November 8ths

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11/8/2005

Comp Strategies: If you set the constraint "duration 3 minutes or less", and tell a musician their song will not be played even if it's 3:01, invariably what you'll get are songs 2;30, 2:45. An iconoclast will then write one 6:00, and start a whole new style. Sometimes taking a risk to break a rule can really pay off.

[11/8/2024: Interesting: The idea of "rule drift: It's probably best that we use rule drift because you don't want to get too locked into rules. At some level being locked into rules as a stricture is probably a good idea if you're trying to do something that's minimal, for example, using only three colors, or in music using certain note values. One of Bill Russo's rules was that you couldn't use dots or ties in your rhythms. It was frustratingly restrictive but at some level that's probably a good idea because if you don't have any rules, or if you're always drifting the rules. then you might as well not have any rules at all.] "Discuss using rules and frameworks in creativity"

11/8/2017

A sense of spirituality is an embedded attribute of jazz, even if it doesn't show it. The spirituality really comes from improvisation, where you surf on serendipity. It sings its own praise, even without thinking about it (although Coltrane did start to think about it when he started to compose)

[11/8/2021: Per the Libet Experiment, the neural mechanism for your moving your hand has already fired before you make the actual motion. In terms of flow in improvisation, there is a microsecond delay from when the player’s neurons fire and when they play over some changes. For the performer, there is also a flow between the “planning” and the execution. If you’re soloing over several minutes on the same changes, you’re thinking ahead on phrasing, reacting in real time to what the other players are doing. Over time it creates habits, or what Rupert Sheldrake calls Morphic Resonance. If that’s true, musical ability emerges from that field. It might be what allows neurons to regrow after a brain injury].

[11/8/2026: In jazz generated by AI, you hear improvisation, but there is no human brain or consciousness directly involved].

11/8/2024


 

 

 

 

 


Good way to go--that's a good way to go

 ***

The Brancusi Family


 


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