentionally stimulates emotions and the intellect, which also happen to be two major properties of conversation.

 
It would seem that many people regard pretty much all music as so me kind of environmental backdrop to interpersonal exchanges. In fact, lots of people who are real 'music lovers' may have never even thought about not talking over music.

 
As it turns out, the truly transcendent musics are gene rally conversation killers. The interesting sound is highly intrusive. It has to be so; otherwise we wouldn't notice it. I'm not speaking here about loud volume or flashy playing; we stop talking because some quality of the music becomes more engaging to us than conversation.
 
 
 
In any event, it's as easy to talk over a loud band as over a string quartet, at least until the sound-or the sound-making commands immediate attention. Still, in certain circumstances even transcendent music can kill only so many conversations.
 
 
 
How about this scenario: a performance of Cage's 4'33" where (during the silent piano) the expected rustlings and incidental audience noises actually consist of unrestrained, enthusiastic conversation about football.
Eleven-thirty Saturday night in a bar; should have seen that coming.

 Art by Roland Topor
Dave Williams



SOLO GIG

01.- CALL IT ANYTHING YOU WANT 
10.- WHEN IT'S OUT OF OUR HANDS
11.- GLAD WE DIDN'T ORDER THE SPECIAL
12.- WORKING JUNG'S RIFF
13.- KNOW THE ENEMY
14.- THE MUTABLE FORM 
15.- CONCERNING INMORTALITY


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. 
Available here. (U.S.A.) (Europe)




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