poetschke on improvisation pt. 4

just in time for tonight's PFFFFT! show at the chat room, here's the latest installment in karl poetschke's "the art of improvisation":

Prt. 4

the unfolding cosmic law as it appears in improvisation follows this path:
death brings life
life brings re-birth
re-birth brings movement
movement brings change
change is inevitable and brings chaos
chaos brings death that brings life..and so on.

this is the path on which we come to the art of transition. now that you are fully present in the music via. observation of the minds actions and you have achieved a degree of physical mastery of your instrument you have become a "hollow bone" so that the music now flows through you with maximum efficiency (maximum effect with minimum effort).

i will refrain from getting into too much explanation on this because i feel that at this point the true learning is experiential in nature.

this is how it works for me:

"death brings life"-- the death of my pre-conceived ideas about what i think should happen in the music opens a "womb space" for creativity (life brings re-birth)

"re-birth brings movement"-- i begin to move in the music with total freedom

"movement brings change"--this freedom "changes" the way i respond in the musical conversation

"change is inevitable and brings chaos"-- with all the movement and change, eventually there is some chaos and i ride it like surfing a big wave that will eventually crash into the shore.

"chaos brings death"--this is the point of experiencing the art of transition. all that has happened so far in the music leads up to a point when to whole band lets what was happening "die" and moves together as a whole into a new direction.

and then it all starts over.

this concept is displayed in its fullness in "too strong" on the cd entitled "the art of transition".