Free Improvisation in the Chapel

The Demolition Duo gave a performance-lecture at Reed College last Friday, March 29^th. Special thanks goes to Professor David Schiff for for making it possible. Ken and I not only enjoyed the musical discussions, but performing in the Reed chapel was an acoustic treat! The sound on the stage was crisp despite a two second or more delay in the hall. It was an inspiring space to perform in. 

The students, largely Professor Schiff’s composition students, asked some really great questions about form, structure, interactivity, and instrumental techniques in improvised music. Their compositional interests ran the spectrum from Stravinsky to Zappa. Ken and I decided to open up with one free improvisation, and then play a written piece of each of hours to illustrate different concepts of pulse. Ken's work, "A Swarm of Yellow," which features a melody derived from set theory, is written in 4/4 and propels the soloist into an intervallic, propulsive, solo where the beat may be divided in any number of divisions. My piece, " Marty Says..." (dedicated to Marty Ehrlich), is more rubato and a pulse may be implied relative to how the melody is performed. One memorable discussion  involved how the music a group is improvising actually guides each individual musician (and in turn the group) deeper into the improvisatory "cave." Ken and I also supplied an outline of free improvisation concepts, plus a reference list of some of our favorite writings on improvisation. Here's our handout:

                       RACC Demolition Duo Project, 2013

Demolition Duo: John C. Savage, Ph.D.—flutes, alto sax, Ken Ollis, M.M.—drum set

                                                            www.johncsavage.com   www.kenollis.com

Let the Music Guide You: Thoughts on Playing Improvised Music

 

Let the music guide you. It will tell you what to play.  Follow its instructions decisively and confidently. Indecision and lack of confidence will destroy the music.  Each time you sit down to play, forget everything that you think should be, or will be, because if you are truly inside the music, none of those things will likely happen. Surprise, for the audience and the performer, is a crucial ingredient to the best free improvisation.

Technique is the means to an end: it is information. Information is a tool. Technique is not art: it is at the service of art. Many times the music will guide you to new techniques you have never used before.

Develop your instrumental technique vocabulary:

Listen to everything!

Possess a broad knowledge of musical idioms including jazz styles, non-Western Music styles, “extended” instrumental techniques, pop music, avant-garde composers, electronic music, country, blues, etc.

Perform in groups that challenge your assumptions of how your instrument “fits” in. For example, play flute in a country-blues act, baritone saxophone in a punk band, perform lute pieces on electric guitar.

Practice and perform (and compose) with what are commonly referred to as “extended techniques.”

Think of orchestration:

You are the Berlioz or Rimsky-Korsakov of improvised orchestration.

            What are the traditional roles of your instrument?

In what ways can you work in opposition to those roles, including the use of “extended” techniques? How is this influenced by the instrument(s) you are playing with?

Think about and explore the following postures of interaction (from Joe Morris, “Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music,” 2012) while practicing, listening to free music, or when you are otherwise away from your instrument.  When you are playing a gig or a serious rehearsal, only use these as tools when you are stuck and don’t know what to play.

 Postures of Interaction:

            Solo- One playing by oneself, with accompaniment, or in parallel solo with another soloist.

Unison- Players playing the same notes, same density, same rhythm, or somehow conceptually similar.

Compliment- Playing in support of a soloist, or soloists, using appropriate dynamics, texture, etc.

Juxtaposition- Playing something entirely different than the ensemble: playing in opposition.

            Silence- Not playing with intent.

There are many ways to conceive of time, or pulse, in improvised music, the following are are some examples (Morris, 2012):

Pulse:

            Stating pulse in metric time (4/4, 3/4, etc.)

            Unaccented non-metric pulse (e.g. 1/4 note based pulse with no time signature)

            Rubato over a pulse in the rhythm section

            Collective rubato over an implied pulse

            No pulse

            Generalized concepts of speed (e.g. “fast”, “slow”)

            “Energy” playing:  fermata of indefinite duration.

