some thoughts on lo-fi improvisation

[Glenn Bach <gbach@xxxxxxxxx>]

As a writer and visual artist with a lifelong passion for music but no
traditional training in music practice or theory, I have discovered
sound collage and improvisation as windows into the world of music.
Informed by the work of conceptual artists and experimental composers,
who opened up composition to allow the score to function as a set of
conditions for events or improvisation to happen rather than a fixed
musical experience, I have embarked on a journey of experimentation and
collaboration in music and sound.  As a newcomer to music-making, one
issue in which I am particularly engaged is the recontextualization of
electronic music into a lo-fi environment.

Electronic music is primarily associated with the technology used in its
creation, an embrace of the high-tech sheen afforded by sequencing
software and digital signal processing (DSP).  The extreme example of
this is microsound, or "glitch," where the very mechanisms and keysounds
of the operating equipment become the music itself, with its pops and
whirrs and skips of digital operation and malfunction, a genre of music
entirely impossible a generation earlier.  But what happens when
electronic music is removed from the context of the high-tech and placed
in the realm of the lo-fi?  When electronic signals, originating from a
drum machine or an old analog synth for example, are directed not
through a sequencer or sound processing software but through a chain of
guitar effects pedals?  Or the vibrations from the strings of a bass
guitar are transformed to the point that they resemble electronic or
digital sound?  What happens when electronic music is approximated or
referenced, lifting it from the linearity of tracks unfolding to the
grid represented by the software interface?  If the style, or effect, or
"feel" of electronic music is co-opted for other uses, would it still be
electronic music?  Would it be more than merely an offshoot of  prog
rock?  I hope so.

There is a purity to electronic music (and laptop music in particular)
that I respect and admire, and my explorations into lo-fi sound are not
meant as a critique of the digital.  There are genres of electronic
music that can only exist because of computers, with effects and sounds
impossible to create in the non-digital world.  What interests me  more,
however, is the interzone where the two meet and spin off the other,
electronic and electric.  Where conversations happen between "jazz" and
"rock" (not fusion).  Between song structure (verse chorus verse) and
loop-based drones or unmetered clusters.  Between purpose and chance.

This is where I find myself drawn.  Rather than invest in a computer,
sequencing software, a high-end sound card, soft-synths, programming
modules, etc., I'm more interested in taking the lo-fi back-road,
building up my chain of pedals: phaser, flanger, delays, reverb, chorus,
compressors, distortion, fuzz, amp emulators, tremolo.  Instead of
running everything from a laptop, twiddling virtual knobs to shape the
sound, I could run an "old school" drum machine pattern through the
chain, tweak it, loop it, build layers by hand and in real time.  Most
importantly, what happens when I bring this aesthetic into the group
setting?  What musical directions might my partners take in response?
Or me to them?  What happens when I run a "glitch" loop (perhaps
achieved through the popping static caused by a short in a guitar cord,
as opposed to a DSP filter on the computer) as a rhythmic track and a
live drummer/percussionist drops in?  Perhaps I could swing back in the
other direction and use a laptop to run a preliminary sequence as a
structure on which to build other non-digital components.  The
electronic, then, would become a starting point rather than a
self-contained operating system.  The key, I think, is improvisation,
and an openness to the fluidity of boundaries.

As an artist whose creative history is exemplified by multidisciplinary
drifting, I find that these are truly exciting times as a sound
collagist and budding musician.  The lo-fi improvisation of electronic
music offers me an inroad into the world of music as a maker rather than
merely a listener.  Through sound I approach music from a visual or
linguistic perspective,  in small increments, tiptoeing the fuzzy line
where sound becomes music, engaging in a dialogue with other musicians
who come from a more developed musical background.  The resulting
soundscape is ideally that much richer and engaging, for both performer
and audience.

Although these ideas may be revolutionary to me, they may be old news
for others, so I welcome feedback, critique, or even suggestions of
other artists working in this vein.

Thanks.

G.