From: M23231@mwvm.mitre.org
Newsgroups: alt.guitar
Subject: Re: Improvisation where has it gon
Date: 23 Jul 92 15:22:55 GMT
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, McLean VA 22102

In article <1992Jul22.191240.1336@csrd.uiuc.edu>
hsu@sp24.csrd.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) writes:
 
>
>M23231@mwvm.mitre.org writes:
>
>>It may be common for plectrum players to truly improvise when actually
>>performing, but I doubt it. I know that *real* flamenco players rarely if
>>ever surprise themselves by coming up with new stuff on the spur of the
>>moment in performance
>
>Read the chapter on flamenco in Derek Bailey's classic text Musical
>Improvisation, recently back in print.
>
**********
Excuse me, but who is Derek Bailey? I never have heard his name mentioned
before among flamenco cognoscenti. If he says that flamenco players do truly
make up amazing new licks on the spur of the moment, he is simply repeating a
common misconception that has been printed over and over again until its sheer
persistence somehow lends it credibility it doesn't deserve. The pros don't
make attempts to publicly kill this notion because it lends mystique to their
art. It's true they rarely play anything exactly the same way twice, but they
simply select randomly (or not so randomly) from their own repertoire of falset
as and rasqueado forms as they play...but in performance before an audience or
a recorder they almost never (trust me) try to inject a creation they never
thought of or executed before. (I realize this may not be true of plectrum play
ers. I'm talking *strictly* flamenco.)
*************
> Why is this such a prized talent (if it really exists at all)?
>
>Of course it exists. Just ask James Blood Ulmer, Sonny Sharrock, Jim Hall,
>Herb Ellis, Billy Bauer, Derek Bailey, Henry Kaiser... (and I'm just
>listing guitarists here)
>
>>For every truly
>>brilliant lick one invents--spontaneous or otherwise--there are **many** that
>>do not deserve to be repeated.
>
>So? The point of improvisation is not that it's *perfect*. It's the
>excitement of observing the process of invention, the development of
>ideas, the real-time interactions with other performers and the
>environment, and the *danger* of taking risks and negotiating unmapped
>territory.
>
*********
You extrapolate beyond my context here. However, the listener doesn't
participate in the "excitement" and "danger" since he has no way of knowing
how close to the edge the player is. When 99% of what emerges is banal and
trite it doesn't take long for a listener to get bored. So for a pro I
guess such improvisation could be really exciting--a matter of career risk
would be exciting, wouldn't it?
***********
>>I suspect that a lot of the hype about "playing
>>one's own music" comes from recording company executives who know that
>>recording already copyrighted stuff is not as profitable as recording new
>>stuff that is copyrightable.  This is a hell of a poor criterion to use for
>>judging the value  of a piece of music, however.
>
>This is a hell of a distortion of the role of improvisation in the
>history of music. Besides, no one is arguing that a piece of improvised
>music is necessarily superior to a piece of composed music. What are
>you talking about?
>
************
Well, I'm sure not talking about the role of improvisation in the history of    rovisation
music. Where did you get that idea? I'm simply mentioning one reason why there
is so much of a fixation on the importance of playing one's own stuff today
and since the end of the folk music era (ca 1966-70). When I was a kid in the
'50s nobody "played their own songs" or "improvised" or or drooled over the ide
a of it. You got a guitar or banjo and played songs you heard on records or
found in books. Many of the songs recorded were public domain or composed by
some professional composer who didn't perform his own stuff. The level of
importance given to originality today is a new attitude and a new phenomenon in
music--not historical.
************
>Improvisation has almost always been an integral part of music. It had
>nothing to do with copyright. Most of the great Western composers up
>to the late 19th century at least were also excellent instrumentalists
>*and* improvisers. And need I mention jazz?
************
Depends on what you mean by improvisation, and, again, you've extrapolated far
beyond my context here. I didn't mention jazz, did I?
***********
>
>Bill
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