Time/space/silence:  silence between notes or phrases as propulsion. (e.g. lowercase music) 

Perhaps free improvisation (or music overall) is analogous to writing in this quote by Geof Huth:

“Writing is a writhing of the spirit, a need to make rather than a need to make sense. Production over argument, heart over lung, a means of breathing forth so that a breath inward may at some point be possible. It allows for life.”

                                                                                                            --Geof Huth

References

Benson, B. E. (2003). The improvisation of musical dialogue: A phenomenology of music. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Bailey, D. (1992). Improvisation: Its nature and practice in music. New York: Da Capo Press. 

Butcher, J. (2008, March). Between thought and expression. Wire, 289, 28-33.

Cage, J. Silence (1961). Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.

Lewis, G. (2000). Teaching Improvised Music: An Ethnographic Memoir.  In J. Zorn (Ed.) Arcana: Musicians on Music.  (pp. 78-109) New York: Granary Books Inc.

Morris, J. (2012). Perpetual frontier: The Properties of Free Music. Stony Creek, CT: Riti Publishing.

Nachmanovitch, S. (1990) Free play: Improvisation in life and art. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher. 
  

Pressing, J. (2000). Improvisation: methods and models. In John A. Sloboda (Ed.) Generative processes in music (pp. 129-178). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Savage, J. (2010) A phenomenology of contemporary flute improvisation: Contextual explications of techniques, aesthetics, and performance practices. (Doctoral Dissertation, New York University).

Werner, K (1996). Effortless mastery: Liberating the master musician within. New Albany, IN: Jamey Aebersold Jazz Inc.

               

                This workshop was funded in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Council

           

                  

Demolition Duo "Academic" Tour Begins

Demolition Duo Rehearsal

Administering my RACC project grant for the Demolition Duo is a lot like booking a tour: there's a lot of coordinating times and dates with multiple professors at the various schools. What I've generally found is that it is often difficult to fit us into a school’s regular curriculum, especially as we try to combine different classes together in one place and time! However, since this undertaking is funded by a RACC project grant, there’s no need to negotiate fees or wait for the cover-charge tally at the end of the night!  Actually, this arrangement works well for everyone, the schools, their faculty and students, and we creative-class-types. Without some of the monetary struggles often associated with playing free improvised music, Ken and I can focus more on the artistic aspects of our duo. Here are two audio clips of our last rehearsal on February 23rd (demo duo reh 2-23a and demo duo reh 2-23b):

https://soundcloud.com/demolition-duo 

Though not included in the grant (RACC only funds for Portland's tri-county area) Ken and I are starting our 2013 college tour with a performance at Western Oregon University on Thursday, February 28th, at 7:30pm. Our future engagements include Reed College on March 29th, Lewis and Clark College on April 5th, Clackamas Community College sometime in May, and our final workshop-performance will be at Portland State University's summer jazz clinic in July.

I look forward to seeing how each visit develops through the collaboration of  jazz, ethnomusicology, composition, and classical performance programs. Improvisation is an element of all of these disciplines in one way or another, so it makes sense that the Demolition Duo’s visit could break down artificial barriers between academic studies (jazz students here, classical performers here, musicologists over here). So in some sense, I feel that my main objective in this project is to get students and faculty from these different areas together in one room to experience how improvisation can enrich their musicianship and scholarship. I hope our visit inspires a classically trained pianist to jam with a straight ahead jazz trombonist, new musical ground is discovered between a virtuosic bebop saxophonist and a “noise” guitarist, or that a musicologist may consider the potential role of improvisation in composition in his or her next paper. 

As March begins tomorrow, it seems timely to mention that Ken and I will be performing for Portland's March Music Moderne festival http://www.marchmusicmoderne.org/wp/

We'll actually be performing separately on a concert of solos also including Danielle Ross (dance) and Madelyn Villano (violin). Here's the info:

The Creative Music Guild presents: A Series of Solos (March Music Moderne)
March 12th
The Gallery at Port City

2156 N Williams, Portland, Oregon 97227

8pm, $7-$20, sliding scale

Demolition Duo 2013

Happy New Year to all! I received a holiday gift from the Regional Arts and Cultural Council (RACC) at the end of 2012 in the form of a grant award for the Demolition Duo. The "Demolition Duo is the improvised fire music of John Savage and Ken Ollis...the duo engages in an ecstatic dialogue...a mercurial, improvised conversation between the two musicians" [Creative Music Guild, Portland, OR]. The grant will fund four performance-workshops at Portland area colleges and universities between February and May of 2013. The lucky schools are: Portland State University, Reed College, Clackamas Community College, and Lewis and Clark College (specific dates to be announced). Though not directly under the auspices of the grant, we will also give a clinic and perform at Western Oregon University on February 28th. (the concert is at 7:30pm, free admission, in the Smith auditorium, room 121).

