Somewhere there's music

For me, the terms ‘conventional’ and ‘unconventional’ when applied to in-strumental techniques are practically worthless in the context of free improvi- sation, and not a great deal of use in other musics. One of my aims is to have the ability to use all the sound elements that the instrument can produce and, inimprovising, to constantly pick and choose their meaning (i.e. their musical function) within the context of a developing music. This runs against the critical grain that searches for a fixed context upon which to pin musicians and their work, rather in the way a Victorian lepidopterist would display butterflies: by killing them.

Musicians, too, can fly into the net by thinking that playing the ‘right’ notes in the ‘right’ order and in the ‘right’ place makes them something they’re not. For the student, imitation has some place but it is adventurers and explorers that make the real music. With few ex- ceptions, this creative edge is generally anathema to a mu- sic industry that now, more than ever, is built upon the re- gurgitation of yesterday’s food, constantly reprocessed and repackaged. We are told this makes market sense. What other sense does it make? The market-force dogma is put forward not only as an extrinsic means of exchange and com- munication but also intrinsically as the message itself. Aided and abetted by abuses of new tech- nology, ‘live’ music becomes reduced to a hollow spectacle serving only to allow an audience to be but never to become. The delight in developing and sharing skills (and by ‘skills’ 1mean those of both playing and listening) is replaced by a screw- driver and assembly plan. It is against this back- drop of an ever more immobile and immobilising world that those musicians and audiences who celebrate innovation, originality and the necessity and inexorability of change, seek to make a new sensibility.

One responds to music ‘hrough many differ- ent filters and combinations of filters that are built ‘up over time. The creative musician/listener is constantly analysing, revaluing and reorganising these, while at the same time trying to find new ones to generate further possibilities; but it is in the act of improvising that ‘quantum leaps’ can occur. Indeed, sometimes the whole architecture crumbles, leaving nothing at all as a reference point. Then it’s time to forget the parade ground of spit, polish and square-bashing.

This applies to both solo and group playing, but there are differences between the two. | don’t propose to go into the details of solo playing here, except to say that it is, or should be, an invaluable part of any musician’s work and that both solo and group playing can inform each other.

A good group is, for me, one where the musi- cians share a common commitment to musical de- velopment whilst fully recognising each individu- al’s contribution. This does not, of course, imply anything as banal as finding a lowest common de- nominator, but rather an epiphany.

As anacoustic guitar player, and therefore hav- ing a limited dynamic, it may seem surprising that in such circumstances as Radu Malfatti’s Ohrkiste, Chris Burn’s Ensemble and my own twelve-piece project who performed at this year’s London Jazz Festival, the guitar is not swamped by the volume (number and dy- namic) of the other instruments. I can assure you that this has as much or more to do with the skills of the other musicians as it has to do with me. This applies to working in ad hoc situations, including those brought together for specific projects, much as in longer-term, more fixed companies. Provided a platform (and thanks to the London Jazz Festi- val here for their help with the recent Mopomoso event) specific projects can offer a way to present one’s work in the context of a larger improvising community, develop existing associations and jux- tapose previously divergent strands.

Regular groups offer something else again. Re- cently reunited with my colleagues in News From The Shed, at the Nickelsdorf Festival, the music had a sophistication that was even more than the sum of its far from inconsequential constituent parts; a brilliant coherence of elements stretching far beyond any usual breaking points. When a regular group of the calibre of News From The Shed is pulling vut the scups, it’s just a joy to be part of it all as it unfolds.

As a musician, one’s overriding responsibility has to be to music and through this to any audi- ence, real or potential. The notion of changing one’s music to make it ‘more accessible’ is to lose sight of the objective.

In terms of production this is manifested by try- ing constantly to raise standards at venues. With generally ill-informed and ill-willed mediators between musician and the general public, this sometimes seems an almost Herculean task. Here we can but hope for a world of musicians who don’t throw away any complexity or depth in striv- ing for clarity; for promoters who provide the best services at their disposal and for audiences not only willing to participate aurally, but tosometimes turn a blind eye to some of the seemingly incongruous circumstances within which this music is often forced to take place.