top of page

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

——————————————————————————————————————————

bottom of page