Name: Michael Kiedaisch
Nationality: German  
Occupation: Multi-instrumentalist, composer
Current release: Still available from Open_Music is Prospects 3: Constellations by Michael Kiedaisch and Open_Music Ensemble. Also available is MIMANÉE, a trio of Neele Pfleiderer, Matthias Stich, Michael Kiedaisch via ZeytmusikEdition.

If you enjoyed this interview with Michael Kiedaisch and would like to know more about his music and current live dates, visit his official homepage.

For the thoughts of one of Michael's collaborators, read our Scott Roller interview and our Hayden Chisholm interview.



When did you first start getting interested in musical improvisation?  

When I started to learn an instrument, especially when I started to play drums.

Which artists, approaches, albums or performances involving prominent use of improvisation captured your imagination in the beginning?

When I was young, I heard a lot of great jazz musicians live in Stuttgart. Local groups such as the Frederic Rabold Crew or the Radio Jazz Group Stuttgart and big Stars like Bill Evans, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Gerry Mulligan, Dexter Gordon, Egberto Gismonti, John McLaughlin or the group Weather Report.

Focusing on improvisation can be an incisive transition. Aside from musical considerations, there can also be personal motivations for looking for alternatives. Was this the case for you, and if so, in which way?

Playing written music never satisfied me entirely because I mostly felt like I was trapped in a given corset.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to improvisation? Do you see yourself as part of a tradition or historic lineage?

My key idea is presence of mind. The moment I play is the moment when the music starts to live.

There is no difference between interpretation of a composition or improvisation. The music always must be created as if it is arises just now.

What was your own learning curve / creative development like when it comes to improvisation - what were challenges and breakthroughs?

In the beginning, improvising as a drummer in a jazz context satisfied me very much. But more and more I felt the restrictions, especially in the harmonic and rhythmic structures of some jazz styles.

The experience in contemporary music with composers like Earle Brown and the music of John Cage, for example, gave me new inspirations. So I also started to prefer playing free improvisations, although this created new problems. Do I really play free? Or am I using and repeating learned patterns and techniques? So, now sometimes I like to improvise with harmonic and rhythmical structures, to find satisfying solutions in a given framework.

Sometimes I like playing without given structures, trying out new, open ways. Especially playing free in an ensemble with great musicians like the Open Music Ensemble often shows me how unexpected, surprising and fantastic this path can be.

Tell me about your instrument and/or tools, please. How would you describe the relationship with it? What are its most important qualities and how do they influence the musical results and your own performance?  

All percussion instruments, including the drum set are instruments which invite you to play with them, to improvise. Most percussion instruments are instruments where you produce sounds directly in contact with the material, wood, metal, stone, skin etc. There is nothing mechanical between me and the material.

Material starts speaking to me when I play, I try to communicate with it …

Can you talk about a work, event or performance in your career that's particularly dear to you? Why does it feel special to you? When, why and how did you start working on it, what were some of the motivations and ideas behind it?

In 2005 I started to play in a trio with the genius, unfortunately late contrabass player Stefano Scodanibbio and the trombonist Mike Svoboda, called „Suono Rotondo“.

Improvising in this trio was a wonderful experience, because our spontaneous ideas always seemed to fit perfectly together, as if we played the music of an unknown composer.

How do you feel your sense of identity influences your collaborations? Do you feel as though you are able to express yourself more fully in solo mode or, conversely, through the interaction with other musicians? Are you “gaining” or “sacrificing” something in a collaboration?

I prefer to play together in a group. Interactions inspire me to develop new ideas, ways of playing which I don’t find when I play solo.

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?

Sounds of wood, metal, skin, stone etc., all sorts of natural materials

When you're improvising, does it actually feel like you're inventing something on the spot – or are you inventively re-arranging patterns from preparations, practise or previous performances?

This is the question! It depends on the situation and is different from time to time.

Sometimes I’m working with well known things, sometimes I try to avoid everything what I did before and sometimes it is somewhere in between.

To you, are there rules in improvisation? If so, what kind of rules are these?

There can be a lot of rules, but above all, there is one rule: there is no rule!

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?

Because it often works without words, you can’t describe it with words. There must be an unbiased attitude and openness in every player of a group.

When I play solo I have to make spontaneous decisions in contact with myself.

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

You forgot the audience. Space, sound and the audience strongly influence the performance. I don’t have a strategy, I try to be attentive to all of this while playing.

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?

We are all made of music. When we make music, we are trying to find the way to our origin.

Improvisation can be a search in a very intimate way.