sarma

Ears     hands     ears      brain     wishes

The happiness of engaging with sounds rather than with words
The happiness of revealing yourself in sounds
The happiness of playing with this

The Absence of a Work-
The Improvisers as Their Own Work

 A question arises in the context of a particular tradition of experimental music: why are no scores
produced in real-time music? Why are certain approaches to the act of playing, the selection of certain materials, not captured in written form (for example, in a set of playing instructions)? The advantage in such a case would be that the instructions could be interpreted by other musicians. Existing beyond the moment of the concert, they would attain a lasting 'independent life'.

Considering this question with regard to myself, the following analogy struck me. Imagine a person who dances her entire life according to dance steps, whether they be salsa, twist, waltz, or any other standardized, learnable dance. The moment she notices that it is  possible to move to music freely-in other words without learnable specifications-constitutes a radical discovery for this person: the recognition of possibilities that lie outside of predetermined standards; the possibility (and concomitant happiness) of following one's own intuition with no dependence on external criteria. Why should this person, in total contradiction to the spirit of her recent discovery, write down the resultant movement sequences and thereby turn them into a standard that must be measured up to?

This discovery-in reference to making music-took place at the end of my classical piano studies. In this field, one is expected to move through a very narrow, predetermined framework by adhering to, among other things, the playing of correct tones and the application of a certain technique. Not until one has fulfilled several requirements does any individual vision regarding the music that awaits interpretation begin to play a role, assuming that the struggle to fulfill those requirements has not ensnared one completely (in which case this individual vision falls by the wayside).

It was all the more cheering to uncover a form of music in which one's own vision-that is to say, one's own hearing-accounts for the foundation,  the source,  the  impulse for everything  that makes a sound; a music that makes it possible, under the name 'improvised' music, to create the kinds of sounds one wishes, under one condition: the decisions made must be responsible to one's own feel for aesthetics. Hence, it is a musical practice in which musical interrelations come into being because of the free decisions made by participants regarding what sounds they would like to make and when, while being exempt from any higher authority a practice in which a 'master plan' lies between the participants-not over them, not forced onto them from the outside, not determined in advance-but between them.

Extricating oneself from a predetermined framework also meant extricating oneself from the  predetermined material found there. The need arose to head into less-travelled terrain. The feeling of not being able to find it within the prescript of the piano's twelve-tone system led me to sound research and the development of my own instrument.

The search for sounds that convey a shorter history than that of the sound made by a  pressed down piano key led to the development of my own instrument, the inside piano. It is a piano frame constructed  by  Bernd  Bittmann, stripped  of its  wooden  housing,  mechanical action,  and  keys, and amplified with the help of a mixer and several pickups. The strings are prepared with bamboo sticks, forks, screws, and metal clips and strips, among other things. They are played with objects such as mallets, snare brushes, metal pipes, propellers, steel wool, and piano hammers. The pickups, attached to the instrument in various positions, serve, due to their differing characteristics with regard to sensitivity, not only to amplify the otherwise very quiet instrument, but also to broaden its spectrum of potential sounds. A metal surface (also miked) that is fixed to the instrument as a repository for preparations is played with objects similar to the ones used for playing the strings, though it results in sounds that seem more electronic. The mixer, an element made necessary by the use of the many pickups, serves, with different filter settings, to differentiate the amplified sounds from one another. In addition, through internal feedback, the mixer constitutes its own sound source capable of interfering with the strings' acoustic sounds.

Sound Research

In the search for sonic material that is less burdened by tradition, one process that is applicable to different elements of the instrumental equipment (the 'instrumentarium') consistently reappears: the single parts of an instrument that are necessary for sound production are studied separately and individually and are themselves examined with regard to their sonic potential. Examples include the strings of the piano, the mere pressing down of the piano's pedals, the keyboard lid, the piano body, the pegs, the bridge, or (beyond the piano) the pickups, which, though they normally pick up the sound of the strings, are played directly; channels on the mixer that cause noise plateaus when turned up without input (I  heard this done for the first time by Annette Krebs); and cables inserted 'incorrectly' into the mixer, causing manageable feedback and turning the mixer into a sound source of its own. Elements made of wood, metal, steel, felt, etc., that play no immediate acoustic role in ordinary piano thus become materials that produce sound themselves. The structure of a surface that originally held only a visual meaning (varnished, of a natural finish, smooth, raw, grooved, rippled) becomes relevant when, for example, a pickup head is slid across it. Thus, in sound research, the transferral of the eye's attention-or the ear's attention-from sounds linked with pitch to sounds linked with noise leads to a reinterpretation, or a re-functionalisation, of the instrumentarium and an expansion of the instrument's spectrum.

Here is an example of ways in which the possibilities for sound making that are inherent in a component intended for other purposes can be brought to light:

The starting point is the triggering of vibrations along the strings by striking the piano frame.

 Possibilities for variation:

Strike with flat hand,
Strike with the fist,
Strike with a wooden mallet,
Strike with a felt.
Do this while dampening strings.
Let strings vibrate openly.
First mute the microphone, then (after striking) bring it up (slowly with a fade in; abruptly with the
mute button).
Filter out the high or low frequencies of the string's sound.

Just as a piano key can make many different types of sounds depending on the technique used to strike it, a simple strike to the frame can also be modulated in  a wide variety of ways. Just as no limit exists to the selection and examination of isolated instrumental components, there is also no limit to the range of implements that help produce sounds-namely, the preparations.

