Playing with practice

This post sounds like I'm trying to blow my own trumpet, which isn't really what I'm trying to do, but I had an interesting email today that surprised me.

One of my friends is a classically trained pianist. He wrote saying:

I tried out your practice 'technique'... It was a wonderful experience and had a feeling of spontaneity and lack of conscious control that I associate with Contact Impro. It was wonderful. Thank you. And the amazing thing is that in 8.5 years of playing the piano I HAVE NEVER DONE THAT!


so, I think it would be good if play took more of a central place in learning to 'play' an instrument.


here's the full transcript

His first email:
now, at my teacher's suggestion, I am spending a year focusing on Jazz Piano, which I am finding surprisingly theoretical.

I replied
yes, I think Jazz needs to get more playful. The theory is useful but they get too heady about it in my limited experience. I find the best thing is to take a simple chord/sequence/mode/whatever it is you're playing with, throw the book/music away, and just play with it until you don't want to any more. That's my "technique" at least.

he replied
I tried out your practice 'technique' and played my favourite chord C minor, plus a minor 7th, in the LH and then played around in that key with the RH. (actually i have just realised that I mistakenly played an A natural). It was a wonderful experience and had a feeling of spontaneity and lack of conscious control that I associate with Contact Impro. It was wonderful. Thank you. And the amazing thing is that in 8.5 years of playing the piano I HAVE NEVER DONE THAT!

Thanks to bowman_rdb for the pic

Non-commoditised music

I had a nice time in the British Library yesterday. Here's one thing I read:

“In our own society, creative symbolic play tends to be closely associated with a class of specialists we call “artists”, and the results of their activities are treated as “works of art” having (for better or worse) value as commodities.” (Basso 1985:2-3) 

I read it again. Exactly. And that's reasonably specific to our culture, not so to some other cultures.

So I don't do "creative symbolic play", I do "creative musical play" - and I think I want to keep the creative play, but drop the commoditization.

So the first thing in my mind when I woke up today were some rules to try playing by.

1. Love what you are doing. 

It's for your joy. It's about now, not outcomes. If it feels wrong, or bad or tight or forced, take a break, step back, rethink if necessary. You'll find your way back.

2. Play

Play in your practice, play in your sharing

3. When it's time to share, share

There is no performance. There is only sharing. In various forms.

- playing with others

eg a jam, a choir, a band, a quartet

- helping others play

eg, leading campfire singalongs, knowing the chords and words, helping it feel good

- an extended listening

when you feel you've got something long and beautiful to share, invite people to an extended listening where they lie and listen, and you give them something rich to listen to

ok a fourth rule has just come to me

4. It's not yours, it's God's

I don't mind what God means to you: alternative names may include Nature/Geist/Allah/Life/Buddha/Tao/that general sense of some kind of 'higher power'/Music itself - why not.

A musician is like one dancer in a partner dance. Our partner is Music, mysterious music, this immaterial landscape we've been given to get lost in like some enchanted woods.

I think what we are doing when we make music, when we practice, when we take care of the music we are able to 'make'

oo there's a problematic word.

I don't think we make music.

I think music is made through us.

My Indian singing teacher Atul says that he's like a track maker and God is the train. He has to lay really good tracks and take care of them so that when the train comes it can go whenever it wants. He's a violin player. He's incredible.

Right now, my tracks are quite shit. Whatever instrument I'm playing, voice included my body cannot keep up with the music in my mind. I can dance with music a bit but it's not great.

A really great dancer does what Atul does.

A really great dancer takes really good care of the material elements - what the fingers / body can do - so that that immaterial enchanted wood can come into the material world.

But we didn't 'make' that wood. No-one did.

...

I do a lot of yoga. At the end of every class we sit in crossed legs with our hands in prayer position, and every single class for the last four years at least, Alaric has said, softly, "lift your heart and bow your head."

