In our studio praxis lesson we took some of the ideas we have been looking at such as goalless exploration and blending together/evolving compositions and integrated these in a live performance setting. For this first week, we brought in tools to create sounds with or were assigned objects or instruments – some people had synths, there were guitars and a piano, field recorders and foley items. I decided to not bring anything in because I wanted to move out of my comfort zone and embrace the experience, rather than using a synth that I am used to. I was in a group that had random percussion, foley items and objects, which essentially took some power away from me as I didn’t have an overwhelming instrument at my disposal.
We ran through setting everything up and were each routed to different speakers around the room, going over how to properly set the microphones up and discussing what recording devices would be best for each section. There was a section with tradtional instruments like a guitar, violin and piano and also two synths, and there was also a section with a field recorder, a mixer (which was plugged in to itself to create a no input feedback instrument) and an electromagnetic recorder. Then there was a section with a bass guitar, harpsichord and drum objects and then my section which was foley objects.
The first attempt is linked below. We made it clear as a group that we wanted no one to dominate, and try to remove an ego’s from the situation so that no one was in control and it was more of a collective effort.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nM4NeQOKxwfW3fwCNRjRGIDF6V0RC_E7/view?usp=sharing
I think this first live improvisation is suprisingly good. I say surprisingly because I felt that because it was our first time and there was so many different sound tools, it would culminate in a volume war that would end up sounding messy and unpleasant. Instead everyone gave people space for their instruments to breathe and there was a kind of collective conscience that was generated through the performance. I felt like I got to know certain people in a different way through how they were interacting with their instruments and adapting to the other sounds around them. For me personally it was particularly interesting because a lot of the time I sat back and listened, which is a new perspective for me as I would usually be immersed in what I am creating myself. I have never done a live improvisation of this magnitude and I took this first run through to relax and experience what was going on around me. There were certain points where I genuinely felt transcended by the atmosphere of the soundscape; there are some really talented musicians and sound makers in the class. My favourite sequence was at around 13 minutes in where the preceding crescendo cascaded into a quieter, more subdued period in which the violin, guitar and piano took centre stage with the other instruments serving as accents and a bed of sound that, upon listening back, sounds intentional and meticulous.
The second performance was slightly different, as we started with everyone joining in and then went around the room group by group to isolate the different sections of the ensemble.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12fceej83pn63nwUHmhIk7o-8aNMLWHJ6/view?usp=sharing
After five minutes the performance moved on to the first group, which I loved because of the mixer that Cai was using as a no input feedback instrument. The space-like, industrially digital sounds that it produced blew me away, and out of everything I experienced on the day this excited me the most. I have an old mixer at my house which I have never used before, and hearing what sounds you can achieve when you plug it into itself has urged me to try it out myself.
The thing I liked most about the whole performance was the transitions. From around 6 minutes to 7 and a half minutes in the recording there is a slow and methodical transition between the more electronic sounds and percussion/foley abstractions that gently fade in a beautifully smooth yet tactile texture. As a whole piece it sounds like it has life to it, as compared to the first recording there is a lot more isolation of specific sounds and segments of more reflective and quiet sonic moments, as well as broader cacophonies of sound. In relation my working idea for my sound project, this really did feel like a convergence of worlds in every sense. A striking together of peoples minds, a merging of sonic timbres, frequencies and textures and an open conversation without any words, just purely sound.
I have learned a lot from this experience and it has reignited a spark within me to let go and just make, listen and observe. Hearing everyone’s approach to the performance was the stimulus for a lot of conversation afterwards, and by the end I saw people, myself included, finding new and creative ways to utilise what was at their disposal to create interesting sounds in a group context. People went from playing the guitar to scratching the strings, creating rhythms with percussion to creating purely texture, adding synth pad sounds to building a sound on the synth live. It was a very inspiring experience, one that I am excited to try again and continue to learn from.