Stet Lab

While in the past I’ve generally worked through group improvisations intuitively, the concept of working strategically has become more and more appealing for a number of reasons which I’m not going to get into here. No revelations, just re-considerations.

The aspiration for this month’s Lab (though I admit I decided on it less that five minutes before playing) was to play quasi-logically; pick a strategy and don’t budge… So I decide early on (‘do you need me here…’) to shadow Andrea and try to limit myself to playing while he isn’t. This is then complemented/complicated by playing pianissimo lyrically when he is playing. This is maintained throughout.

The second (‘you might, just…’) went in similar fashion with me deciding on a strategy early on and sticking to it like crazy. In the third (‘we don’t know…’) I gave up on rational thought when I figured out it was just Andrea and myself as opposed to the quartet of the previous two ditties (kind of like when the cartoon coyote looks down to find that the cliff ended a couple feet back).

Still though, two out of three isn’t bad.

It’s interesting for me to read Han’s descriptions of his thought processes during his improvisations with Franziska. I can’t imagine reasoning like that on the fly. Maybe it is because I tend to rely on my focal attention as opposed to my global/general attention?

And so, for December’s Lab do I push my luck and maybe try to juggle two strategies? Or do I throw caution to the wind and go for the intuitive thing?