CURRENTS: Spring 2000

Finished in the studio (composing) today, so time to put some words your way. Still recovering from a foray into Speakeasy, where "it ain't a fit night out for man'nor beast" – courtesy WC Fields. I will try to keep my mouth here and stay out of the nasties but will miss the good guys. Too much wasted time to no result except "getting" someone – not the idea for discourse, I think. OK – current events: finishing a piece (writer's euphemism for trying to make sense out of bits of paper scattered about) for the Metropole Orchestra in Holland, featuring string quartet. They have a good one within the orchestra but oy! what a job to bring off! Finally getting over on it and any spare prayers, sacrifices, etc., will be welcome. It gets recorded in late May and immediately after I go to Stuttgart to help final mix of my "birthday CD" recorded last September.

McNeely, Maria Schneider, Holman, Manny Albam and John Hollenbeck wrote from here and some ex-students from Cologne did the rest. Looking likely that Challenge will release it. Some of my New Art guys and some musicians I had never met, who just like to play music – for no money – worked for 6 long and hard days – absolutely amazing. The summer will be spent writing new CD for my New Art Orchestra, to be recorded in early Jan., 2001. Some Calif. playing in August, Lake Placid Seminar 21-26 and Sept. begins NEC and a month in Graz, Austria. They are sponsoring the music and copying, so I am giving them some time and a recording. Barter system is it!! Trying to find a day to get to Copenhagen to fix the piano trio (yes, I fear 'tis me playing the piano) and then to get Hal Crook and I recorded. So far, 2-3 commissions next year, including a piece for "The Orchestra" in LA. I think they have had everyone else in the western world twice, so decided to catch me while I am still breathing. No resentment, just observant. 

With my history, I am well aware that I am very lucky to be alive, not to mention being able to write, play, teach and conduct and still keep the family fed and the Camaro gassed up. Long ago I decided that all I needed from the world was, "OK, do one more." Still the motto in the mountains.

Now, I have promised – and failed – to get some positive information your way, and have emails to remind me of this. First some initial observations about improvisation, which hopefully will spark some targeted queries from you all. Here goes…

The mechanics of making music (improvising) are fairly simple. Only three things can occur – scale steps, skips (or leaps) and silence, the latter more observed in theory than in practice, I freely admit. Now, the paring down of complexity and chromatic desires can be extremely helpful in "retooling" a programmed player, OR – even better – taking a neophyte and begin to learn to i-m-p-r-o-v-i-s-e. Not copying current slang, but really learning how to speak in musical language, for a language it is. It ain't the Bible, it's a work in progress for every individual who desires to begin to speak. If we assume a full (FULL) grasp of major, minor, diminished and augmented scales and arpeggios, we can then begin to work with a major scale, no accidentals, no escape routes. Seven pitches, that's all. Try, a medium tempo, play for 30 seconds. After that is done a few times, make it a minute, two minutes and gradually working up to half an hour. You should find a "zone" being reached during which the music begins to play you, not you the music. The "office" upstairs in your head is having to figure out how to make some sense out of a very limited menu – this means, you are TRAINING YOUR BRAIN TO MAKE MUSIC. Now, of equal importance, is the symbolic removal of an ear to be placed 10-20 feet away from you. This is the same ear that hears Bird, Stravinsky and whoever else you favor. This ear should "listen" to you in the same way – if your ear can tell when someone else is playing well, it HAS to be able to guide you and hear what is OK and what is not OK. If your ear is involved with your immediate mechanical struggles (time, pitch selection, etc.) it cannot listen to you and help you play better. This is not much discussed but is as important as bread and water and Direct TV! Now, once this is successfully accomplished, spice and condiments can gradually be added – sharps and flats – and you can use the same procedure for being as chromatic as you wish. The chance for Making Your Own Music have just increased greatly. You will be lonesome and bereft, having put aside the accepted wisdom of the last 50 years, but you will also begin to get interested in Intervallic Relationships. These are the spaces between two pitches, which make up the words we use to speak with. A minor 2nd and a major 2nd are worlds apart. Practice (with a piano) playing all the intervals, beginning with a 2 minute repetition of middle C, pedal down. Then, begin to ascend, interval-by-interval, upwards to the octave. Take your time, no hurry-the middle C, after about 2-3 minutes, begins to BECOME YOU – you cease to "play" the note – it is now part of your body. That same sensation, with any kind of playing, involves loving every note that you play, taking very good care of each note and listening as your imagination makes up a stream of pitches, which become "your song." I feel that all music is song-based, in some fashion and no matter how convoluted it may sound (Cecil Taylor, Milton Babbit) it still comes from a universal, internal song. There IS a mystic element in all this stuff, since YOU cannot decide to play good or bad tonight; you just go and see what happens. That is why we all do this. As Degas said, "I start every painting completely ignorant" Being "prepared"' to play can mean being ready to receive the message. If you are a receiver of music from somewhere else, you need to be well tuned and plugged into the wall, ready to go.

Being plugged in slides me right into TIMING – timing is the absolute test (at least it used to be) of whether you will SWING or not. In my youth, no swing, no ring. It still matters, even currently, in these more esoteric and varied contexts in which much of music seems to take place. Now, the first exercise is to play as many 8th notes (medium tempo) in a row, VERY MARCATO – 4 bars, 6 bars – until you are ready to lose breath. Theses MUST be very short and, by playing all 8th notes, you will soon find that the old favorites can't be easily reached and you get forced into NEW PLACES – EEK!! This is uncomfortable, a very good sign. You want comfort, be something else. By making sonic and metric "dents" in the time compendium, you-in effect – reserve space for legato notes. Hardly anyone can sing a bad phrase or beat a rhythm that is not right. Once we get the instrument in our face (or under our fingers) something gets fucked up. We lose our natural flow and begin to get deeply mired in unpleasant substances. Deep shit, in other words. So, the routine is 4 bars short notes (still all 8ths) and 4 bars legato notes – rest – do it again. A 1/2 an hour a day will suffice and it should be done every day. Perhaps for the rest of your life, but first we'll see how you do. Tape it, LISTEN to it and do it again – LISTEN is the keyword.

I have made a discovery the past 2-3 years at NEC – many students have "Vertical Stoppage" – they are so concerned with THE CHORD NAME that all else that is natural and musical gets frozen, frustrated and becomes unsuccessful. I have begun playing a tune (normal harmonies) and then just going out, totally away from any known center. The further I go, the better the line gets. Over and over, so being vertically challenged has to be solved. The "name" of the chord is not, eventually, important. We play around the upper partials, the decorative part of the formation – the "name" is only the location of a temporary center of gravity, itself in motion. Learning the nature of harmony is a separate area and, if you can stand more Currents without trashing, I will continue. Right now, I am tired. Goodnight and help someone, somehow. We have hungry, homeless people in this "great country" and the Government will not help. A few bucks to some charity, maybe. We do it locally and also have a kid in the Philippines we are helping. It is a good idea. Actually I prefer Humane Societies, since our cats are Green, Socialist and always hit the pan. Also, I have never met a cat who wanted everyone else to also be a cat. They don't even have a flag. Bye.