| Genteel Death |
02.20.2010 03:52 PM |
This is an interesting read, considering that John Fell Ryan is an ex-member of No Neck Blues Band.
John Fell Ryan
Excepter does not have a guiding philosophy, nor is there any concrete reason why we improvise. We don't talk much about the nature of our music. Don't get me wrong: as a lyricist, I have a concern for words, but as a musician, I also understand their limitations. I see concepts more as shapes, and music more as a physical alternate reality. Maybe improvisation is the wrong word, and not just for the negative social associations you mention above. Cultural forms based on freedom eventually become negative constructs engineered to keep supposed opposing forms out of the communal tapestry. So we avoid improvisation as a genre and social construct, even though we use the technique.
El dictionary says to improvise is "to compose and perform or deliver without previous preparation" - but what does it mean to continually improvise, year after year? Is not all previous improvisation or action preparation? So, improvisation does not exist beyond an illusory present. Is improvisation "working only with what is around?" What is not around? Therefore, non-improvised acts do not exist either. We can conclude that improvisation negates algebraic logic and opens some paradoxical operational reality. We are in the pornographic realm of what is not communicable in society, the proverbial "I know it when I see it" judgment call. It's all beside the point, for what Excepter does could never fully be improvisation; we bring too much equipment, spend too much time setting up, and use too many prepared sequences and programs.
"Intuition" is a better term. "Improvisation" is from the Latin for "unforeseen" - contrarily, much of what we do involves prophetical techniques. "Intuition" is a word that barely exists. The ad hoc verb-form "intuit" sounds terrible and no-one likes using the term. Intuition goes against the Puritan "show your work" ethic so ingrained by our school and culture systems. Mathematicians will often intuit theorems years before they can be proven logically. Intuitive acts are "ahead of their time" despite often being equated with superstition or confused with instinct. When Arthur Lee sings, "I believe in magic, because it is so quick," he's talking about intuition. Intuition's quickness is the key to the phrase, "crazy like a fox." Jung's championing of intuition is perhaps the real reason his work is not taught in "serious" schools, intuition rendering schooling unnecessary. Ironically, you hear more about intuition in business circles, perhaps because the field is more results-oriented (capital) than process-oriented (labor), perhaps explaining the general fear of intuition among the group of rockers who traditionally objectify the working class, and require artists to work with their hands and have their songs written down and reproducible. FACTORY types. Intuition can explain the seeming paradox of editing improvisation; things are done because they should be, because there is an idea that needs realization. If an intuitive form can survive the randomizing processes of mechanical misinterpretation and band reproduction, it's because that idea has resonance in reality as-it-is - or, for the lack of a better word, truth. This is why our music seems to foretell the future, and also why Ouija boards do not work when you're alone.
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