Performance/Practice Notes: Sept 2018 Structure and Agency improvisation session

An early stylistic exploration--while Bruce Lee might fear the person who practices 1 kick 10,000 times, this session is the equivalent of hearing a violinist/violist practice 10,000 kinds of kicks about 2 to 34 times so there's a lot of work to do in refining any of the vectors we might choose to pursue before something radically developed on a stylistic or compositional level emerges.

Early in the video you'll hear: 

-an unnecessarily aggressive take on part of a Japanese children's song (Oedo Nihonbashi -- at least the part I could remember) where I tried to replicate my memory of a raw and jarring koto melody by maintaining ponticello technique on the instrument. [After finding the original reference recording -- in the Favorite/Nostalgic Melodies of Japan album, the perceived jarring sound came from being unfamiliar with some non-western tunings] 

-influences from traditional shakuhachi flute stylizations [as heard in Minoru Minuoka's Japanese Koto Funk] Ponticello technique on violin, viola, or any bowed string instrument that you can play with ponticello lends itself well to imitating the smoky wind style heard in shakuhachi playing if done with subtlety -- I was somewhat successful in maintaining character and can do a lot to develop a more compelling sound with it further 

-As a side note, I'm experimenting with ways to normalize or make the scratchy sound that comes with ponticello on a stringed instrument interesting and "beautiful" in its own right, the shakuhachi emulation is probably the closest thing I've found beyond using it for textural purposes or as an aggressive distortion in sound 

-Flexing in and out of traditional intonation with microtonal fluctuations to explore beat patterns that sometimes emerge from playing sympathetic strings that are slighly out of tune together 

-One surprise: the "beat effect" that comes when playing two notes that are very close to each other in intonation don't carry to the microphone well compared to what you can feel on the instrument as the player. I'd be interested to hear how the same effect gets picked up in professional recordings where I did that same effect on multiple occasions with Synergistic Mythologies at the DSO Cube for the 2018 Strange Beautiful Music Festival in September 

-Discovering the strings are already out of tune to each other without any help ; ) 

-Finding ways to "play with the environment" -- a swelling overtone in the parking structure amplifies when playing just mildly sharp of the D natural that's unique to that particular part of the structure 

-A brief quote of an ascending motif from an Alfredo Piatti Cello Caprice -- with a daring microtonal twist that makes it sound a little less good than I thought it would!

-Improvisation in Balkan and Roma-esque modes with some non-western intonation 

-A quick quote from a motif in a pan flute melody (called “pan flute melody” when translated out of French) from the group called Djelem -Later you'll hear simple 1 degree templamatic derivations of traditional Balkan tune(s) like the Gankino Hora--likely played in the wrong meter--and another one I've yet to learn the name of titled on youtube as "Bud Vibe" via kungfudru's youtube account [ the drummer playing in a group that would eventually become the Balkan funk band Ornamatik/RytaMusik's] -An attempt to play in non 4/4 time signatures (probably a 7/8) -- and sometimes straying back into 4/4 after forgetting the attempt or getting rhythmically lost altogether with the counting and grooving 

-A new jam pattern(!!) 

-An appreciative audience member shouting from several stories below 

FIN (due to space constraints and a crashed hard drive) Also, accelerometer in the phone somehow didn't read the horizontal orientation and now I'm not sure how to rotate the video short of getting more sophisticated video editing software. Might reupload in the future when we can take care of that. 

#Viola #improvisation #Original #NeotraditionalMusic #WorldMusic #HashtagExperiment

Art guidelines for the uninspired

"Artist friends,When you are feeling hopelessly uninspired (and frustrated/desperate enough about it to post a Facebook status asking for help), how do you fix it? Any and all advice appreciated." -K

I take comfort in the following guidelines when making art for myself. Hopefully they're useful in showing possible paths to making meaningful work for others and pulling the uninspired out of their ruts:

0) Approach art as a form of communication that stirs curiosity and wonder. Curiosity for yourself, or for others--it's up to you.

