Here's another topic from the "Free Philosophy" thread.

Bball writes: (snip)
"why do we practice? (snip) the act of practice seems to direclty impead the flow of beginners mind! crazy paradoxes!..(snip)"

Practice is a neccessary part of gaining the skills and awareness that we need to improvise effectively. The challenge for the improvising musician is finding the best way to develop the intuitive knowledge, skills and awareness that will enable us to improvise as freely when we are playing music as we do in the other improvisational spheres of our lives.

The discussion in the "Free Philosophy" thread has branched out into a few different areas that I think deserve their own discussion, so I've taken the liberty of starting them. - any unattributed quotes here are from previous discussion on that thread.

I'd like to separate out the concept of playing out of habit or out of muscle memory from the issue of practicing. Though they are intimately related, I think they are different enough that this will be useful.

The reason why these two get mixed together is that they are so intimately related. You can use the discipline of practicing to create a body of experience that you can draw from to enrich your expression in the moment, or you can use that same practice discipline to create a bag of preprogrammed habits that you can plug into the current situation. The difference is not what scales, licks, changes or sounds that you practice, the difference is where you stand in relation to them.

At this very moment I?m listening to Tim Berne Blood Count "Saturation Point" (Screwgun) w/Chris Speed, Mike Formanek & Jim Black. Amazing free playing!

Emotion is expressed in so many ways in music, from highly abstract, oblique references to very up-front, programmatic or raw expressions, the direction of the art is constantly reflecting the minds behind it. For improvised music the emotion becomes more personal and of the moment; the music is being written now and is influenced by its surroundings. This aspect of improvisation, perhaps more than any other, is what makes it so thrilling, and habit-forming to its practitioners. Many of them find improvisation to be a therapeutic, cleansing channel for expressing emotion, or a Zen-like, enrapturing gateway to a different realm.

It probably safe to say that listeners often pick up on some of these feelings during improvisations, and are similarly compelled by them. In this way musicians communicate with listeners on a deep level, and the reverse can occur with a live audience. What is the nature of this communication, and just how powerful is it? And where do emotion and improvisation meet?

Check out my new band this Saturday, 20 January 2001, 11 PM at the Jump Arts Festival at the Brecht Forum. Jump Arts will feature talented artists on Friday, 19 January 2001. See you on Saturday.

Does anyone out there know of any good free synth players? Ok. I know there is late Mr. Ra. And I've heard about some Thomas Lehr or Lehn or something like that. But is there anyone else probing into the tone generation/maleability possibilites of the synth?

Just curious.

My wife saw an episode of Charlie Rose talking about the Ken Burns Jazz series. At the end of the interview, they played a cut which interested her, but now we can't identify. She says there was a bass player teaming up with a french rapper. She thought the name was "Ray Cool". None of this is ringing a bell with any of the search engines. How about for you?

Yes, it's true. I listen to lots of pop music. I listen to lots of other kinds of music as well. From Javanese gamelon to electronic to bluegrass, if it sounds good I'll listen to it. Many other people take the same general approach. They believe that good music knows no genre, and can therefore often be found in strange places. I don't generally consider myself a country or rap music listener, for example, but there are certainly instances of each which I find exceptional, and I enjoy listening to them.

There are people, however, who take a different view. They basically concentrate on one or a few narrowly defined genres, and are perfectly happy listening only to music in that range. Before anyone starts criticizing this approach, it's important to note that it has significant benefits. By focusing on one kind of music, a person can become very familiar with it, gaining greater appreciation and insight. And it's not as limiting as one might guess, because a person can spend a lifetime studying a very small portion of society's musical output and still not exhaust their options. If I decided to listen only to surf music from here on out, I'd still have plenty to work with for many decades to come. Another advantage to this approach is that one avoids the jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none syndrome, of which I find myself afflicted. By choosing to learn a lot about many types of music, a person sacrifices the potential to gain real fluency in any particular one, or so the theory goes.

No matter which path one chooses, the concept of taste is still highly relevant. I have no doubt that glam rock experts distinguish between good glam rock and bad, just as we do with free jazz. Of course this is absolutely necessary, or else people would never be able to wade through the dizzying, endless array of choices available. How do you approach these decisions? What works and what doesn't? How can we improve our choice-making in this area, to derive greater listening satisfaction?

I just bought a copy of Rajesh Mehta's Reconfigurations and was very intrigued. Does anyone know of anymore recent recordings in this same vein and/or direction?

Also, after becoming really entranced by the solo albums of Evan Parker and Mats Gustafsson I am on the prowl for similar solo explorations that can maintain the same or close to that level of sustained creative power. Kowald's Was Da Ist? seems to, but I would love further recommendations.

Process theology/philosophy seem to discuss processes that are relevant in free jazz. Anyone here familliar with process thought? There are some nice websites on this stuff to check out.