What do I want from music?
I only started taking music-making seriously about a year ago, when I got into modular synths. Before that, I had played around with Fruity Loops and Ableton Live, but never consistently. Now I practice, make things, and sometimes perform. I’m trying to understand what I want from all of it.
A few things:
- Craft. I want to get better at harmony, rhythm, composition, and especially improvisation.
- Exploration. Making music helps me figure out what I like.
- Presence. I have to listen and respond to what is happening.
- Play. I want to leave room for accidents, surprise, and fun.
Improvisation is where these things overlap. It requires some fluency, but I also have to notice what is happening and be willing to follow it somewhere unexpected.
Of these, presence is where I feel the biggest gap, especially when I perform.
Attention under pressure
I recently played a 20-minute live set at Wonderville in Brooklyn.
I’ve been doing theater improv for years, and over the last few weeks I’ve performed as a clown several times. In music, clowning, and improv, I’m dealing with the same problem: what happens to my attention under pressure?
Right now, it often gets worse. Under stress, my attention narrows. I listen less, judge myself more, and lose track of what is happening around me.
I’ve been working on this, and I can feel some improvement, but it’s still difficult. I’m trying to notice when it happens and find my way back.
In clowning and theater improv, I need to notice the other people, the room, and what just happened. If I get too far inside my own head, I stop responding.
Different ways of improvising
Music isn’t the only place where I’m working on this. Clowning, theater improv, contact improv, and dance all involve listening and responding in different ways.
I’ve spent a long time as a software engineer, where I can usually stop, think, and revise. Improvisation doesn’t give me that distance. I have to work with what is happening now.
As I get older, I sometimes imagine the grumpy old man I could become: certain about everything, less curious, mostly living inside his own habits. I would like to avoid that.
These practices put me in situations where I don’t know what will happen next. Maybe continuing to spend time there is one way of not becoming too fixed.
Questions
I still have questions:
- What do I need to learn to improvise more freely?
- How do I keep listening when I’m anxious?
- What does performing in front of other people add to the practice?
- Which parts of this do I actually want to keep doing?
I don’t have answers yet. These are the questions I want to keep around.