How? Choose one, some, or all of the following as a start:
1) suffer and/or empathize
2) explore, experiment, play
3) mix all of the above

0) Consider art a form of communication that evokes a deep curiosity—about yourself, about the world around you.
Do you have something to say or convey to the world? Make it so.

“Art ain’t about paint. It ain’t about canvas. It’s about ideas. Too many people died without ever getting their mind out to the world.” — Thornton Dial, SR.

1) Suffer or/and empathize
If you find nothing compelling within your imagination and memory, then expose yourself and empathize with genuine suffering or an injustice that can capture your heart's attention. OR re-imagine something familiar from a different perspective or through a different medium. It might be an analytic endeavor at first, but sometimes those will yield artful discoveries too. In any case, find the contents of a story worth telling/making/re-presenting.

In the sense of finding and creating stories worth sharing, good artful acts of creation can exist in conversation too.

2) Treat creating as an act of play or experimentation--where the process of exploration matters more than the outcome [1], then revisit with intention.

3) Sometimes, you'll mix all of the above, or discover integral themes emerge, or poetic parallels.I may hear a snippet of melody that compels me to experiment. At the same time, I may witness or work on something that galvanizes the idea in time with current events and overarching themes of human endeavor [2]. I then set out to bridge meaning between the two. Sometimes it's an organic blend from the start, others I force together before they melt into one, and sometimes, it's creation without attachment or any explicit meaning necessary.

Angular study in azure--familiar subjects and experimentation.

Compelling outcome? Perhaps not to most.

I did, however, learn that corners of rooms can be

interesting for experiments with image composition.

[1] I really enjoyed hearing Eric Gordon's characterization of play (where process matters more than the outcome) at the IADB's 2014 Demand Solutions summit in DC. Imitating play (whoa, meta!), by playing around with odd notes on a piano? Yes, you can do that too!

[2] Emotive Mechanics started with me pondering experiences in life, and then sitting down to improvise on a tune of mine as my mind processed the ideas (see video description for initial circumstance).

Edit: I recently read Sabina Berman's [most excellent] novel, "Me, Who Dove Into the Heart of the World" and really appreciate the notion of "letting the world think through you." That's exactly what I'd use as the core principle for the above: let the world think through you. That said, I believe my guidelines can remain useful for retroactively thinking about what you've done or getting into a frame of mind that allows creative processing.

"Move in passion, rest in reason..." violin sonic sketch (original improvisation)

One tired evening in Dearborn (13 VI 2012), my brain was abuzz with unprocessed worries and I had an urge to hear/make something fairly cyclical--even abstract and exacting--on the violin.  This is certainly in the vein of early minimalist string quartets by Karl Jenkins (of Diamond Music/Palladio fame)/looping cellist Zoe Keating, and the phrase "intentional minimalism" ran through my mind as I was setting up my instrument.

Between the pauses, I decided to add harmonic squeaks and shrieks.  Since my tone production was poor and I didn't want to get stuck with the same notes, I tried to develop the pause space into a secondary motif that would [ideally] eventually overcome the repetitive initial motif [this was really challenging to keep the initial motif going and develop the second one at the same time—definitely a schizophrenic endeavor!].   I'm pretty certain there's a way to make a logical transition that lets the mechanical motif yield to a more melodic and lyrical motif [I wanted something lifting or ascending], but I couldn't quite make it happen and resorted to subtly abrupt disruption [I threw in bright-sounding things] to pull the tune into a new direction.  Though I had been playing the violin for over 11 years (now 12 years) at the time, the ability to consistently play quietly and sensibly was a newly discovered nuance from that evening.  I especially savored the dynamic changes in this play-through.

