Acoustic Instruments and Interaction
The process of learning to play an instrument is often compared to other embodied activities such as cycling: when learned they eventually become second nature,[10] and there is also a close relationship between learning and intuition. The more I learn about my instrument the greater the possibility of entering into sympathy with it. Playing an instrument is a complex activity that involves extensive interaction between the instrument and the musician. Practicing the instrument over many years allows for the development of a very intuitive relation to the instrument. As a saxophonist, when I pick up and play the saxophone, I may not experience it as an external object (in the words of Bergson) that I analyze deductively. Instead, the relation can be described as entering into sympathy with it, which, in turn, would allow for an intuitive understanding of the processes I engage in. Paraphrasing Bergson: I am listening from the inside to the sum of myself and the instrument as one single unit. Using the method of intuition, it may be possible to understand the continuous flow between myself and the saxophone as a type of information that may lead to new knowledge. Only if one manages to get "on the inside" of the whole will it be possible to fully understand it as an intuition. The sensory and auditory feedback I get from the instrument continuously influences how I play it and how much energy I put into it, and this influences, and is influenced, by the level of unification between the instrument and the system as a whole.
My motor habits are changing as I play, which changes the feedback I get from the instrument. To perceive this system from the inside it is first necessary to understand the way the various components of the system (the saxophone and its parts, etc.) are. The moments of circular breathing in the short excerpt from my piece Concinnity undoubtedly make it necessary for me, in performance, to focus intensely on things that are usually second nature, even when playing a wind instrument. This piece also involves live electronics which further adds to the complexity of the system. I need to plan my breathing and the spaces I leave for the electronics that are generated from my playing. Additionally, the tuning adds an extra challenge that requires maintaining an inner focus, but there is no way these decisions and this planning can be done in isolation. It appears fair to say that this unified system allows me to understand the information I get from my intuition of the system. To succeed in entering into sympathy in this context, I need to transgress the understanding of the saxophone as an independent object. Rather, I come into sympathy with the larger system, containing myself, the instrument, the electronics, and all other aspects that pertain to playing. While this example is of playing an instrument, a similar analysis of a field recording session or any other artistic endeavor in sound would be entirely possible.
However, if some part of the system changes – and it is often enough to make only a small adjustment – the whole system may need to be reconfigured, and certain things may need to be learned again. If I have cut my lip or wounded a finger, acquired a new electronic instrument, the inside perspective may be altered and may take some time to adjust to. The instrument and its parts are embodied which over time creates a system that I can approach intuitively, but this system is very sensitive to change. The integration is part of learning an instrument, it may be quick in simpler instances and take a lifetime in more complex ones, but the smallest change can disrupt the sensation of unity and require adjustments.
Additionally, sensory data that are external to the saxophone-musician system also have an impact on what, and how, I play. The moving coil that Bergson describes is a metaphor for how learning also depends on past experiences and events outside of oneself. The back-and-forth process is not, however, limited to two dimensions but is in constant motion in a multi-dimensional space. During a concert in Tokyo in November 2023 with Rikard Lindell on a modular synthesizer, I needed to, at times, incorporate external sounds into my expression. When I listen back to this live recording, this incorporation works very well at the end of the segment (4’10’’ in the track), where the processing of the saxophone is entirely integrated into the musical form and the specific character of the music played, but is less successful at the beginning, where it takes some time for us to find the direction in which to drive the music. Throughout this recording, we attune to each other's systems and create overlapping areas; one possible analysis is that we can approach our respective intentions intuitively.
Figure and Sound Example 1: The recording of Concinnity is from a concert at CCRMA, Stanford in December 2023
