seed ideas... improvising in the moment

I’m preparing for a couple of performances. Eight days from now I’m going to play improvised percussion on traditional and found instruments while two Contemporary dancers improvise movement. We will feed off of each other, react to each other, and create something unique to that moment and place.
I have no idea of what I might play. This sort of situation might many people very anxious. It makes me a little bit anxious, but not very. I have slowly learned that I can trust myself. I know that if I allow myself to relax, ideas will present themselves in the moment. They have before. they will again.

Live improvisation is potentially magical and powerful, because it is essentially "invention" and "composition" - in the moment. It forces us to be very aware, and to utilize (and depend on) our intuition. When the audience knows that improvisation is taking place, they go along for the ride too… not knowing what might happen next. The audience's energy helps direct the performance. Improvisation performance is a somewhat courageous thing to do, because there is always a risk of failure. It is a form of “living on the edge”. But as any Jazz fan knows, there is also a chance of being part of something amazing.

The skills needed in improvisation - being fully present in the present moment - being very here, right now - these are the same skills that are developed in the practice of Zen Buddhism. So I guess it makes sense that I’m drawn to both of these things.

So when I begin to play next Saturday evening, I will play one note. And that one “seed” note will decide my path to the next note, and so on. It will grow into something new… something I have never heard before. The first note will reverberate in the performance space in a unique way. The room will have a unique quality of echo and reverberation - dependent on every object in the space, and upon the humidity of the air, and countless other factors. That first note reverberating in the space will have a resonant frequency - a musical note. I will be drawn to that note because of the way it vibrates louder than the other harmonics. Every room has it’s own voice, and we can find each room's voice by making sounds - and listening intently. I believe that we do this subconsciously when we speak.
My musical choices that evening will be guided by the room sound, and also by the ways that the dancers respond to my previous notes and sounds. Also, by the way the audience reacts to our overall performance. And also by my inner mood that moment. And by every musical experience I have ever had. It is a complex interdependent whole, shifting through time. When I play, I am aware of all of these things at play.

Daniel Lanois released a DVD last year called “Here Is What Is”. In it there is a clip of Brian Eno saying how he would like the public to know that: “beautiful things grow out of shit. Because, nobody ever believes that. You know, everyone thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head. They somehow appeared there and formed in his head and all he had to do was write them down and they would kind of be manifest to the world. But I think that what’s so interesting and what would really be a lesson that everybody should learn is that things come out of nothing. Things evolve out of nothing. You know, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest.”

When I first learned to play guitar I just wanted to learn how to tune it properly, how to play notes, and how to form chords on the fretboard. I didn’t want to learn how to play anyone else’s music. I didn’t want anyone else’s style to influence my own too much. I wanted to develop my own style. I didn’t even want to know the names of the chords I learned. There was music playing in my head already … music that I knew that I was imagining. I wanted to give that inner music a voice. I wanted to be able to sit down with a guitar and create new music someday. I wanted to learn how to improvise. And that is how I learned - through exploration and improvisation. Every time I play an instrument I play new things. I rarely play the same thing twice. In the long run, I think my approach has served me well, from a creativity standpoint. But it meant that I was useless when people wanted to sit around a campfire and sing songs.

I have a side job as an Accompanist for Modern dance classes in dance schools. I work in tandem with a dance teacher. She creates dance exercises for her students, and I improvise rhythms that will work for her exercise. She quickly runs through her exercise, and then gives me a tempo to play at. She always changes them on the fly. There is often no way for me to know what to play until the moment actually arrives. My rhythms are guided by the dancer’s movements. It is another complex feedback system, and it is a beautiful thing to be part of.

My sense of humour is completely contextual and improvised. I don’t remember jokes. I react to situations in the moment. Once again, I depend upon intuition and creativity.

I suspect that my poor memory is partly to blame for this attraction toward improvisation (versus memorization). But maybe this weakness has encouraged another strength?

In the words of Homer Simpson, “Jazz?… bah… they just make it up as they go along!”

p.s.

The above photo is one that I took in my back yard, of an avocado seed in a glass of water.

west african drums

these are my guinean drums.

the deep-reddish goblet-shaped drum on the left is a djembe. during the past 20 years the djembe has become the most popular drum in the world. most people think of djembes when they think of african drums (even though there are hundreds of other drum types). the djembe originated in west africa hundreds of years ago, but is now found all over the world - in many shapes, sizes and materials.

the beauty of the djembe is that it has a loud, deep bass note plus at least two higher notes ("slap" and "tone", plus variations). this allows the djembe player to play a full-sounding, wide range of sounds, and be a "one-man-band", when needed. Anyone can play rhythms on a djembe within minutes, but it takes the average player around two years to be able to play "slaps" and "tones" with proper technique.

the wood shell on this particular djembe is a hollowed-out cashew tree trunk. the drum is tuned by using a rope-tuning system called the "mali weave", in which diamond-shaped knots are pulled into the vertical ropes, which raises the pitch by increasing skin tension. the skin is tuned very tight, using a tremendous amount of tension. in fact, when a djembe is tuned tight on a hot sunny day, a single drop of rain hitting the skin can cause it to explode. the ideal djembe skin is an african female goat skin. (i wish there were synthetic skins that could approximate the sound of a real skin, but there aren't yet. so i try to honour the sacrificed life of the goat by playing as well as i can... and also, enjoying every musical experience to the utmost. i do not take this sacrifice lightly.)

the other three barrel-shaped bass drums in this photo are called dununs. they come in a set of three, and are also made from hollowed out tree trunks. dununs are traditionally played laying horizontally on stands, using a wooden stick in the dominant hand. each drum has an iron bell attached to the tuning ropes, which is played with a metal bell stick in the other hand. the bell plays a timekeeper rhythm and the drum rhythm is overlaid. The drum hits are almost always played simultaneously with some of the bell hits.