Finally last month he explained why he says that. It's so you don't take personal credit for your successes, he said. That's really important. You have to dedicate your successes to something else. Otherwise you get fucked up like Amy Winehouse.

Ok. I think that's my manifesto of the moment.

Let's see how that goes.

From service of power/fame/money/ego to service of life/joy/community

My friend Luke emailed me. Luke's ace, and a singer. You might remember his old band, Nizlopi, who got Christmas number 1 a few years ago with the JCB song.

Reading your singing blog: new paradigm idea.

Yes i really feel this is clear that the new edge of art in an age of increasing crisis must be service to community, life, love, truth, healing. That service to Money and Fame/power/ego is on it's way out. So to really lead as a singer really serving is the key. But artistic skill and depth serve hugely along with bringing music back to the folk.

DJ Rubbish

Ace

second track

Jimmy Davis

rockin

My way, second track

New Ways to be a Singer

I think the old way is about turning music into a discreet commodity that you can trade. So you separate one singer from all the other singers and put her on a stage. A story about quality enters; good singers get on stage; OK singers join a choir; everyone else is Not a Singer so sits in the audience and listens. You can charge these people for a ticket to hear the singers sing.

This Singers/Non Singers divide is in contrast to the times when Everyone's a Singer. Like, the pub at St Issey on Mayday Eve, when I walked in and everyone in that packed out pub was singing 'Let the Light from the Lighthouse shine on me" and the sound went through my bone marrow, the joy lifting up my spine and bursing out through my cheeks.  Or, new years eve and Auld Lang Zine. Or, when everyone's drunk and sings Bon Jovi or Robbie Williams at top voice.

In the old way, you record The Singer and sell the CDs to the people who play the professional musician on the stereo rather than making music themselves.

And in the old way, you have Songs which people Wrote or Covered and own some kinds of Rights to, so again, other people then pay to use them.

Commercial music in other words.

Which is probably necessary for people who are actually full time musicians and need to make some money out of it. But then there's the whole music industry which I think probably fucks a lot of people up. Like, why are Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears so messed up? Dunno. That's for another time.

So the new way. I'm exploring and I'm starting to find some things.

So I have three 'gigs' booked.

1. Leading the singing at Radford Mill's Apple Wassail
2. Getting everyone singing a funny 'baby is coming' kind of song at my friend's baby shower, and
3. Singing two songs for my uncle Henry, who is ill, and when I go to visit him he asks for music, so then I go away and prepare what he's asked for, and when it's ready I arrange another visit, and then he listens and says he likes it and then asks for something else. Today he asked for I wish I knew how it would feel to be free by Nina Simone, and he asked me to sing it at his funeral too. My aunt Kate's not sure about that. We'll see. It's a good song for a man with Motor Neurone Disease. He's something of a star now, Henry. On Friday night there was a documentary about him on Channel 4 , made, strangely enough, by my old housemate Chris.

I haven't seen it yet.

So I like these gigs. Weaving song back into community, and community back into song. And actually doing it, rather than just thinking and talking about it. I like that. Let's see how it goes.

I'll peak in my late sixties

Saw my friend Sam Lee last night, who taught us some great Wassail songs.

Sam's a great folk singer.

"Singers peak in their late sixties," he said. "Something about the muscles. And the attitude."

Great!

I've got a couple of small performances coming up this week. I'm performing Opportunity on Thursday night, and I'm singing for my uncle on Sunday. He's very ill and he's talking straight, wasting no time. He thinks I'm crazy for not devoting my life to singing, he tells me. I mentioned this to Sam. Well, I rather agree, he said. "You've got a big quota of song-givingness that you haven't really used yet."

I like this. I find it encouraging. That is motivating.

But what people don't see is the invisible hive of activity that is happening! Learning! Practicing! Exploring! Discovering! Re-imagining! Playing! Got to start. Performance tomorrow. Voice a wreck.

But I'll peak in my late sixties! I can sing forever! And relax!