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

Repetition

 

It may seem like Dans les arbresHuntsville, and my solo work contain a lot of repetition. But is it really repetition? Is repetition itself the most interesting part of something being repeated?  

I see it more like variation – i.e. each repetition has just enough variation to it that it might as well serve as a variation of something else. Repetition and variation and connected. It is never purely repetition, never mere iteration.

It is the small nudge in rhythm, the tiny variation that evokes my interest. What merely seems like a repetition is the kind of repetition that I aim for.

(Because we are not machines) repetition reveals variation.