source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 12:36:21 -0800 Subject: There was no pudding. From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> Thanks, Jonathan (S), for reviewing the Southern California Microtonal Group's latest concert. I must confess that, regretably, I have to agree (from tapes Brian has sent me) with your impression of the Southern California Microtonal Group's improvs. And this isn't unique to them either. I think Neil is right that many of us tend to ramble in our improvs. Much of it has little drama. When each improv ends I have little understanding of why it should have ended there rather than a few minutes earlier, or later. That's much of the reason why I stick to planned composition. My own improvs aren't any better. I've been trying to interpret these sorts of works in a different light though. An ambient-music kind of light. Perhaps it works better that way, but I'll be honest with you: Few of those improvs compel me to give them more than one listening to let me find that ethic. And I suppose it's pretty obvious that the idea of an ambient-music concert is, by definition, meaningless. That line is a hard one to draw though. A few months ago, I picked up a copy of Cultrane's "Interstellar Regions". Without a doubt I need to develop a new music-listening ethic to understand it. Most of the individual parts in each title of that CD don't seem to have a lot to do with each other either. I'm certainly willing (when I have the time) to give it several more good hard listens to try to find that required music-listening ethic. Perhaps I ought to give the SCMG's improvs more time too. But I believe there a silver lining to the SCMG's works though. I get the strong sense that the Group's members tend to cancel each other out. Brian McLaren's and Jeff Stayton's own PRECOMPOSED music, I think anyway, is pretty good stuff. Jonathan's work with vocal harmonics is very entertaining, and he certainly got the audience boogying in El Paso recently! And without a doubt, Bill Wesley has some really fantastic instrument-building ideas. And even when they work together, I have heard interesting timbres and textures in the tapes Brian has sent me, and I think I can learn from them. But I sadly regret to say that I find the high points in their improvs far too rare. I personally think that the improvisors among us would be well served to predesignate some more structure to their works. There's value for improvisationalists to start each improv with: 1. A series of preintended and prepracticed underlying melodies and chord progressions. 2. A predesignated overall impression of what feeling we're trying for (fun, lost in space, renaissancish sound, romantic, sad, frightening, or whatever). 3. A high-level outline of how the music is to procede - where the high points in the drama will be, and with what melodic and chordal resources they'll achieve that, where the loud and soft points will be, and so forth. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 14 Dec 1996 21:35 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA04283; Sat, 14 Dec 1996 21:37:26 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA04281 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id MAA29378; Sat, 14 Dec 1996 12:37:23 -0800 Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 12:37:23 -0800 Message-Id: <199612141535_MC1-D16-AE94@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu