other

rehearsal recordings

Recordings from the first rehearsal

notes and stuff

I want to write a bit about this. I have an elaborate plan for this. I want to take a bit of a different approach to this show than the recording sessions. Don't get me wrong though, there are some things that I want to be EXACTLY the same as the recording because I really liked how some things turned out. However some other things I think need to be a bit different to translate live and also I want to try to re-approach some of the things that didn't turn out so good. Also I want to try some NEW things that we didn't try on the recordings. Also I want to feature dancers and also our host, Rent Romus.

All that being said, the root of this performance would still be free improv within a given set of rules or frame. But because of all of this I would like to rehearse for this at least 3 times (with this core ensemble) so we can really get on the same page with the improv. I think we have enough time to make something really cool. So below I have set up a when is good event that stretches out for like a month, but hopefully we can find some good full band slots within that.

More specifics....

Some things I really liked that I want to recapture the magic of:

The Braids-ish exercise was the best thing I think that came out of both days. I want to wave this as a stylistic flag and let this be the sort of overall aesthetic for this thing. I want to basically do this again exactly as we did it. This is my favorite thing that happened. ( and that would be track 1 and track 3 on the album ) I even have some other ideas about how this can work differently. Also this would be a great one to do with dancers.

The "Just go for it" from both days were great takes. That seems to work just as well for us, so we can definitely do some of that and it's certainly easy enough conceptually.

To capture some of the fun of day 2, I want us to feel free to move all around in the space (luggage store). Also we could definitely do some iterations on this idea, but it might have to work a little differently. https://dennydennybreakfast.bandcamp.com/track/00-million-dollars-projected-sand

Some things that didn't work as well, I would like to work on:

I really want to spend a lot of rehearsal time on the 2 modular exercises. The one we did do didn't work too well, and also we didn't really get any super solid takes of it. These are certainly more complicated conceptually but they can really get us listening good to one another. What I would like to do is bring a more fully fleshed out composition to rehearsal and have us try to learn it, and then once we get more the swing of it we can try the circle game (which we never tried on either day) or reapproaching the basic mod exercise.

The Duet thing that we did, turned out good, but it wasn't really what my idea was, and I am curious to try and refine to capture the idea a bit more. Also this concept will work really well with dancers.

There are some other things that we didn't try that I would like to try:

• the circle game (mentioned above)
• some graphic scores
• follow the leader
• I'll think of more of these I'm sure but I don't want to overload us.

--->

Just going for it

Well we all know what this is about.

Braids-ish

My friend Devin made this project called “braids” that I recorded some drumset over the top of.   It is kind of an interesting exercise that we could elaborate on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpG6R8Usdvs

I would summarize the original braids music like this:  “There is a high sound and a low sound that loop in very consistent textures for a given length of time and then abruptly switch to something else.”  I think the challenge here is jumping to something very quickly and maintaining this sound until the next change occurs. These would necessarily need to be like 20 minute long exercises.

The 1-minute long song

1 minute is not a lot of time.   It might be interesting to start out with like a 30 second song, to get warmed up to this.  But to actually write it as a group and then just record it and leave it alone. It could really be any style but keeping it short like this makes it a very acheivable goal for the recording sessions.

If(X){Then:X} // Bata Language

This one is very hard to describe how it functions, and perhaps easier just to actually do it.  This is something that I have done a little bit of with Will northlich-Redmond and also with Sarah in our dance pieces.   The gist of this is that you have some segment of looping material [A] and you can use a “call” to move into another segment of material [B].  Using this method with a very small amount of materials you can quickly create a very complicated language that can be used to improvise kind of with pre-set material.   Another very important aspect of this is the idea of variations within a phrase and how these are different from the ideas of calls or loops.

The Circle Game // Train Game // Marooned

This is something that Sarah and I invented to use for generating dance material on the fly.  It is easiest to think about as like a train or a circle. Let’s say you start with a 3 car train, each car represents a musical phrase and these 3 phrases will loop in order (1-2-3).   Whenever you are “ready” you can insert an improvised spot for the 4th train car. (1-2-3-4). This may take some time to get used to or even find the right material that feels ok for the loop.   So you have to continue looping around as you develop the material. Then once it’s good and solid, you can drop 1, now looping only (2-3-4). Then when you are ready you can add the 5th train car (2-3-4-5) and continue…..   

There are a lot of ways to vary this game that make it easier and more difficult.   One way to think about this when you are doing it as a group is to have one Conductor and everyone else just doing their best to follow along.

Moving Duets

This idea is about developing material across duets.  It should look like this:

|| AAAAAAAAAAA DDDDDDDDDDDDD

|| BBBBBBBBBBBBBB EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

|| CCCCCCCCCCCCC         FFFFFFFFFFF

The re-do // telephone game

Working off of the basic idea of “just going for it” and “one minute songs” we can listen back to something that we just recorded that is perhaps one minute in length and try as best we can to literally re-play it exactly as we did.  And just keep doing this exercise. It will develop and our memories will get stronger and it will also be like the telephone game as we forget what we did (but we think we remember).

Common Ground

Each person selects 2 major scales.  We try to find a single common note that threads through one of each of our scales, and another note that goes through the other one we selected.  Each common note is like a section and while we share that note we will know where we are. We can add as many sections to this as are feasible

Example  Player 1 = Eb, F    P2 = G, B P3 = E, F#

We find that the note “E” is common through: P1:F , P2:G , P3:E  (one possibility) This is section [A]

We find that the note “Eb/G#” is common through: P1:Eb , P2:B , P3:F#  (one possibility) This is section [B]

Headphone rigs // Extremely quiet playing // Dynamic disconnects

I want to experiment using headphone rigs that stretch very far and give players an opportunity to be able to hear each other well while not necessarily playing in a way that they would be able to hear each other well normally… and also very far apart from one another.   

One example is to have drumset and piano+bass on the opposite sides of the hall playing very tightly together while recording the middle of the hall.

Or having piano play very loudly and drumset be in another room entirely.

One Rule Made up by each person

Everyone makes up a rule for a run-through.  These could be anything.

Conduction

We could also venture into conduction land.  We could try and make up new conduction models on the fly.

Song excerpts

I thought it might be interesting to try and play short excerpts of some songs and maybe improvise around them for a little bit.   This could be anything. Like songs I wrote or pop songs or Hat and Beard or whatever.

Mobile instruments / stationary instruments

We could do a thing where we try to play as best we can with one another while moving all around the space.  Maybe one person on a stationary instrument, and the others in constant motion. I could bring melodica and guitar for this exercise.  Of course some percussion.

Also playing with time/tempo and simple pulses could be very interesting with this method also

Pedantic Banging

I’ve been listening to a lot of Bill Evans music lately.  And one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard is all the crazy Nardis intros that exist on the turn out the stars cds.   Something about the raw sort of banging away that he does in this really turns me on. However I have an idea for how this can kind of become a way of playing and improvising.  But it has to be sort of sparse and repetitive.

Tempo Shits

Players tempo start at a fixed relationship and slide out of that relationship towards one another.

P1 =  80BPM → 160BPM

P2 =  160BPM → 80BPM

P3 = 120BPM → 120BPM (static)

 

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Thanks 💯 percent.
-Bob LaDue
http://dennydennybreakfast.com
http://tfpp.net