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Improvisation Workshop 14-09-06

Improvisation Workshop 14-09-06:




It wasn’t until I checked out Dr Sardeshmukh’s accolades on the web that I began to fully comprehend just how lucky we were to be granted such an intimate and informative workshop / performance with the man. If I had any reservations about where the workshop concept of the last two months was taking us, they were dashed onto the rocks of insignificance after this fantastic experience. I’ve had fleeting thoughts in the past about India seeming like an interesting place to visit. Now I really want to go.

Dr Sardeshmukh was the picture of focused intensity and spiritual humility, as he widdled around the neck of his sitar with virtuosic ease. He closed his eyes in some difficult sections to maintain concentration, and made eye contact with the audience during others, with the friendly smile of someone who is content, quietly confident, and doing what they love.

I listened carefully to his explanation of the improvisation process in Indian music, and in particular, found the concept of measuring the depth of a musician via his or her technical ability in combination with musicality to be very much in harmony with my personal view of musicianship. I know there are exceptions to the rule, but in my experience you rarely get much of one without the other. I believe the more you challenge yourself, and the more you strive for awareness regarding the possibilities of your chosen field, technically and musically, the more you will get out of it. Dr Sardeshmukh was a fine example of this.

I thought the improv’ group did a great job of complementing Dr Sardeshmukh’s playing. Vinny was great on the percussion (I would have lost count after the first bar of 7/8 – there’s a technical area I need to work on!). Tyrell came up with some brilliant sweeping frequency manipulation at times, Seb and Luke provided an interesting angle of tentatively ‘dirtying’ up the sound with some nicely distorted Juno vs Mac sample mashing, and Daniel and Poppy provided tasteful spatial sound effects and some brilliantly haunting vocal work.

It may be my easily distracted modern western attention span, but I felt that the jam reached a real high point at around the 20 – 25 minute mark and as a result could maybe have wrapped up five minutes or so earlier. I suspect that it was Dr Sardeshmukh sticking somewhat to the rules of Indian improvisation that dictated the timeframe though. All in all, it was a great Thursday afternoon. I hope my group has a similarly enlightening experience in week nine...


Dr Sardeshmukh – just getting warmed up (2.3MB Mp3)

A taste of the full experience (4.0MB Mp3)

Reference:

Dr. Chandrakant Sardeshmukh. “Improvisation Workshop”. (Workshop presented at EMU Space, 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 14-09-2006

posted by David J Dowling @ 10:47 AM