I’ve decided to use this blog to chronicle Demolition Duo activities, including links to audio and video from our engagements at the various schools. I might include a few rehearsals, too. The Demolition Duo was busy this year and had a number of performances including the Creative Music Guild’s Outset Series and the 32nd annual Cathedral Park Jazz Festival. We also recorded an album, and hope to have it released in the near future. Please allow me to (re)introduce ourselves:

photo by Sue Zalokar

Flutist, saxophonist, and composer John C. Savage has been compared to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Herbie Mann, Noah Howard, and Ian Anderson. Known equally as “a thoughtful and rigorous improviser,” and “a badass, knock-down-drag-out force to be reckoned with” (The Willamette Week), Savage lived in New York City for many years performing with, among others, The Savage 3, Billy Fox, (The Uncle Wiggly Suite) the electroacoustic duo Cartridge, The Brooklyn Qawwali Party (eponymous release), and the Andrew Hill Big Band (A Beautiful Day). Savage continues to be a sought-after soloist and collaborator on both coasts working with a wide variety of artists, including the NYC-based Kitsune Ensemble (The Kaidan Suite and Amanogawa) and Portland’s Demolition Duo. Savage holds a Ph.D. from New York University in music performance and teaches flute at Western Oregon University. www.johncsavage.com

Ken Ollis is a drummer and composer from Portland, OR. He has performed extensively throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, and has played with a variety of musicians including: Kenny Werner, Ingrid Jensen, Julian Priester, The Drifters, Bud Shank, John Stowell, Darrell Grant, John Gross, Dan Balmer, Chata Addy, Rob Blakeslee, Rich Halley, Glen Moore, and many others.  Most recently, his projects have included work with Dominique Eade, Heather Masse (from The Wailin’ Jennys), Aoife O'Donovan (from Crooked Still), Pepe and The Bottle Blondes, Paxselin Quartet, Demolition Duo, and several other groups. Ken also regularly performs in collaboration with painters, poets, dancers, and cinematographers. His compositions are featured in the repertoire of the Paxselin Quartet, the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble, PDX Ensemble, The Chamber of Commerce, and in his own groups.  His debut CD, Confluence, features Ollis’s original compositions performed skillfully by a fantastic ensemble.  Ken currently teaches at Portland State University and George Fox University, and has taught a multitude of clinics throughout the country. He holds an M.M. in jazz performance. 

www.kenollis.com

Musical Conservatism and Curriculum

Last week I dug out an old box of cassettes and found an early document of my flute playing. What caught my eye was a tape with James Newton’s “Axum” on the B side, and an A side labeled as “Impressions of Europe.” No, it wasn’t a Brubeck album, but rather a live recording from the Ockenburgh campground in the Netherlands from July of 1992. It featured two Dutch guitarists and me and my girlfriend playing flutes. We were on a Eurail tour of Northern Europe for two months, culminating with a week-long flute course in Belgium with Wil Offermans. I distinctly remember one of the Dutch campers calling out to me, “Deutsch?” I said, “no, American,” to which he replied, “you’re a long way from home.” Soon after, the four of us found ourselves jamming on the campsite’s sands (you can occasionally hear the wind blow over the tape recorder from the North Sea.) The set started with a jam on what sounds like Ravel’s “Pavane,” followed by an extended blues jam (with me on blues harp), continued on a progression reminiscent of “Dust in the Wind,” and reached a fever pitch with Herbie Mann’s “Memphis Underground.”

