Improvisations with Varying Degrees of Restraint
(2012)
for stereo sound // duration: 7'10"
LISTEN .mp3
NOTES
Faced with the question of "what's this piece about?," my answer was to throw more material at it, and see (hear) what stuck, and then show it sticking. Initially, I developed a software instrument and recorded ten iteratively-layered improvisations, which then served as a backdrop or canvas for the piece. Shorter passages were then added to the mix, generated using a wide variety of techniques ranging from musical feature analysis to improvised electronic guitar. The process of working on the piece became a bit less haphazard in the striping away of material; by carving out silence and space, distinctions between the materials became possible, and ultimately, meaningful. To draw a connection with the visual arts, I often liken this way of composing to Gerhard Richter's method of painting large abstracts: "changing, eradicating, starting again, and so on, until its done."* Accordingly, in regards to the ever imminent destruction or transformation of the musical materials, issues of timing, pacing, and the articulation of form were some of the last things to be considered. I think of it as music in search of an idea, rather than music composed in response to one (what I normally do).
* Gerhard Richter, Panorama: A Retrospective (London: Tate Publishing, 2012), 17.