I could tell I wasn't settling into making high-quality tones in that session, so I decided I'd further play with the scratchy sounds as I brought the tune to a close.  In mind, I was thinking of the fuzzy noises of a radio or old vinyl record, and you can hear it in the decay of the last note I hold. [little known fact: even though I've mostly recorded acoustic quasi-classical tunes, I'm looking forward to the day when I can use/obtain equipment suitable for noisy electronic music making.]  This awakened my appeal for integrating focused "noise" in more tunes (none recorded yet--my recorder went through the wash and I'll probably need to replace it).

In life overall, I was trying to break out of long-standing hyper-objective/hyper-vigilant tendencies as I was worried they were paving a road to unnecessary paranoia.  The experience was captured very well by ideas from "On Reason and Passion" the Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran's book of poems "The Prophet" which resonated very well with me since it captured two dimensions of life that really contributed to a personal struggle for fair balance.  Though not a verbatim quote, I prefer to recall it as "move in passion, rest in reason" (I've likely reversed the quote).

Anyhow, I like the tune as a piece on personal growth.  In the few times I've been able to recall most of its elements and dynamic nuances, the tune has changed a lot since I first came up with it--caught in this recording.


Recorded in a parking structure with an Olympus VN-6200PC digital voice recorder placed inside of my car, doors open.  You can hear the buzz from the lights at the beginning.  The photographs are my own--most were taken with a Canon Powershot A20, the starting image was probably from a Nikon.  I'm running out of images that I can adapt to music...

A Pensive Wail (Viola)

http://soundcloud.com/greatlakesian/a-pensive-wail-ii

Pensive improvisation/sonic sketch on viola ("The Thunderer"--working name) in the Monteith Parking Structure at The University of Michigan Dearborn 20 VII 2012.

I woke up from a nap, felt very calm, played the viola, realized the opening note in this tune sounded delicious on the viola in the structure and started recording.  I stopped keeping track of myself and just enjoyed the mournful wailing sound on the viola.  The first time I came up with the motif (prior to recording) the tune reminded me a bit of the buzzy flutes used in Japanese Gagaku I heard from a recording a while back (listen to when I play the same note on two strings--for those who know the instrument, I'm referring to the open "a" string with an a on the "d" string in this recorded iteration of the tune).

I think I'll work on this tune some more to substantiate the melodic lines and harmonic segment--I've been exploring aleatory harmonic noises in my tunes and think I can get these two to fit seamlessly.  I missed a note and wound up testing microtonalism somewhere in here just to see what would happen.  I was a bit more intuitive with the harmonic play in this second recorded iteration of this tune.  In retrospect, the motif of this tune probably owes a bit to the carol "Lo, A Rose Ever Blooming" in addition to Gagaku flute music and another tune of mine called Lament of the Virtues.

It may become a lament.

I didn't know it at the time, but a shooting took the news headlines today.  It might not be an appropriate tribute, but at the least I think it’s important to acknowledge and express my condolences to those killed and injured by the event.

Column--homage to Donald Judd, 2006

The installation piece below was submitted and published in the Lyceum (The University of Michigan-Dearborn's Literary Fine Arts Journal) as a collection of documentation and observations. 

Column-homage to Donald Judd
To see the placard: http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~idtran/Column_IanTran.pdf 

Column "re-constructed"at approximately 18:30
after an eventful day.  Photographed by Ian Tran

A fond memory from my freshman year of college at University of Michigan-Dearborn, this piece was as much a prank as it was a tongue-in-cheek nod to contemporary arts, minimalism, and call to action spurred by the lack of fine arts activity on the University of Michigan-Dearborn campus. It was up for approximately six hours and viewers/other artists (unknown) had rearranged the tables in interesting ways as the day progressed.

