RE: [microsound] microvising...and structures

[m <m@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This gets at my questions of how people are doing this more specifically...

> A question i'd really like to ask to most of the fellow musicians on this
> list: when you're working on an electroacoustic track for instance, when you
> use software processed sounds, do you then use a sequencer to organize them
> ? I tend to use cubase , but when dealing with non rythmic tracks or pieces,
> it very much feels like collage rather than sequencing...

Yes, my experience also. I am used to improvising on keyboard, or 
possibly on flute or drums, which is a very different experience 
(mechanically, at least) from the few times I've tried to contribute 
to a jam via laptop. Throwing a sound sample out here and there feels 
more like collage than what I know of improv.... of course there is a 
strong improvisational element to collage, so perhaps I'm splitting 
hairs here... but in collage one is stuck with larger "quantitave" 
chunks of sound/ideas. In improv isn't the emphasis on musical 
communication between musicians, acting/reacting to what what is 
being played by others? Collage can certainly be used this way, but 
more often the end product is the emphasis, not the process of 
getting there.




> -----i've done a few improv releases.. and try to improvise as much as
> -----possible when i play live.. but mostly i prefer to make
> -----much of the
> -----arranging and program an exact fragment-by-fragment science.. to
> -----really be deliberate with every grain.
>
> I associate the best improvisation with an artist who has become
> un-selfconscious with their instrument of choice.  Can you be so attuned to
> the nuances of your software and it's physical interface that this is
> possible?  I have learned to use 3d modeling and drafting software on the
> fly as a design tool after a steep learning curve of eight years or so.  But
> still there is a freedom that isn't there with a simple sketching pen and
> paper.  Is their something inherent in the use of laptops as instruments
> that inhibits truly inspired improvisation.  Do attempts at it in the field
> of computerized music often turn into an unfocused and self indulgent
> noodling?

Yes, these are good questions, I think. As Taylor says those of us 
working on laptops are often using it's abilities for "micro-control" 
over what we're doing, an approach not entirely compatible with 
improv as defined as creating something entirely on the fly. And as 
Gunnar mentions there seem to be inherent limitations in the form of 
the "instrument" itself.

In some ways it seems a matter of scale and subtlety, the slow 
shifting in processing of sounds has some qualitative topographical 
differences to the wild melodic/harmonic/rhythmic shifts that free 
jazz thrives on. I don't mean to be splitting hairs again here, but 
like so many other aspects of digital technology, I'd like to think 
that a paradigm shift means more than simply laying old methods and 
thinking on top of new technology.

listen here... http://www.foundrysite.com/audio