Sound (30 minutes)
Technique (2 hours)
Current Transcriptions
Notes from Tony Malaby
tags: Improvisation, Practice, 2022
I, among some of my friends, am keeping a working list of possible mutations to existing compositional material (if nothing else than to prevent writers block). Every time I try to impliment one of the mutations from said list, I am overwhelmed by the feeling of fuck, I'm not even close to exhausting the potential of this which is enough motivation in itself to keep adding to it, and enough to break me out of my usual writing conventions (yikes). The goal of this is not to have it overtake creative decision making entirely (although, total serialism comes to mind), but to be supplimentary.
The Big Bad List so far is as follows, with the understanding that any existing phrase can be repeated with any inclusion of the following:
tags: Composition, 2022
I have been thinking quite heavily about dedication to craft (or (my) lack thereof) recently: what it means to be an actually competent improviser; what it means to be healthily obsessed with your work, in hopes that it isn't so; whether its possible to have any inkling of original thought in a music where everything has been done a thousand times over, or whether its better to shamelessly steal conceptual material, and expand upon it.
Speaking of stealing concepts, I recently heard a great bassist talking about different interdependent, overlapping states of practice that we have to tap into, to make sure that all parts of our complex machine (being a musician who doesn't suck) are well-oiled and working as intended. From what I gathered, everything could be boiled down to 3 states: Training, Research, and Performance (just fucking playing).
Training is the state of practice that focuses on conditioning the body toward consistent and relable execution of technical material. Think scales and arpeggios, etudes, sound exercises and timbre exploration, etc.
Research is the state of practice where we solve our personal musical problems, as well as deepen our knowledge and understanding of music through intellectual means: analysis and theory, active listening and transcribing, journaling and mind maps, etc. THIS is where most of the stealing can occur, and comes as an endless refresh of boundless potential. It can occur at any time, on or away from an instrument, and usually has lots of stopping and starting. Yeah baby!
Performance is the state where we engage in music-making in real time, with whatever skills and knowledge are available to us at the point of departure (see: Andrew Hill, 1965). This one is hard to pin down, but it can be thought of as making oneself available to accessing generative, reponsive, and subvertive qualities within ourselves. This helps to eliminate the disconnect that occurs in ability once one leaves the practice room and gets on the bandstand.
After having recently released a new solo recording, Riverfawn I am reassessing what I want to complete by the end of 2022, or at least sometime in the near future.
Ravinia Bridges (due February 15th) will be a new composition for string quartet, alto saxophone, piano, bass, and drums. It must be 10 minutes long, and include a composer CV, program notes, and some form of recording.
Inker's Crying Again is the working title of a new quartet/quintet recording that will be produced with the help of a county grant. It will be ideally 7 or 8 tracks long, and recorded sometime in May, if all goes according to plan. I've written music with the group in mind-- myself on alto, MK on piano, MHJ on bass, and ES on drums-- but am willing to expand to a quintet with DP on vibraphone, DL on trumpet, EM on guitar, or JR on tenor. As of right now, the format of the record is as follows:
Family Words is the working title of a Trio (perhaps quartet as the desired instrumentation becomes clear) recording inspired by Appalachian folk traditions, and various terms, names, and phrases that I frequently heard in my house growing up. As of right now, the options for intrumentation are: Alto, Banjo, Bass, Drums; Alto, Accoustic Guitar, Bass, Drums; or Alto, Banjo/AG, and piano. The working format of the record is as follows:
A new duo alto / bass recording is also in the works, but is still in the very beginning stages. That's all for now <3
tags: Composition, Recording, 2022
This blog will serve as a compositional and woodwind-itional practice log. Doesn't that rule?
tags: general