notesdontmatter

Forum - Wk 3 – Timeline group performance 15/03/07:

Cage again. Why do I feel the evil bars of restriction close around me at the very mention of his name? Could I refer to his methodology as some sort of ‘Cage cage’? Whatever the case, despite my considerable appreciation for David Harris as a person and musical expert, I can’t help but find this kind of workshop tedious.



Even when I have heard experiments of this kind in the past, with expert musicians in control of the performance, the element of musical randomness (which is often part of the goal) seems overly restricted by the rules or music (pre written) that each is faced with. My main concern with our combined effort on Thursday was that I felt I was achieving nothing interesting with what I was given to work with. The restriction on how many notes one can play, the dynamics used, and the timeline of windows given for expression made it very difficult to conjure musical answers and accompaniment to the various elements of sound (some of which were very musical) in the room.

Now don’t anyone start with the whole ‘what is music?’, ‘what is musical?’, ‘who am I to decide either?’ etc, etc, I’ve heard it all before and I have little interest in pursuing what would be an endless academic debate on the subject. I never asked John Cage to free my mind and the irony of the situation is that the only time I feel musically imprisoned is when someone tries to impose Cage-like restrictions on my expression. I know I use the same blues scale that Robert Johnson exhausted some ninety years ago and use it with probably none of the originality or innovation exhibited by the man, but I still love it. I love the way I can play it over and over, upside down, back to front fast or slow and never get bored with the sound. I don’t care that it’s clichéd and over used, it’s what I like to hear more than anything else in the world, and certainly more than listening to someone like Cage point out how narrow minded I am because I don’t appreciate the rare sound of a cloud evaporating or whatever.

I guess at the end of the day I’m just a person who knows what they want when it comes to music. I fail to identify with the ideals of people who feel they can’t waste time (or that people in our society waste too much time) with music for pure and simplistic sensual indulgence. That being said, the very act of establishing large group performances of this type is technically an intellectual indulgence on the part of the organiser yes?

Maybe it’s the fact that I couldn’t contribute anything I felt was substantial to the session that is feeding my angst. Despite the obvious humour that was evident in some of the pre-written material for spoken word, I believe the overall sound and structure was relatively uninteresting. It could be the lack of serious input from some members of the group, but I think a bit more freedom allocated to the tonal instruments and vocalists would have really given some life to the party.

Anyway, next week I get to bore you all with my presentation on the greatest collaboration of all time – Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, so get those lighters gassed up...

Please feel free to download the crappy voice recorder audio file of the session located below if you want to experience the full 45 minutes all over again in glorious 2 bit lo-fi sound.

Timeline Group Performance (7.8Mb Mp3)


Reference:

David Harris. ‘Timeline Group Performance’. Workshop presented at EMU space, level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide. 15th March, 2007.

posted by David J Dowling @ 2:05 PM