…and that’s the official end of Nascent Music.

The unofficial end, of course, was the recording on May 12th; but I didn’t know it at the time.  However, over the last few months, as the podcast went on unscheduled hiatus for the umpteenth time, I’ve gradually realized that it’s stopped serving the needs and purposes for which I started it almost three years ago, and that maybe it was time to pack it in.

Fortunately, during that same period, an old friend made contact, checked out the podcast, and asked whether I planned to release any compilations, and I recognized that as the perfect way to give the show a proper ending.  I’ve been working feverishly on it (I want to say tirelessly, but let’s be honest: I’m exhausted) for the last two months, and I’m very happy with how it’s come out.  It’s telling, if not exactly ironic, that I’ve put more time, thought, and concerted effort into ending Nascent Music than I was able to muster for any of the actual episodes in the last year or more.

nascentmusic.com expires in January of 2009, and I won’t renew it, so this website will disappear after the new year.  After that, if you want to download any episodes, a complete audio archive will still be available at http://shanecarey.net/nm/archives.html.  Comments have been disabled on all posts (including this one) due to the ratio of spam to anything else, but you will still be able to reach me, as always, at the email address included at the end of every episode.

One thing that hasn’t waned in all this time is my gratitude toward my listeners.  I never figured out how many of you there are, or (other than a couple of close friends) who or where you are, or what you get out of listening.  But I know you’re out there and I appreciate you sticking it out even during the leanest times.  I promise there won’t be any more posts after this, so you won’t miss anything if you remove my feed from your reader/podcatcher.  Do check shanecarey.net every once in a while, as I hope I will be updating that more frequently with new and various projects.

And with that, I’m out.  As always, thanks for listening.

NB: this entry also appears in my IRC journal, written there because it’s relevant to improvised theater but reproduced here because it’s equally relevant. I haven’t really figured out what to do about the overlap.

The more virtual our world gets, the more malleable words become. It is one thing to recognize the metaphor when we say that we “visit” a website, knowing that of course we are not physically going to a place that is not, itself, physical. It is quite another to say that we are “reading” an audiobook, because listening to a CD is an input activity so similar to reading a book that it seems a metaphor should not be necessary. Or so it seems to me. Of course, this is quite common in English, a “living language” reknowned as one of the world’s more irregular ones, but it seems likely to me that the virtual world is having this effect on other languages as well.

Anyway, I’m “reading” an audiobook about possession — not Euro-Christian demonic possession, but possession by a more naturalistic kind of spirit, what we call a ghost — and it’s just touched on voluntary possession, practiced by shamans hoping to be inhabited by guiding spirits that might offer warnings or predictions of the future.

Is improv, done right, a shamanic state? Even if you do not indulge the idea of an outside force working through us to create a world, would you agree that, together, we walk between worlds? When I sit down to improvise with the Stick, I do not hope to create; I hope to be available, and to color the music that appears as little as possible with all of the idiosyncratic failures of my playing. I am concretely concerned with hearing, knowing, and articulating the right notes at the right time: with making strong choices, clearly executed, that add rather than subtract, just as in scenework. But mostly this is an intuitive process of listening, and of being available; of putting myself as completely at the disposal of the creative flow as possible, without the obstruction of my own intentions and desires. Music is made of notes, not of the musician who plays them; scenes happen between characters, not between the actors who play them.

I’m certainly not the first person to realize the Dao of improv, but this is the first time I’ve ever understood why I have always felt that this was better for me than meditation. One might hope for meditation to lead to some sort of enlightenment, but this is a purely internal transition (though no smaller for it); with improv, something manifests, enters this world. I do wish to clear my mind, to shed my fears and worries and the accumulated bullshit of life — but I would rather become, not an empty vessel, but an open channel through which something better may pass.

In fiction, when English speakers are possessed by a demon or an alien intelligence, there are two ways to write their speech. One way is for them to speak in ways the character would not, often not even in their own voice (as if the possession affects the vocal cords, but transforms nothing else other than maybe turning the eyes a weird color). The other is, they speak exactly as the character would. The latter is, to me, more justifiable: you inhabit the mind, so you trust the one who knows the language to be the translator, rely on the mind to translate your own thoughts and ideas into the appropriate words and idioms the character would use. On the other hand, while it might be weird for the character to use words they’ve never heard, it’s reasonable to use known words in unusual ways, since they’re expressing thoughts the character may never have.

Relying as it does on fictional behavior — that must be explained, no less — this is a poor analogy, but it’s the one I thought of this weekend to explain how music acts through us in improvisation. If you’ve ever wondered how I can assert that music does not come from us, when each musician clearly has a unique mode of expression (or, worse, does not, and is just aping their influences), this is the answer. Music speaks to us in our own voice, using the vocabulary of the player it chooses (however rich or limited that vocabulary might be).

This occurred to me while reflecting that, really, if I was the one creating the music, I’d expect there to be a lot more metal in it. Ambient music is attractive to me, but isn’t what I’m good at (maybe a “duh” belongs here). I listen to it because I enjoy it, but also because apparently that’s what wants to come from me and it’s best that I learn the language. I’m not skilled enough to pull off everything I try to play, so it’s not like I improvise ambient because it’s easier than everything else. I improvise ambient because that’s what’s called for, even though it’s not, by far, my native or best language.

Paradoxically, this is still a means of self-expression — more so than I think most people realize, perhaps more than they might want. With sufficient command of the English language, I might distort, even lie outright; I can choose how accurately to represent my thoughts, how best to spin them, to paint exactly, and only, the picture I want. Not so in improvised music: there is no hiding the mistakes, the errors that I make, or, inversely, the rare moments that I am able to represent with true, beautiful accuracy. Music shines through a musician as light through a prism, the pattern of refraction an expression of the unique person, each flaw and impurity casting a shadow that adds detail to the portrait. Quoth Fripp: “Nothing is concealed, not even the attempt to conceal.”

