Notes by the Way (Combining alignment with disjointure)

Combining alignment with disjointure in free improvisation:

The first instalment (Series #1) of recordings from the UglyBeautyCage Archives has been posted under www.archives.org. Check it out! You can download all these great tracks from UglyBeautyCage Archives - Series No. 1.

These 4 spontaneous compositions came into existence as the fruits of unrehearsed playing and spontaneous improvisation by the duo of Ralph Lichtensteiger and George Koehler, on Nov 21, 1999.

They are part of a larger blizzard of hardcore dada that evolved during a series of rehearsals, to investigate and develop material for our UglyBeautyCage project, and in preparation for two concerts in Frankfurt which were held on March 31 and April 1, 2000. There are no overdubs on these recordings.

Beginning To Feel Constructed:
Instruments used: electric guitar, MiniDisk player (scratching), prepared piano corpus

Dialogue 1:
Instruments used: electric guitar, bowed electric bass, flute, harmonica, MiniDisk player (scratching), prepared piano corpus

Dialogue 2:
Instruments used: electric guitar, electric bass, violin, harmonica, flute, MiniDisk player (scratching), prepared piano corpus, voice

Plant Trouble:
Instruments used: voice, electric bass, electric guitar, MiniDisk player (scratching), prepared piano corpus


For a selection of live recordings from the Zeil 5 Concert, Frankfurt, as well as photo documentation of the concert preparations, see under:
Zeil 5 Concert (Live, 2000) 2CD package








Photo © Ralph Lichtensteiger



More sound investigations, that form a part of the overall UglyBeautyCage project, can be found under the following:
Dialogue with John Cage (one)
UglyBeautyCage - Audio-visual-semantic incubator (a collection of TEXTS USED)
Dialogue with John Cage (two)
101 Questions and Answers re John Cage
Study Pieces 2002 & 2003
From Here To Emptiness


For more recordings from musique trouvé, see under musique trouvé, all available CD's

Notes By The Way (Interaction in Music)

"A captured moment of spontaneous creativity is worth more than a thousand hours of computerised perfection." - Louis Rey, 1997 (Liner notes to Led Zeppelin - BBC Sessions (March 1969 - April '71) 2CDs, issued 1997.)

Live interaction between musicians breathes life into the recordings of compositions - surely that's not REALLY difficult to grasp?

These days, considering the possibilities of increased control that modern studio facilities offer, it should be possible to easily combine the creative processes such as those of jazz musicians in the Sixties, so that the interpretation of compositions profits from interaction, i.e., one should record compositions in a live ensemble manner without overdubbing, just as if the group where in a concert situation, as opposed to recording each instrument separately, and arranging the tracks on tape or disc.

Overdubs are all very well, and particularly useful if you compose in this way, but making music together with others boils down to interaction, that's more important than perfectionism.

I feel that the fruit of a group effort will always be among the most interesting results of creating music. Only control freaks prefer to play by themselves. And remain alone. Which can become rather sad, since isolation easily increases egocentricity.

Making music with others remains one of the most incredible ways of communicating, sometimes you can't even say WHAT it is you've been communicating, since the most important things that occur often happen without words. I suppose a better term for this collaborative process could be communion, as opposed to communication.
© George H. E. Koehler

"Komponieren bedeutet erfinden, entdecken" (Stockhausen)

"Komponieren bedeutet erfinden, entdecken und wirklich seine eigene Sprache erneuern, und sich nie wiederholen. Das ist ja gar nicht mein Problem, wie viele jetzt sich für Stockhausen interessieren - das wichtige ist, ist das jedes Werk ein Kern-Werk ist." - Karlheinz Stockhausen



"Composing means inventing, discovering and really renewing one's own language, and never repeating oneself. It's not my problem at all, how many are now interested in Stockhausen - the important thing is that every opus be a core opus." - Karlheinz Stockhausen (translated by George Koehler)

After Silence ... (Aldous Huxley)

"After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressable is music."

- From: "Music at Night", 1931, by Aldous Leonard Huxley, writer and critic (1894 - 1963)

Links:
Aldous Huxley - Biography

Further quotations - Cybernation Quotationcenter

Notes By The Way (1)

In regard to my experiments in music, I prefer describing myself as an acoustic investigator or sound emitter wandering through gardens of discoveries and memories, rather than using the term musician.

My preferred manner of creating music is to compose (or improvise or react) out of the moment, akin to a stream-of-consciousness technique as used in writing, except in making music I can take part in creative processes resulting out of direct interaction.

Much as my writing can also be called a painting with words, so can my music, for it is a painting with textures of all sounds.