Inspired by very minimalistic (and almost non-functional) and unusually hip tables that populated student study spaces on the third and fourth floors of the UM-Dearborn College of Arts, Sciences and Letters building, and a bit of frustration that the Dearborn campus community was fairly deficient in the arts (no performing or applied arts majors offered, and almost no fine arts initiatives from the student body).  There's a fantastic story that goes along with the construction and conception of the piece, but you'll have to hear it live sometime as I won't fit all of its details here.  On December 6th, 2006 I improvised a descriptive art placard and affixed it to the side of the column minutes before an accomplice (Sean Clyne, a Count Ant) and I started gathering the tables from student study areas on the 3rd and 4th floor of the building.  It read:

Exhibit #1 of the Constructive Energy exposition

Column-homage to Donald Judd, 2006

This interference of the vertical space is a paradox between the literal and scientific. The medium (readymade tables ¾ utilized without the consent of the University of Michigan Dearborn department of Humanities and ¼ utilized without the consent of the University of Michigan Dearborn department of the Behavioral Sciences) in its original state has a high potential to further or enhance the learning experience of the student. At the same time, the tables (in their default dispersal) are a demonstration of high entropy. This stacked arrangement reduces the entropy, thereby raising its potential energy. Though it reduces the potential for conventional student learning, it is the artist’s hope that it will bring fine and performing arts to the attention of the public (especially the student body). To those impassive of the piece, it is merely a troublesome object imbued with capricious and mildly plausible meaning by a troublesome set of students.

For those curious about  Donald Judd and why I made this an homage:  Donald Judd is a famous minimalist artist who has one of his installation pieces (a stack of blocks adhered to the wall) on display at the Detroit Institute of the Arts.

Column mid-day; also pictured: Professor Lee Brooks
of English Composition
Photo credit to Brandon Segrest

Column circa 16:26
Photographed by Ian Tran

What's minimalism to me? Here's my take--be concise, communicate an idea with simplicity. You'll hear the maxim of simplicity in minimalist music as well, though repetition may be more prevalent over conciseness . I think the "stack" sculpture of his on the wall of the Detroit Institute of the Arts is a pretty good example of that.

The April CASL Improvisations (Piano and improvisation notes)

To listen to the full suite of piano improvisations (about 20 minutes total):

http://soundcloud.com/greatlakesian/sets/the-april-casl-improvisations/

Set notes (notes about each individual improvisation listed further below):

A potentially enjoyable set/suite of four improvisations on piano made between classes at the University of Michigan-Dearborn College of Arts, Sciences and Letters in April of 2012. I someday hope to make them a bit more concise when I can afford the focus. Listen and you might find: sentiment, pensiveness, wist, and playful mischief (possibly in that order).

I was trying to settle a lot of buzzing concerns and by the time I finished (about half an hour later) I felt really refreshed for the first time probably in months. This was a "sit down and go" session, I just started plunking on the piano. I re-discovered the set in late May or early June (I forgot I recorded it) and realized I could probably make a suite or something out of it all. I'm pretty sure I can trim each "movement" by a minute at least if I'm concise.

About Improv #1 
http://soundcloud.com/greatlakesian/casl-improvisation-1-circa
I sat down, thought, thought I should start playing, started playing, and probably pulled pensive inspiration from motifs of a song called "Overreacting" by the band "Brad Sucks" (http://youtu.be/jOWAs65u5MQ ), and The Sims game (one of the building themes http://youtu.be/UbA58yOhPH4 ).

About Improv #2

http://soundcloud.com/greatlakesian/casl-improv-2-1
This was fairly sprawling, I'm pretty sure I can shorten it by 2 minutes to make the entire tune approximately 3 minutes.

Appeal and rhythm of lower notes attribution might be attributable to Ravel, hard to say if I just really like that interval, or if that sound was learned from hearing his “Concerto for Left Hand”. I recall a hint of U of M dissertation recital nostalgia--I've seen/experienced some strange states of consciousness/emotions from people playing borderline melodramatic piano at a few of those free concerts.

There’s a motif I came up with several years ago which I like to call the “archaic groove thing”, depending on where it’s played on the piano it can sound rather dark. I almost tried playing it here but resolved to come up with something new instead. I’m also drawing a tad of inspiration from some of Lee G. Brooks’s/SunBC’s piano work elsewhere.

Uncertainty, unfun, and doubtful darkness were common themes in this improvisation.

