Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Solo Gig Why Not Sneeze



WHY NOT SNEEZE



Radio's playing classical music. In the middle of a slow and particularly stately passage, there's suddenly a cough. The announcer coughed. Shouldn't have left that mic open. For some reason, this extremely rare and unexpected event has always struck me as one of the most incisive and inexplicably funny intrusions possible in broadcast music.



It should be noted, though, that from an orchestral standpoint this phenomenon is most virtuosic when there is only one cough. An extended coughing fit loses that jolly 'stealth' element of surprise, the auspicious charm of an uncontrollable but politely brief solo appearance.



Theoretically, coughing fits might work better with improvising, where the uncontrolled is not necessarily out of place to begin with. Here again, less is more, if only for hygienic concerns. 

 Art by Walter de Maria, Lighting Fields
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
16.- MACH NUMBERS
17.- CONDITIONALITIES OF QUIETUDE
18.- THEN AND NOW
19.- WHY NOT SNEEZE



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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