Month: March 2022

Guitar, Improvisation

How To Improvise With A Detuned String

Posted on by rudiseitz

There are many ways to incorporate a detuned string into an improvisation. You might want to try this if you’re interested in making sounds that you’ve never heard before. Here’s one improvisation template or schema that worked for me this morning. If you play guitar or another string instrument, you can apply this template too. It goes like this:

  1. Use palm muting to play a punchy rhythmic phrase that’s comfortably anchored to a tonic.
  2. As you keep playing, make a transition from palm muting to a clear, sustained tone, using nail. Let some of the open strings ring after you strike them, to create a background resonance. Slow down.
  3. End the gesture by striking a detuned string and letting it ring, stealing focus. You’ll need to have detuned one of your strings to do this part! You should generally avoid the detuned string in the previous steps so that it comes as a surprise here and captures all of the listener’s attention.
  4. Now use your right hand fingers to gently and slowly mute the open strings at the bridge (possibly skipping the detuned string) to create a gradual fade out. Practice doing this as slowly and gently as you possibly can.
  5. Keep repeating Steps 1 through 4 until you feel ready to stop.

Here’s how you can make your improvisation different from mine while still using the same template:

  1. Use a different instrument.
  2. Use a different tuning and detuning. I’m E A D G C E-half-sharp.
  3. Choose a different string to detune. I chose the highest string.
  4. Use a different muting technique.
  5. Use different rhythms and melodic motifs.
  6. Be a different person 🙂
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Criticism

Beauty is an experience, not a thing

Posted on by rudiseitz

The composer and podcaster Samuel Andreyev recently posted a video asking whether avant-garde music can be beautiful. In answering yes, he claims that “The category of the beautiful is incredibly elastic and unstable.”

I agree that beauty is elastic. And there’s a reason why it’s elastic. That’s because beauty is an experience, not a thing, and our experiences are partially created by our expectations.

We find beauty where we expect it to be. Some people who expect to find beauty in avant-garde music might not expect to find it in a pop song; and some who expect to find it in a pop song might not expect to find it in avant-garde music. These expectations are self-fulfilling. They set us on different pathways of perception.

I don’t meant to say that expectation alone creates beauty — there’s more to it than that. But expectation plays a bigger role than we often assume.

Every person should ask: Am I sometimes finding beauty in places where I didn’t expect to find it before? If the answer is yes, your fortune is good. If the answer is no, that’s an indication that you might be missing out on… unknown beauty.

There’s a second point that’s important though, particularly when it comes to avant-garde music, however one defines “avant-garde.” Just because something is complex, confusing, and unfamiliar doesn’t mean that it is necessarily profound beyond your comprehension and that you are merely failing to appreciate its greatness. It’s pretty easy for an artist to generate things that are complex, confusing, and unfamiliar. Not all such products reward our attention and faith — some are just bad.

I used the word “bad,” but how can I do that if I’m arguing that beauty is elastic? How can I do that if I believe that beauty is an experience shaped by expectation?

For me, being an active listener involves a tension between keeping an open mind and ear, and being honest about how something actually makes me feel. Let me emphasize the word tension. You can only grow by opening yourself to new possibilities. But at some point, after you’ve worked to learn more about a piece, to understand its particular aims and techniques, you have to return to your own experience: are you moved? Or not?

If we never allow ourselves to draw the conclusion that a piece is bad, always trusting that there must be something in a bewildering piece that we just haven’t understood yet, we’re not being authentic. As much as we try to keep an open mind, conclusions are inevitable: there are some albums we reach for, and some that stay on the shelf. There are some paintings we hang on our wall, and some we skip over when when we see them in a museum.

If conclusions are inevitable, the important question is what do we do with our conclusions? I’ll argue that positive and negative conclusions should be treated differently.

If we draw a negative conclusion — if we decide we don’t like something — we should question the conclusion every once in a while. Give the piece another chance. There’s no value in broadcasting a negative conclusion to the world, because all that might happen is that we discourage someone else from exploring a work of art that they might have the potential to appreciate, even though we don’t.

But if we draw a positive conclusion, we should trust it. If we decide we really like something, we should tell everyone.

