Reflection text #1, June 2018
Improvising with humans and improvising with machines
- Reflections seven months into the project
My musical identity? I write songs and lyrics. I improvise, meaning I change songs on the spot, add new parts, different instrumentations, other sounds. In the playing situation I let the preconceived material and my improvisational practice meet. They oscillate (…) Improvisation is a tool to explore [this] uncertainty, this mixture of void and ant’s nest that I don´t understand. I explore my songs when I improvise. I improvise to move the music towards something that resonates more with the nature of anxiety, something unstable, risky, sometimes powerful, sometimes vulnerable.
The complex and partly baffling algorithms, the total chaos, breakdowns, the trying to understand what´s going on in the machinery, the complexity of a technical setup… These are some of the main attraction points to why I like improvising with machines (…) An interplay situation with algorithms may change our musical handling skills also in a human-human interplay because the machine will show us other ways or force us to do other things. It is a mix of being pushed and informed.
Read the full text here.
Biography
During the past 20 years, Morten Qvenild has been a clear voice in European jazz, pop and other related musical fluctuations. He has initiated and composed for/played in several bands and participated on about 60+ albums with In the Country, The National Bank, Solveig Slettahjell Slomo Quintet, Susanne Sundfør, Arve Henriksen, Thomas Dybdahl, Martin Hagfors, Ingrid Olava, The Budding Rose, Marit Larsen, Nils Petter Molvær, Shining, Jaga Jazzist, Trail of Souls, Food, Trinity and Susanna and the Magical Orchestra and A-ha. Morten Qvenilds latest endeavour is the development of the HyPer(sonal) Piano, a project which was conducted under the Norwegian artistic research fellowship programme. He is working with extending the grand piano sonic pallet by integrating live electronics in different ways related to the piano and his voice. This project also resulted in his first solo album, Personal Piano. The album won the Edward Grieg price and was nominated for two Grammys in Norway. A trademark of all his project is the trying to explore the axis between clear cut composition and improvisation. He is now an Associate Professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music, at the Jazz, Improvised Music and Traditional Nordic Folk Music Department.
Parallell Play
Sensibilities sometimes found in improvisation; like
...the one that occur once in a while, like when the two of us had the same thought without knowing it, and these thoughts unfolded as sound at the same instant. That is interplay to me. That is empathy to me.
...the one that occur when I am struggling with finding a direction, and the other takes the lead, marches on as a visible flag post for me to follow. That is interplay to me. That is empathy to me.
...the one that occur when the sum of two different viewpoints become a new conglomerate of unheard timing, sounds, dynamics. The fine-tuned amount of contrasting each other that makes the sum really ambivalent and by this, interesting because the ambivalence implies many readings of the same material. That is interplay to me. That is empathy to me.
Read the full text and watch videos here
