Feb 04 20
We recently came upon an interview with Derek Bailey the English avant-garde guitarist (1930-2005). We were very much moved by it. It’s fairly plain on the surface: a musician talking to another musician about what they’re up to when they’re playing. If one is familiar with the absolutely sincere, improvisational transcendentalism of Bailey’s guitar explorations, the plainness becomes deep and emotive beyond mere musicality. In a kindly and sturdy way Bailey shows with both words and the occasional, off-the-cuff musical example how these words are not really appropriate for what he’s doing — that it is not dignified to force one medium to do the bidding of another medium — as mediums and the contexts of their applicants are always changing. We found this all very grounding — extracting something like pursue and aspire to a minute-to-minute grace, don’t over-systematize or define.
When pushed to put into words what he’s doing when he’s playing, he said the following:
But I wonder just how accurate these descriptions are. I mean I could describe what I’m doing but I wonder whether the description comes after the thing when it’s done. Or to put it another way — or whether the technical description is actually a substitute for something for which I’ve got no description for… I’m following a sort of appetite; I mean the thing that makes me choose one thing over another…
(As a note the interviewer Henry Kaiser should be praised for his intelligence and touch throughout this talk.)
“One of the things which quickly becomes apparent in any improvising is that one spends very little time looking for new things to play. The instinctive choice as well as the calculated choice is usually for tried material. Improvisa-tion is hardly ever deliberately experimental. When the new arrives, if it arrives, it appears to come of its own accord.”
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When pushed to put into words what he’s doing when he’s playing, he said the following:
But I wonder just how accurate these descriptions are. I mean I could describe what I’m doing but I wonder whether the description comes after the thing when it’s done. Or to put it another way — or whether the technical description is actually a substitute for something for which I’ve got no description for… I’m following a sort of appetite; I mean the thing that makes me choose one thing over another…
(As a note the interviewer Henry Kaiser should be praised for his intelligence and touch throughout this talk.)
Improvisation — its nature and practice in music
Derek Bailey
Derek Bailey
“One of the things which quickly becomes apparent in any improvising is that one spends very little time looking for new things to play. The instinctive choice as well as the calculated choice is usually for tried material. Improvisa-tion is hardly ever deliberately experimental. When the new arrives, if it arrives, it appears to come of its own accord.”