I feel like I had it easy this week. I come from a massively improvised background, and although it's been ages since I got to participate in a large group improv, it's still definitely a subject I'm comfortable with. I'm trying to get my greasy mitts on the Derek Bailey Improvisation book, because that was a most inspired read. I was totally stoked that James picked some North Indian Classical music to listen to. I've been a big lover of Indian music for years now. I fell in love with it from reading about ragas in Bailey's book back in the late 90's, and then through the Indian/jazz/dance/electronic fusion musics I was discovering from studying at Monash and Box Hill tafe's jazz course, from Shakti to Tabla Beat Science. The latter got me interested in tabla music, and I learned tabla for several years which deepened my connection to improvisation (as a side note, I've maintained my love for Indian classical music, and have several works old and new that exploit these sounds and forms. In particular, the new aubade/nocturne series I'm working on, as mentioned in last week's blog, the ambient segues that I'm composing to join the pieces together are based on morning and evening raga forms, and will be improvised).
The other track that I loved was the Beta Erko. I loved it. I love the Vulk's hip hop style. I was really impressed with how it sounded, but even more impressed when I found out the process behind it. That sort of live processing thing is really hard to pull off well, especially when it's a group improvisation. Great sounds.
So I'm reading through my notes from class, and there's a lot of names this week, and not much else. Things that I really liked and need to check out more of. Particularly Sonic Youth/ Jim O'rourke (both of whom, I love, but only know small amounts of their work - I am in love with Jim O'rourke's project Gastr del Sol).
I loved the Guitar/bird installation piece by Celeste Bourgier-Mougernot (animal cruelty aside), although I make a distinction between chance music and improvisation, in fact, I see a massive difference between them. What I mean is, the sound being created by chance by the birds constitutes more of a chance composition than an improvisation. I think improvisation needs to be more active.
The group improvisation we performed together was great fun. I'm really glad I recorded it (will upload/post links soon). I listened back and found it really interesting (although the sound mix/levels etc wasn't flattering or evenly spread for coverage of everyone in the room). I made the choice to use my voice and a megaphone over bringing in an instrument. I considered bringing my guitar or a bunch of stuff like theremin/waterphone/melodica, but i figured that with voice I could express and experiment more, and since I don't really have a "main instrument" anymore, and consider myself "multi-instrumental/vocalist", it seemed only natural to sing. I tried to avoid standing out as sounding like a "frontman" in the music, although there are times when I did, and it worked, and I tried to experiment with a few different approaches to voice. I avoided actual words, and went for nonsensical syllables, reverse sounding stuff, etc. Another reason I chose to use voice is that it's an incredibly physical expression of sound, and I like to get really physical when I improvise, really make the sound part of my body.
There are a couple of particularly emotional moments that stand out in my memory. One was a soft moment, when I started singing melodic phrases unamplified, and the music built up around me. The other was a much more violent moment that became intensely physical and emotional for me. James had stood up near me, bowing a cardboard box, and i was convulsively attacking the megaphone, playing it like a saxophone (I had a flash of seeing Zorn live as I was squealing and squarking and muting the end of the megaphone against my leg - something Zorn does with the bell of his sax), as things started to calm down, I was making a quite gross, guttural, sick/vomit sound, and started to (in some kind of method acting way) increase the realness of these convulsions to a point where I was actually almost puking. Which hurt, and started making me really emtional. Listening back to this section is really powerful, especially when the tears and sobs and coughing start. It being real and not mock sound effects, being really in the moment with the music, and being so viscerally connected to the sound at the moment, listening back makes me kind of squeemish. In the moment, I really felt part of the music. The room and everyone had disappeared completely. All the was left was the sound.
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