Reliving this experience, twenty years later, made me think about how important it is to encourage students to experiment with and pursue music in ways that they feel closest to. For me jazz and rock vernaculars (especially blues-rock and free jazz styles) were what inspired me to keep making music as a young flutist. Unfortunately, many music students are not encouraged to follow paths outside of defined curriculum. This is especially the case for flute students. Traditional classical repertoire is stressed to the exclusion of jazz, folk styles, or many other forms of music. In light of this, I feel lucky that my teacher at Portland State was accepting of my non-classical flute adventures. On the other hand, I view much of my undergraduate education (as well as some of my graduate work) as having been overburdened with musical conservatism, with most of my credits for graduation falling under a strict, classical cannon paradigm.

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about how the job description for classical musicians in the twentieth century became synonymous with being an orchestral player and classical chamber musician. Whenever I say I am a musician that plays the flute, most people ask me, “are you in an orchestra?” My friend is a fine classical oboist and, like me, holds a doctorate in music (this means we talk about this kind of stuff way too much). We both agreed that in the distant past classical musicians were much more of the multitasking sort than the austere specialist. Sure, rendering of composers’ works was important for the 18^th and 19^th century musician, but so was composing, arranging, improvising, teaching, finding financial assistance, and booking one’s own concerts. That sounds strangely similar to how a lot of the modern-day working musicians I know actually make their livings, and it has have very little to do with playing orchestral excerpts perfectly, or analyzing thousands of measures of Mozart’s chord progressions.

On the days that I occasionally view job postings on the Chronicle of Higher Education website, I see this institutional musical conservatism well at work. The majority of postings for flute positions require that applicants have several years of orchestral work under their belts, a documented recital history (of classical music), and recordings of classical music performances. What seems to matter in most job descriptions is that candidates have played repertoire that is largely known and therefore easily judged. Original compositions, improvising, chamber groups that perform original compositions (including jazz), working with artists in other disciplines (dance, technology, etc.), and experience with electronic music, are rarely part of the equation.

I understand that my viewpoint overall in the arts is influenced by my ultra-liberal, New York University education, and those many years I spent riding subways to see or participate in performances that ranged from the daring (my work with Andrew Hill and my musical relationship with Will Redmond), to the ridiculous (dancers, naked with hamsters, or guys with amplified hoses wearing haz-mat suits), but I really imagined in 2012 that academic job descriptions and departmental duties for flutists might be different than they were in 1992.  If the flute is to continue to be an active participant in 21^st century music (with musicians able to make a living and find joy in their profession), it needs to be taught from an expanded consciousness of what it means to be a contemporary musician, both in the private lesson studio, and in our educational institutions. The flute (and other traditionally orchestral musical instruments) must not be boxed in by twentieth century musical conservatism. If this trend continues, the flute will continue on its course as an elite hobby, only furthering the glut of classical technicians who graduate from universities and conservatories only to compete for chairs in fewer and fewer financially solvent, well-paying orchestras.

Release the Restraints

I, like many classically trained flutists, have developed certain aspects of flute technique that are best described as restraining. These technical restraints are like seat belts to keep me and other flutists from flying too far afield with tone, articulation, and overall quality of sound when performing classical repertoire. This does not really equate with one kind of sound, but more a narrow bandwidth of acceptable sounds. This bandwidth creates a reliable consistency of tone and technique between flutists that is desirable for orchestral playing and the majority of chamber music. Improvisational music, on the other hand, challenges normative notions of technique and tone. Such restraints limit the spectrum of sound possible by the flutist, and therefore also limit the musical interactions possible between the flutist and other improvising instrumentalists.

My alto flute improvisations in the "Demolition Duo" (with drummer Ken Ollis) are helping to liberate me from these learned restraints. It's worth mentioning, that compared to the standard c flute, the alto flute is too long and a little unwieldy (even for me with my long arms), pitches don't sound where you think they will (everything sounds a perfect 4th lower), and articulation can feel a bit sluggish in the lower register. But despite these idiosyncrasies, I'm finding that the alto flute is especially liberating to play as it's helping to shed some light on how I really want to make music: free from unnecessary technical restraints and using the full spectrum of sound.