Reaching for the utmost limits – Making a process visible with The Hands, the Bow, and the Bass by Johannes Nästesjö

Can I, by reaching for the utmost limits on my instrument, in dynamically, technically and pitch related ways both find, for me, new contemporary techniques and expand the ways on how to play and perform them on the double bass? Can I, by illuminating, documenting, studying, organizing and re-documenting my musical process, design a toolkit for improvising bassists with contemporary techniques? Can I, in my musical process both act as the first person, i.e. the subjective musician and as the third person, i.e. the objective observer?  If so, can I, as the observer objectively observe and organize the ”discoveries” that I am doing in my daily work as first person. Can I create this tool kit through the limitations that my instrument offers acoustically (the hand, the bow and the bass). And can I through this immerse and widen my musical expressions? - A richer language - more elastic - with more colors.

Classes & Recordings with Sten Sandell

November 2022

A reflection about the recording

Improvised music in the spirit of the contemporary improvised European scene. Built on conversations rather than monologues, in which we both tried to emphasize the collective, rather than one of us being lifted on the other’s shoulders. Musically, occasionally airy and with plenty of room for both musicians to phrase freely but still together. Occasionally very intense, and utterly rhythmically complex and compact, with notes plowing forth musical furrows, but without running over the form and the musical whole. During the takes, no one could take anything for granted, no one could rest in their favorite techniques. Instead, we had to be constantly ready for instant rhythmical, dynamical, tonal, and spectral changes. It resulted in compositions in different shapes and phrasings and varying lengths, which I did not experience as cliché, neither in time nor in terms of form.

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