From: OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET (OUT,
              OUT - YOU'LL NOT FEEL THE FALL-OUT...)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Subject: Re: Perfumed ambience
Date: 1 Oct 92 12:36:25 GMT
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Mike and Sonia start the debate on composition -- or they continue the one on
minimalism :)...

Mike says:

> McIntyre's absolutely right: ambience sucks. My long term goal for the Urbans
> is to get into more structured compositions--

        I can't help but agree, provided that the word "ambience" is restricted
to a well-defined angle -- that is "music which stays in the background and is
based on repetitive patterns which have little or no relationship to each other
and often turn into mere noise". But, Michael, I wouldn't say that _Urban Am-
bience_ are doing *exactly* this.

The Sonia adds:

>The ideas sound good--but I can't help but be CURIOUS: just what is the basis
>of your fascination/preoccupation/insistence on having your band's stuff be
>ever more COMPOSED?  is this some general principle (of yours) that composed
>work is... more INTERESTING than totally improvised work?  or just a personal
>preference?  or personal curiosity to see what YOU can do with composition?

        Again, the term may be misleading. Let me work out an example. One
can sit down at the table and write a melodic line -- let's say "Michelle"
(Beatles, of course). Then he can add chords, rather freely. Then he can
decide that the harmony must be played by the piano or the guitar or a choir,
and this is of course an arrangement. No doubt that he has *composed* a song.
        But, if one plays the standard blues scale on a standard blues riff,
is he *improvising*. Yes and no: yes, because he's following a very basic
instinct of his (sorry for the chauvinism of the male gender -- it may be
"her" of course) and sort of "feels the mood"; no, (asbestos suit on) because
he's more or less repeating what 100,000 players have done 100,000 times be-
fore him (asbestos suit off). I mean, it's always a sort of "composing" a
more or less original solo/melody/riff without writing it.
        One of the most fascinating listening experiences in the ambiental
music field is, IMHO, the famous "Music For Airports" (aka "Ambient 4") by
Brian Eno. But, no doubt, there *is* a structure. It can't be put on stave,
or at least this is not the best way to write it (just look at the rear cover),
it's as elastic as you can think, but there is a structure. The players are
not tightly bound to it -- and there's even a random element in the final
result since they know they must play a certain sound, taken from a certain
well-defined set, (e.g.: play either E, or G or B or F# -- but not other
notes), but they can play it *whenever they want*. Is this improvisation?
Yes. But the structure is there.
        After all, even when you improvise on the blues scale you are locked
inside a structure: the notes of the scale. Of course, you can walk out but
that is NOT a blues scale anymore.
        At the risk of being very unpopular, I have seen some cool jazz ensem-
bles play together like crazy and then slip down into totally free improvisa-
tion which definitely let the listeners down. It's always the same: can one
quantify chaos? No - good luck; the only thing one can quantify is order.
In this sense, I think the underlying structure is necessary at least to a
certain extent.

>an answer...  why this fixation on COMPOSITION?   do you think improv has some
>kind of built-in limitations or what?  or doesn't it interest you any longer?
>Are you trying to create some new hybrid of composition/improv?

        Composition is not always a work for pencil and paper. When one sits
at the piano and starts to hum a tune he's "writing" and, at the same time, he
thumps more or less blindly in search for the right chords, he/she actually
both improvises and composes. There is an interaction, though both the extre-
me positions of the spectre are available (pencil and paper, total chaos --
respectively).
        There is no need to create a new hybrid, in my opinion: it's there for
all to see. The random/chaotic/creative/whatever element can come in as soon
as one calls for it.
        Of course, different worlds are actually different: classical musicians
usually find it hard to improvise; jazz players sometimes can't even read music
(Satchmo was one of them).
        Just my twopence... :)

        Ciao, Marco
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