each drum in the set of three plays a different part. some of the parts seem simple to play, but the placement of them within the combined rhythm is sometimes very tricky to achieve. the parts interlock in very intersting ways. each bell is playing a different part too, and they combine to form interesting polyrhythms too.

sometimes, due to a lack of players, the three bass drums are played standing on end, by one player. in this case, the intricate interplay between the three drums is simplified and bell rhythms are foregone entirely. Or another player plays an extra sangban and bell. a guinean friend recently informed me that this is how most groups play now. the traditional method of having one player for each drum/bell is mostly reserved for ceremonial occasions.

there are two types of notes played on dunun bass drums... the "open hit" and the "press". the smallest "kenkeni" plays the most metronomic beat of the three, and is the reference for the other parts. the middle-sized "sangban" plays the most integral, melodic part. and the big "doundounba" plays the accents and solos. (note that this is opposite to most western music in which the highest pitched instrument is usually the solo instrument.)

a lot of the musical interest in this music comes from the fact that it is polyrhythmic - based on multiples of 2 and 3 played at the same time. a listener/dancer can usually hear rhythms of 4 and 6 at the same time - which makes it wonderful music to dance to.

this music is made for dance. each traditional song has a dance associated with it. and each traditional song is played at a certain type of occasion... harvest, wedding, rite of passage (circumcision), etc.

guinean-born mamady keita is recognized by most to be the premier ambassador of this music to the western world.

west africans have developed some of the most interesting and intricate percussion music in the world. most popular music (rock, blues, soul, dance, rap) has roots in music from this area.

there is an extensive repetoire of percussion music for dununs and djembe. ideally, for most traditional songs there are three dunun players and three djembe players (one soloist and two support players). Plus singing, shakers, double-bells, balafon, other drums, etc.

the fact that this music requires four to seven players means that it is interactive and social... and very fun. it is intellectual and intuitive at the same time. there are psychological benefits to this. to play well, one must get beyond thinking about playing, and just play... trusting ones hands to do the right thing. the interaction between musicians and dancers is mutually reinforcing.

i have studied this music for the past seven years. and playing this complex rhythmic music on these drums with my drummer friends has opened my ears to a whole new world of intricate polyrhythms... and a whole world of interrelated artistic people. it has changed my life - beyond measure.

i took this photo of my drums at the park, just before an outdoor afternoon festival gig.

morning mist

i woke early one morning, walked down to the dock. It was quiet and the air was still. at the other side of the lake there was an inlet with a narrow opening to the larger lake... and the mist was pouring - in slow motion - from the inlet down onto the lake. the silhouetted trees are mostly jack pines – the same sort that the group of seven painted so often.

tall grass prairie path

i like paths. paths are like invitations for journeys. we never know where a path will lead until we follow it. so paths seem to represent mystery and the unknown... the future.
this particular path through tall grass prairie and blue spruces is near the fork of the red and assiniboine rivers, at the heart of winnipeg
although this scene looks quite “natural”, it was created. this little area of tall grass prairie was intentionally planted. the trees were planted. the path was created. kind of like a prairie version of a japanese zen garden, i guess.
i prefer this type of garden to the standard english formal garden, where everything is arranged in simple rectangles and circles. it’s not that i don't like english gardens... I just feel that the idea has been done to death. a zen garden is much more subtle and complex, bridging the line between the natural and the designed.
plus, there is something about the design of a japanese zen garden that resonates with something calm and aware, deep inside us.
in my recent exploration of photography I have noticed that I seek out subjects that induce feelings similar to the ones that I get from japanese gardens.

what a fountain really looks like

It is interesting how we assume that we can trust our senses. But this picture does not lie. In the same way that a movie is a collection of still frames, a water fountain squirts water that form little blobs, due to surface tension. It is a defect in our brain that gives it the appearance of a constant stream.
How many other things are different from what we percieve?

cattail symphony

One evening last summer I rode my bike to a small creek in a park. The sun began to fall. The birds sang out for the last time that day, before retiring to their nests. A red-winged blackbird (like the one in the picture above) stayed perched on a cattail near me... singing its familiar song.

I sat there and listened to the birds for quite a while.

After some time I started hearing the combined birdsongs of the many species of birds as if it were one huge symphony. Their music was complex, but it definitely sounded like "music" to me.

I noticed that their music moved though space. I could hear one bird begin a cycle, far off, down the creek. Then another would respond, and another, and another... getting closer and closer to me... then past me, and further down the creek. Sometimes the songs would travel back and forth.

The different birds seemed to have different lengths to their song cycles. But they cycles combined in a beautiful complex rhythm. Much like the phase-shifting loops, in Brian Eno's (Steve Reich-inspired) Ambient music.

The pitch relationships of the songs were interesting too. They were quite complex. Some rose and fell. Some had little melodies. The combination was astounding. Much more complex than human music. I wonder if birds and whales might consider a lot of human music to be repetitive and dull?

It also reminded me of drum circles... how a bunch of drummers need to play for a while until they start hearing a melodic rhythm emerge, with each drummer finding the spots where his/her drum notes fit in. When everyone collaborates and locks together, it becomes beautiful music, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Collaborative events like this give me hope for social creatures, like ourselves.

toyota gamelan

I found an automobile brake drum in the back lane. I intended on polishing it, and using it as a percussion instrument. But I left it in the rain and it began to rust. So I left it outside.

I like the texture and colour of the rust. I sometimes play it out there, using drum sticks that I made from tree branches . It has a sound somewhere between a bell and a gong.