Fishing or Flexing?

As I alluded to in my last post, the most common process at the onset of any writing session in this day and age is one of what I call ‘fishing’. Throwing up loops in today's software-driven recording device that gives a rhythmical bed to sit on whilst tootling with a MIDI keyboard plugged into an endless variety of sounds until a little something sounds juicy or appealing enough to constitute a first layer.

Followed by more noodling... a kind of improvising with oneself. Whilst that can have its uses, one must first acknowledge that it isn’t really improvising with anyone. How can it be?...the first layer is now fixed and therefore irresponsive, in any way, to further input or playing.

If we think about that; that’s like starting the construction of a building with a quick sketch, liking it enough to keep, sculpting a further level based on that momentary thinking… and setting off to build the rest of the skyscraper from those unplanned beginnings. Let’s see if it falls over.

The great thing about a bunch of players in the same room, improvising from scratch (or a sketch), is that as each musician plays in concert with their fellow performers there is a constant process of change, exchange and adaptation.

That process is, in each and every minute, reacting with a unique individual response, born out of each particular player’s feeling or experience of that very moment. That’s an amazing amount of input data, reacting constantly to change. Something a software program is unable to do. And almost all music is written and composed on software systems, in this millennium.

The writing process needs to remain alive as long as possible. By staying super-flexible, it breathes, bouncing with readiness... like a world-class boxer, prepared for any assault from any direction. Able to change plans in an instant as he further understand the ‘state’ of his opponent.

The great thing about the unexpected in music is that it pulls on all aspects of the fellow player’s techniques and thinking, which in turn, pushes them outside their comfort-zone and into moments that they hear - as if they were not the ones to play it.