Reflection text #1, June 2018
Improvising with humans and improvising with machines
Reflections seven months into the project
Often, I have been thinking that technology is more interesting when it is broken (…) Performing with a set of both failing and not failing technology often give me an impression of trying to navigate a (sinking?) ship. The technology is the waves, winds and currents, and I'm doing my best trying to keep some kind of balance. Often, I quite enjoy heavy winds and big surprises, and I don't really need to know where I'm going. I just don't want to sink.
What happens if I, when we play, consider KimAuto to be the captain in charge, the helmperson, and I'm just throwing in waves and winds for it to work on? (...) I am asking myself: if I’m truly interested in collective improvisation I should let KimAuto take more responsibility, and I need to accept how KimAuto takes responsibility. (And, by the way, who am I to define what balance is?)
Read more here.
Reflection text #2, August 2018
How to begin and when should we end?
Reflections before and after my first "real" concert with Kim-Auto. Read more here.
Reflection text #3, Feb 2019
Un-predictable trees
In the kind of improvisation that I’m engaged in, it is not customary to talk about form before playing. At least, in my experience it is not. It doesn’t mean that form is not important, it means it can only be seen in retrospect. Form is tracked in memory and can be seen in retrospect. Planning form and certain developments in the music before it is played, often come in conflict with the process of improvising.The kind of improvising I’m engaged in is a bit like seeding, you can’t tell in advance exactly how the tree will look. If you know your seeds, you can probably tell the general growing direction, general information such as tall or short, green or red leaves, but you can’t tell the exact shape. You can see how it has become, not how will become...
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Biography
Ivar Grydeland is a Norwegian guitarist chiefly operating within the realm of contemporary improvised music. Grydeland has toured regularly in Europe, Asia, North- and South America over the last 17 years with his main improvising ensembles Huntsville and Dans les arbres, as well as with the Norwegian artist Hanne Hukkelberg.
He has released about 35 albums with his main groups, solo and side projects on labels like ECM, Hubro, Rune Grammofon and Sofa - a label he started together with Ingar Zach in 1999. Together with the quartet Dans les arbres he was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize 2015.
In 2015 Grydeland completed his artistic research fellowship project "Ensemble & Ensemble of Me" at the Norwegian Academy of Music, where he is now Associate Professor at the Jazz, Improvised Music and Traditional Nordic Folk Music Department.
