Tag: improvisational music

• Essai: “Why don’t I know what to look through”

  

  From Instagram:

  I’ve been making a few of these free improvisations a week, and I’ve noticed that in hearing the words I sing, I often make a political reading. It’s funny how we can connect any image to our underlying concerns.

  I recycle the phrases that stick (“Why don’t I know what to look through?”) and react to new things in the magnified space of recording. When I play them back, what felt like 5 seconds of thinking is usually about .5—so I was actually able to resolve things better than I’d believed.

  I’m definitely oriented toward the dark “cloud” around us, but thankfully my spirit also wants to talk to clarity.

  Listen to the fifth essai, or attempt/draft/iteration, I’ve put up on SoundCloud here.

  It’s starting to get more interesting to hear these compiled together, and there are shifts in my attention when I evaluate songs as communication—something I assume is implied by creating artwork, captioning, and making the experiment visible to others.

  2025.02.12

• Essai: “I gripped it under my sweat”

  This recording actually comes from the discard folder. I wanted to get started with “essais,” or attempts, but when I went back to find something I had in mind, I found this better. I understand why I’d remembered the other: it has clearer dynamics, deft(er) movement between phrases, ties together more rationally. In my notes, I’d written that the words had a strong narrative pull. I didn’t feel that tonight.

  Maybe I’m just tender today, but what appeals to me is the softness of the lyrics and the frail run in the singing at the end. I sang:

  I slipped it
  Like a note in your pocket
  I gripped it
  Under my sweat

  And I meant it
  And I meant it
  And I m-ea-nt it
  Until I bent

  I’m not ready to lay out my goals for these improvisations, but I will when I’m feeling more analytical. I’ll simply say that I’m contending with having many phrases, rhythms, hand-movements—in other words, sonic meanings—at my disposal, but fewer words to make emerge. The singing feels the most tenuous and even sometimes dull. Words are so bound to communicative meaning and more difficult to make fit.

  2025.01.02