See also: Art And Weed.

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Audience Building, Music, Personal Development

What can I learn about myself from a video?

Posted on by rudiseitz

Can video be a tool for self-discovery? If you make short videos with your phone, capturing little slices of your life, what can you learn?

I decided to put my camera in selfie mode while I was doing one of the things that’s most important to me in my life: listening to music. What does it look like when I do that, and what can I learn from seeing it?

Here is me listening to my piece, Garnet:

And here is me listening to my piece Birdsong:

What are my takeaways?

  1. Music makes me really happy. I already knew that. But these videos make me think about how I typically project (or don’t project) my experience of music to the outside world. When I write about music, I’m often concerned with communicating technical details, and all the theory can seem pretty dry and serious, I bet. And when a friend asks me what I’ve been up to and I say I’ve been struggling to finish a composition, perhaps it’s not evident to them how much I actually delight in that struggle. These videos give a direct look at how music actually makes me feel, and I’m not sure most people in my life have had a glimpse of that before. This get me thinking that as I move forward in life, I’d like to do more to convey my pleasure in music rather than keeping that pleasure inside.
  2. The ultimate way to experience a piece of music, for me, is to gesture as I listen. I’ve been doing this for my whole life, but only when I’m alone. This kind of gesturing is not conducting, where you’re guiding a performance using specific motions to convey your intentions. It’s also not dancing as we might typically think of dancing. You can do it sitting down, with your upper body alone. You just move spontaneously in response to what you hear, to imitate or interpret it, to express your excitement in it, to release the energy that it gives you. You don’t have to get anything “right” or keep accurate time — you can do whatever you want! Spontaneous gesturing is such an important part of experiencing music for me that I’m amazed by how little attention it gets when we talk about music appreciation, especially when it comes to classical music. If you want to get to know a piece of music, especially classical music, move to it, any way you want!
  3. When I think about sharing these videos, I realize I’m grappling with some perfectionism. I find myself asking: are these videos the best they can be, or should I make some more and see if I can do better (gesture more fluently, coordinate better with the music, improve the lighting and overall presentation)? As the composer of the music, I feel some reluctance to show myself getting “fooled” by one of the pieces — Garnet — thinking that it’s going to end a few moments before it actually does, even though that trickery is an explicit intention in the composition. The piece is working on me exactly as it should. But do I need to justify that? Sharing videos that aren’t perfect is a good exercise in personal growth, if one is looking to become less guarded and more accepting.
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Audience Building, Social Media

Social Media and Me: An Update

Posted on by rudiseitz

Me: I’m an introvert who wants to reach out more. I’d like to make it a higher priority in my life to connect with fellow creators, to share my own music and art more publicly, to be part of a community, to build an audience.

Me: How do I that? Social media, maybe? I left Facebook in 2019 but I’m still on Twitter. Let me go to Twitter and see what’s happening.

Twitter: Here are some amazing people you should get to know, Rudi.

Me: Wow, great…

Twitter: And here’s an endless stream of devastating news about the worst things happening in the world, the depths of human cruelty and ignorance: senseless and brutal wars, ongoing genocide, the abuse of refugees, the destruction of ecosystems, the rise of authoritarianism, the threat of climate catastrophe, the specter of nuclear annihilation. You might want to follow this, Rudi, it’s IMPORTANT and it’s URGENT.

Me: …

Twitter: And here are some cat videos and advertisements for you, Rudi.

Me: ….

Twitter: And here are some alerts and notifications for you, Rudi.

Me: …

Twitter: And by the way we’re tracking absolutely everything you do and say here, Rudi.

Me: …

Twitter: And here’s your next dose in the endless stream of devastating news about the worst things happening in the world, the depths of human cruelty and ignorance: senseless wars, ongoing genocide, the abuse of refugees, the destruction of ecosystems, the rise of authoritarianism, the threat of climate catastrophe, the specter of nuclear annihilation. You might want to follow this, Rudi, it’s IMPORTANT and it’s URGENT.

Me: …

Question: Is it possible to use social media with intention and personal agency, without becoming overwhelmed, paralyzed, and addicted? Or is it best to log off?

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