logo

Part 2

For you personally, how would you describe the relationship between a clear individual vision and cooperative results?

OLIVIER: I think if we would have to make a choice, the collective result stay more important than the individuality in music.

This is because the sound doesn’t have any «owner». It is like the air or the water around the planet earth.  Everybody can use it, listen to it, but everyone should respect the individual process of every creator.  In that way, a big Ego in a music band can sometimes be able to crush the others and not to respect the individual vision of every member. This is a common problem that leads to rupture.

For me, the most beautiful music I could create would be the one each individual vision of each member is taken with equal importance, where every one could express freely at 200% their own individual vision but sound like one big sound together, like a machine! To reach that point, we should enter in the explaination of what is exactly Individual vision: this is present during all the different steps of music creation: composing, performing, recording, mixing, etc … it needs a lot of time and humility.

Derek Bailey defined improvising as the search for material which is endlessly transformable. Regardless of whether or not you agree with his perspective, what kind of materials have turned to be particularly transformable and stimulating for you?

CÉSAR CHINARRO:The interaction with the objects really stimulates me, I don't really seek the transformation of the object itself to find new forms or new paths, although I love people who do that, I find it admirable.

I particularly feel more comfortable in the search for new ways to relate to what surrounds me in order to extract textures that I did not know were going to come out, or unexpected sounds. That is the way for me to get rid of pre-existing schemes and how I manage to immerse myself in the sound "in the company" of the object that emits it.

When something comes up that I like, that allows me to play and experiment, it turns into a kind of little dance that engages all my actions. It is as if at that precise moment all I am is what I do.

Nik Bärtsch reduced the art of musicianship to three principles: 1) Listen! 2) Only play the essentials 3) Make the others sound good. What's your take on this and how do these principles pan out in practise?

RICARDO: Totally agree. These principles are essential in improvised music and fit into my personality.

Although there are a wide variety of ways to interact, for me the most important thing is the responsibility of the musician, their commitment, when trying to make a correct decision or even choosing to remain in silence, which is also an option that can enhance the final result of the work.

All the members of the Gaf and Love Supreme Orchestra are capable of improvising organically. That is, following the music they are listening to at the moment, without knowing what the music is going to give us. If we have some bass, or some structures, we take advantage of them. We are even all capable of improvising the structure itself.

And in the end come to think: "What a beautiful structure we have improvised."

In a live situation, decisions between creatives often work without words. How does this process work – and how does it change your performance compared to a solo performance?

OLIVIER: we can develop here the concept of musical scheme, for example, the simple expression of an idea becoming sound.

Each improviser will propose and develop a scheme of his own or react by sensory reaction (hearing) to schemes proposed by others. From this sensory reception, three possibilities are offered to the creator:

  1. to continue the development of his own idea without any relation to the external proposal,
  2. to vary his idea to related and play with the heard object,
  3. or finally to propose a new idea or shut up.

The relationship to the expression of otherness can therefore be both a disturbance and/or a source of its own creative process. The reaction and interaction takes place through sensory reception and the intimate relationship between our senses and our intellect.  

Of course, when we are alone, we do not naturally have this constraint of external elements interfering with our creative process, so we must either recreate it by integrating a form of schizophrenia into our musical playing, or conversely, by remaining linear in the development of our musical idea until its end.

This apparent solitary freedom can actually turn into constraint and condemn us to remain prisoners of ourselves …

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you?

ALEJANDRO: As a member of GAF & The Love Supreme Arkestra I do not seek to be creative, I just try not to think about it, let it go, follow the flow and sense the vital moment of other members as individuals and all parts together.

The ideal state of mind is when everyone is totally relaxed, immersed and enjoying the ride in their own way and all of us come to the point when we forget who we are, where we are and why we are doing it.

It’s not easy to get there but when it happens it’s a bliss.

How do you see the relationship between sound, space and performance and what are some of your strategies and approaches of working with them?

CESAR MARTIN: The acoustics of a place and the space that the band occupies define everything.

This is even more true for our current album. It was recorded in a small studio with eight people playing together and very close to each other, with almost no space to move because of what the whole set took up, which alone with the marimba took up a quarter of the space. You could say it was even claustrophobic. That conditioned the way of approaching the project.

Then we must value the amalgamation of timbral diversity of the instruments, mostly acoustic, especially the wind instruments and marimba, which provided a very powerful and unique vibrational frequency.

The energy and internal catharsis that took shape gave all the character to the work. There was no need to think, just flow with the energy that each human being in that room brought to the recording.

There are truly epic moments, climaxes, of musical ecstasy.

In a way, improvisations remind us of the transitory nature of life. What, do you feel, can music and improvisation express and reveal about life and death?  

EDUARDO: The state of, let's call it a trance, which is sometimes entered when playing or listening to improvised and unrepeatable music, makes life and death and everything that forms and conditions us disappear at that moment.

From the time when we lived in tribes to today, there have always been different musics with these properties. Music that makes us travel without moving. That takes us to other states of consciousness. Playing makes us converse with another language and feel connected to each other. It reminds us that each moment of life is unique.

We could say that each piece of improvised music is an analogy of the life we know. It arises from chance, develops by itself and finally ends. Each piece/life is unrepeatable. And, although it can be replicated, they will never be exactly the same.


Previous page:
Part 1  
2 / 2
previous