About Improv #3 

http://soundcloud.com/greatlakesian/casl-improv-2

In the vein of Debussy, Ravel, and Eric Satie: foggy, soft, fluid, then bright and tender. Probably inspired by Lee G. Brooks's piano work ( Hear the opening/closing theme to this short film, wonderful!http://youtu.be/-A4kFpscYKE ) too. I recall wishing I could play more sophisticated chord structures at this point. Somewhere around 1:24 I was really tempted to play a dark 7th, but since I tend to do that in most of my improvisations I also refrained from doing so. I later played a random note which was even more "wrong" sounding (though I like it, a benefit of that unintentional improvisation)!

This is perhaps one of the first times I started to explore nuances of quieter dynamics and gentler piano articulations. I suppose there's some yearning behind it.

About Improv #4 "Playing With the Wrong Notes" 

http://soundcloud.com/greatlakesian/playing-with-the-wrong-notes
I had a violin teacher who couldn't stand what music theory calls "tritones" which to him basically sound like "wrong" notes. Maybe I'm spiting him with this, either way, playing with 'wrong' notes—harmless mischief and little children/being one comes to mind, and I really like it.

Almost certainly inspired by the six Roumanian Folk Dances collected by Bartok (especially the playful feel of dance #2 http://youtu.be/UHZt6ITdSto ) along with some Hungarian and other Eastern European folk tunes; my cheerful Romanian-American friend Alex , plus HEAVY stomping and hyperactivity too.

There's some vivid imagery that comes to mind for me. I'm curious to know if it does so for anyone else too.

In some places it reminds me of getting ahead of myself with enthusiasm and not caring—like when watching a kid trying to mount a scooter with a running start before realizing that most of the scooter isn’t even in line with where they intended to go.

Here's a bit of what came to mind for me as I played:
1:22 playful running along
Intentional dancing emphasis (stomping foot to emphasize)
~1:45 Jaunty playing
Happy running in a field by a stream? Vigours of youth.
Playful teasing [not chiding] w/ percussive [piano] stomps
3:55 timid play/poke
~5:00 It’s been a good day. Yeah.
5:32 resurgent jolt of excitement just before you're supposed to sleep?

Time to sleep! #

(note to self: I might be able to trim a minute off of this tune?)

Improvisation disclaimer: 

I'm self taught (somewhat, I didn't really make a focused effort to teach myself in the first place) on the piano, I've been trained and perform on violin/fiddle much more extensively, and sometimes alto saxophone too. Since playing the instrument with both hands on a piano is a mysterious process to me, the underlying chords and rhythms tend to be more repetitive than I'd prefer, but I like to play nonetheless.

My improvisations are as one might imagine: on-the-fly experimentation with various ideas and innovations. Sometimes I have a theme in mind, sometimes I simply start playing. Most of these musical ideas are my own, but I do my best to attribute any inspirations and origins in accord with good scholarship and an open source ethos. In any case, I'm still averse to making musical gibberish when improvising.

I frequently improvise, and opportunities to explain the context and potential significance of a piece are rare depending on the situation I'm in. As an occasional busker, I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity for human dialog and interaction with those who enjoy what they hear or take interest in what I do. Furthermore, some people are accustomed to experiencing music as a passive and pleasant diversion. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, I try to challenge this expectation.

In everything I create, I strive to combine insight and consideration about the possible implications of my actions, especially when disseminating ideas to many people. I encourage everyone to explore a more intentional, active, engaging, and conscientious paradigm for how we "consume" experiences and communication.

I think I played on a Kawai Upright piano. Recorded using an Olympus VN-6200PC voice recorder (mono, best for lectures and such) placed on top of the piano or my backpack next to the piano.

[note, these notes were written well after {months after} the date of the post, I gave it April 30th since the recordings took place sometime during April {probably mid-April like April 14th, 16th, or 17th}.  It just recently occurred to me that a blog was probably most effective for coupling notes with a video/audio file online.]