Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Back at the workshop...

Friday 7th May

After a break of four weeks (brought about by a series of enticing gigs on Fridays - Mats Gustafsson, Humcrush, John Tilbury...) I was back at Eddie Prevost's workshop again. And it felt good to be back. Only thirteen players tonight, rather less than the last few times I have been. Longstanding members Seymour Wright and Ross Lambert were noticeably absent; the workshop was different without them.

As usual, the evening started with a series of duos, passing around the circle. By chance, the first duo started next to me and then moved away anticlockwise, meaning that I would play in the last two duos of the cycle. As a result, I sat and listened to the other eleven duos before it was my turn to play. That meant I had almost an hour to listen and think.... Prompting me to muse on the process of improvising like this - reflecting the type of question I have long asked of improvising musicians, such as: "How do you start?" or "Do you begin with nothing in your head?" et cetera.

One of the beauties of the system of duos used at the workshop is that - except for the very first duo - those questions are not relevant. All other players join in with a player who is already in full flight and so have something to react to or against, giving them a way into the process. The system is reminiscent of the system of trios that was used at Relay events whereby a trio started of at each venue. When a new player arrived, they joined in and one of the trio dropped out, usually the member who had been playing longest. And so on. The end result was a constantly evolving trio with an ever-shifting membership. They did not have to keep restarting, getting to know each other and all the other stuff that can waste time and be unfulfilling to watch. Instead, they just kept on and let the music run its course, usually very successfully. In fact, if the workshop method started with a trio and then rotated around the circle, with one dropping off and another joining, the end result would be the same as Relay - A+B+C > B+C+D > C+D+E etc. until N+A+B to finish. Might be worth a try.

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