R–e–s–o–n–a–n–c–e
Scores
Notes
Conversations
© Eric Thielemans
2022
Browsing.
A score for one or more musicians,
their instrument(s) and a room
Please use this score as an extension of score#1 (if your room could speak…)
or score#2 (if this instrument could speak…).
So I kindly suggest you first to do either one of those scores and when you get
to the recording part of 10’, you do that in a Browsing way! Enjoy!
Note for score:
I don’t remember where exactly I picked up the idea for this, yet somewhere during
my first years of live music practice, let’s say from my 20 till 35, my focus gradually
shifted from learning to play jazz, and mastering diverse styles, patterns, and ways
of playing related to that practice, towards more direct, more radical ways of being
in the moment when playing. During that process I minded much less about what to
play stylistically, my attention was on the how of my playing.
How to link my playing with my stream of consciousness, the feedback from my body
and the perceptions I got from the room, the sounds made by myself and the others,
the blending of the sounds made with the sounds that where already there, both
inside and outside of the room.
The relationship to silence, as the source from where a sound, an inspiration or
intentionality, an impulse originating in the body, could spring up and get expressed
as unhindered as possible by judgement.
One of the ways through which I developed this mode of being in the moment was
through a metaphor of ‘browsing’. I once heard an improv dance pedagogue referring
to the same idea as ‘grazing’. Like a cow, or cows in a meadow.
Browsing in my lexicon, refers to this idea of a walk, a stroll through any landscape
or cityscape, where you just walk around and let your subdued state of being, guide
your interest in what you see, hear, feel, smell. There is no end goal nor direction in
mind. The essence is the stroll. A lapse of time in which you have this stroll.
Sometimes you stop to look closer at a shop window because something catches
your eye, and then… you continue your stroll. Meanwhile, whatever comes up in
your mind is part of the stroll. There is no judgement of what you think. It’s a way to
zoom in and out of attention and focus (which we do anyway when we play any music…
our attention shifts the whole time from a cough in the public, to a sensation in our
bodies, to a thought, pleasant or unpleasant, to the sounds made and heard). And then
we move on…
There is absolutely no judgement. There is absolutely no style or technique to be had.
It’s a wandering state, where we let ourselves be guided by the senses, our instincts,
our minds, impulses by way of a musical walkabout.
——————————————————————————————————————————Imagine!
Imagine
Imagine a walk
You go for a walk
Just to have a walk
A stroll
A strut
Just strutting
A musical get together in a place and a time
As a stroll
A walk together
As if a trip with friends in the woods
For the sake of togetherness and the trip
The relaxed mood
A sphere of intimacy
Trust
Friendship
Joy
The joy of sharing the moment
There is no good or bad walk
As there is no right way to walk
Really
NOW
At a given time in this room together
With your instrument
Play, create a sonic environment by imagining
having a walk with your instruments
And as you go
You create the scenery
On the spot
In relationship to the room in which you are doing this
Each other
And the sounds you make
You can get together
Inside a rhythm or a tonality
or a cacophony
or some nonsense
and then
no problem
nothing to worry about
the walk just continues
each making steps
grazing and browsing
through their mental, physical landsoundscapes
——————————————————————————————————————————