Re: The Artist's Right To Be Boring (was: Re: the best.... the worst....)

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

> tEd ® kiLLiAn schrieb:
>> In my experience, it is impossible to depend upon or predict success
>> when you start out with a blank slate for every performance.

On 20 jun 2007, at 12.11, Stefan Tiedje wrote:
> But starting out with a blank slate is the core of improvisation...
> If you put something into it to secure yourself, you failed already...


I'm not sure I'm prepared, any more, to subscribe to this idea of  
"starting out with a blank slate". The background is that I have  
noticed, after doing many improvised concerts, that I have developed  
a mental and emotional reference system within, that for me as the  
performer is exactly the opposite of a "a blank slate". Whatever  
happens "on the sounding surface" of the musical improvisation there  
are always new options popping up from this pool and all I have to do  
is to pick one and see where it leads to (which might be rather  
pretictable). So the question is if you really should call it "a  
blank slate" when you are in fact armed with loads of precise and  
accurate improvisational strategies? I can agree that it might seem  
to the unknowing audience as "a blank slate" - but that's just  
showmanship and not what really happens.

Also, I agree with Stefan that you shouldn't think about your own  
music i terms of "failure". Sometimes an audience can really enjoy  
listening to musicians that are desperately trying to reach a common  
ground for improvisation. The performance doesn't become less  
interesting by the fact that they just keep on trying and never  
succeed in hooking up musically; actually that might just be the  
point ;-)

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)
http://www.myspace.com/looproom