That’s what happened with yesterday’s improvs, as with all that came before them. Superficially, I may attempt a different approach with each recording, but, in truth, I don’t get to choose the direction. Each improvisation heads in the same direction: deep inside the player. Most of what I play is tentative, clumsy, with rhythm problems and lots of false notes, but with the ring of aspiration and promise, the conviction that there may be something valuable at the core despite all of these outward flaws, something struggling to become greater than it is currently able (or so it seems to me). This is a painfully accurate self-portrait.

In a discussion with Mark of “Getting a Leg Up,” I’ve left a missive so massive that it belongs in my own archives as well. Mark sez:

I guess we differ a little bit on ‘letter” of the law, and “spirit” of the law interpretations. I’m not a lawyer nor am I a legal maven. However, I find it very difficult to believe that any judge would find it a convctable offense if he kept a digital copy of a CD which he later sold, specifically because record company/publishing/licensing agencies already got your cut. What you should be clammering about is, “how about the second hand CD shops. they’re selling CDs and not coughiing up additional money to the aforementioned agencies.

My response:

Second-hand CD shops are exactly the contrast I have in mind. Fifteen years ago, the RIAA was complaining about the financial impact of second-hand stores, and they were wrong, because, the person who sold it to the second-hand store no longer has it, so that one copy of the CD which was paid for once still exists in the possession of one person, and all is well.

In our present day example, the contents of the CD have been duplicated. The person selling it to the second-hand store has made a digital copy with no degradation, so that paid-for-once copy is now two copies for the price of one. The person selling it has not relinquished possession, only taken money for someone else to take additional possession.

One might argue that cassette tapes made this possible fifteen years ago, and I agree. However, it is not pedantic to point out the degradation of tapes, both in the copying and with every subsequent play; the fact that digital audio doesn’t mean that the seller who retains a digital copy truly gives up nothing of the music. And the prevalence of this issue in the media has left not a single person in America who doesn’t know that copying without ownership is illegal (whatever their moral stance may be); which is to point out that there was an innocence to taping then that cannot be claimed now.

Here’s another example: what about the people who download copies purely for the purpose of auditioning the music? Who intend to delete it if they don’t like it, and will purchase the disc if they do? This is honestly intended, and I don’t oppose it although it’s still technically illegal. It’s the deleting that sells me, the willingness to take honest ownership or none at all. Selling the disc but keeping a copy anyway is exactly the opposite.

—
To me, music is a gift that comes through us, not from us, so I don’t even recognize a musician’s right to own or sell the music; but if I accept that a professional artist’s money purchases, not the art, but the time that they spend making art instead of delivering pizzas, that still in no way gives the industry to make undeserved billions from that gift. Much less do I agree with any greedy, grasping legal action they take to protect their precious revenue streams from teenagers who just want to hear some groovy tunes. I don’t believe in the industry, and I’m not being duped by them.

But I believe in obeying the law. Again, I’m all for changing it, as much in favor of the listener and the freedom of music as possible, and I do not recognize a single one of these lawsuits as rooted in anything more moral than plain avarice. However, the wrongness of the RIAA does not absolve us of the social contract. If we obey only the laws that we agree with, then we’re not law-abiding citizens, just fairly agreeable outlaws.

It doesn’t take a legal advisor to know that you own something or don’t, possess it or don’t. Buying a CD is trading money for ownership — surely we agree on this much. So is selling a CD trading ownership for money? Why, then, would we not relinquish ownership — not because the RIAA is in any way right, not because a judge would or wouldn’t find it a convictable offense, but because it’s honest to do so?

Thanks for the dialogue. I recognize the possibility that I am wrong and sincerely hope to learn from continued conversation. Sorry this was so long.

Mark, if the trackback gets your attention, let me know if you’d rather I keep long responses on my own site or continue the conversation on yours.

I’m not sure how I feel about the FreeCulture.org Manifesto, as it still refers to content industries and I’d just as soon see those die. Art is not the problem; law is not the problem. Industries that use law to the detriment of art are the problem.

It also talks about the freedom to own the products we buy, and I sincerely hope that they mean products CDs and audio files, not the actual music. I worry that they fail to distinguish the artifact from the art.

But it’s a good start.

Found via “Getting A Leg Up”, which I’ll be watching to get some insight into the music-finding habits of a randomly chosen Free Culture participant.

I was so exhausted last night that the sensible thing would have been to go to bed when I reached a stopping point at 8:30. But, after two days off, I wanted really badly to get another recording online. So, I recorded. And it sucked.

I didn’t hate all of it; just the frequent mistakes and the long periods of coasting. And the beat — a bad choice given the mood of the night. I just wasn’t feeling it. But I was aware that there were strong points here and there; perhaps something could be salvaged from those. And so, when I finished, the great internal debate began: post it? Edit it and post it? Or just abandon it altogether?

My goal is to present the process, not a product. I’m documenting the music that appears when I sit down and invite it to appear, not trying to create perfect songs (though it’s neat when those spontaneously appear). Sometimes at the beginning I screw up the length of the loop so badly that I’ll allow myself the luxury of starting over. But once I’m genuinely underway, there’s a continuity with which I prefer not to tamper, for better or for worse. So, other than false starts, the only thing I’ll snip out is dead air, to leave only a few seconds between talking and music. I’ll bring the levels up, maybe compress it a bit, but that’s the extent of the editing I’m willing to do. I want a decent presentation; I want to put my best foot forward. But I don’t want to pretend it’s a perfect foot every night.
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