Ensemble & Ensemble of Me
What I think about when I think about improvisation

 

Material

 

“Perhaps it hinges on the question of flexibility. Too much destroys the music, but too little destroys the improvisation." 1

In Dans les arbresHuntsville, and my solo work in this project, I find that I am looking for flexible musical material.

What is flexible musical material?
How is it flexible?
What makes it flexible?
Is it about (variation in) size?
Portions?
Is it perforated?

Can everything be flexible?                                                           (yes)
Does everything
 have to be flexible?                                             (yes)
Can it be rigid?                                  (yes, sure but eventually it will be flexible)
Can I make use of musical material                 (i am trying but i always end up)
that serves rigidity?                                             (treating it as if it was flexible)                                                                                     

                       (it is a natural consequence of both) 
                       (boredom and necessity)

 

How weak can musical material be without being nothing? 
How pregnant can musical material be and still merge?

Does musical material have to be able to merge or fuse with something else?
Bleed into something else?                                 (yes. see above!)

Probably not.
But musical material that has the ability to do so, invites. 

Does musical material have to be able to be moulded, and developed into something else?                                                   (yes. see above!)

Probably not. 
But musical material that has this ability, opens for a flexibility that often is required.


 

 

1 John Butcher in "Freedom and Sound - This time it's personal" http://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD35/PoD35Butcher.html (Accessed 15 October 2015)