About Preparations

Many of the preparations that I use are found rather than bought. There are no ideal industrially prefabricated preparations to be acquired because the instrument doesn't exist in industrially pre-fabricated form. The ideal preparation comes into being through processes of experimentation; it is illuminated in pursuit of its best possible use, so that it becomes ideal. In this process, it is a precondition that one maintain an openness towards the result.

A small bamboo rod (for the stabilisation of plants), for example, has a particular radius. One must ascertain which strings the stick can be held  between with relative firmness so that it stays put when rubbed. This procedure (with undampened strings and pine resin on one's fingers) leads to a voice-like sound. If there are places on the rod where the bamboo's skin is loose, then one must find out at which tempo and with which pressure this place should be brushed so that it  makes a good sound. The damaged place can end up becoming the special quality of the preparation, since, for example, the air underneath the loose bamboo skin has an effect on the sound's pitch. This comes along with the fact that the loss of this special bamboo rod means the loss of precisely this sound as well. It is, nonetheless, rather difficult to produce exactly the same sound each time when using the same rod. Slight differences in its placement, variations in finger temperature and moisture as well as the amount of pressure applied have an impact on the resulting sound and each time cause it to deviate from the previous sound.

I see a connection between, on the one side, the impossibility of exact reproduction of such sounds
that are developed through sound research and, on the other side, playing in open forms. Playing
with self-developed material arising from sound research presupposes a high degree of presence
as regards listening while performing. I am more sure of the 'legitimacy' of the result when striking a chord on the piano than I am when I rub against a bamboo rod stuck between the strings. The sound of the bamboo rod is legitimized first and foremost by my considering it presentable. Therefore I must generate it each time in such a way that is convincing to me. Since it sounds a little bit different each time, I have to pay close attention and modulate the sound so that I like it (depending, of course, on the context in which it is made). So if I want to be assured of a convincing result, I cannot rub the bamboo rod without listening. Furthermore, the deviations of the resulting sound have an influence on how the further course of the music will take shape. If, for example, the loose bamboo skin emanates a  higher frequency,  it could perhaps inspire the addition of another high frequency, different than if a deeper frequency had been emanated. If the piece were a fixed composition that stipulates what is supposed to result from what, I would be unable musically to pursue the potentially unexpected deviation posed by the high frequency. The music shows me what I want.

This way of listening to oneself while playing and having the freedom to take what one hears as inspiration for the next musical decision is a great quality of the open form of playing. In the best case, the presence of the performers, their 'forming in the moment' is transferred to the mode of listening amongst the audience, which thereby can also enter a state of 'listening to the now'. This 'trusting oneself while forming the now' is, in my opinion, the best prerequisite for this music. I find it noteworthy that no rule or plan exists (as glad as one would be to have a rule or plan) that, were one to follow it, would guarantee the success of the music (rules such as: play lots of pauses, don't play pauses, react quickly, don't react at all, think contrapuntally, think homophonically, try to surprise yourself or others, etc.) The 'proficiency in surprise' [Oberraschungskompetenz] described by M.  Haenisch (Emergenz) [po  1.87], which is  undoubtedly of great quality, cannot be produced con-sciously or strategically. It cannot be manipulated into being. Instead, I think it arises from an 'open gap' located within, or coming from, a state of non-thinking.

The Surroundings

The music one encountered through musicians of older generations in the venues of the 1990s was
primarily a form of free jazz with European characteristics. It was already a sharply distinctive language that established an extremely high degree of energy, expressivity, and dynamics through its own vocabulary and 'rules for playing'. Searching for a unique and (supposedly) indescribable musical field, it offered friction, and thereby inspiration, for new enquiries that resulted in the opposition of the quality of 'little/emptiness' to that of 'fullness/density', of the enlarged interior view of noises to pitch-related, harmonic, metrically organised material.

In these surroundings in Berlin, a series of groups (from duos to octets) came into being among musicians with similar ideas who were working intensively on their own musical language, a language perceived as new. In the process, something characteristic crystallized as to the handling of the material, each individual's attitude towards playing, and the interaction between these individuals.

Attitudes Towards Playing

According to my experience, there is a strong 'impulse to act' while playing 'free' music within rehearsal situations, an impulse that exists to an even higher degree within concert situations. For the very reason that no stipulations are given as to what should be done, a heightened risk factor persists, posing the threat that one ends up standing there, uninspired and unable to act. There is an approach for not being subjected to this risk-I would like to call it 'manual'-that enables the body to follow its playing-impulses and suppresses potential, 'heady' resistance. The problem that I noticed in my case was that the manual, bodily approach constantly moved down similar musical paths, that the pleasure in  pure doing, the pleasure in  letting one's motor activity run free, led to musical patterns that repeated themselves as variations.

From the middle to the end of 1990s, the desire to break through this pattern at some point amounted (through, among other things, collaboration with a  circle of musicians including Annette Krebs, Axel Dorner, Robin Hayward, Burkhard Beins, Ignaz Schick, and Michael Renkel) to a radical questioning of innate playing-impulses. I can describe for myself that the energy that lies in the wish to make a sound happen was transformed into a standing still, a 'listening inwardly', an asking if a sound should really be made. The desire to act was called into question. I think that the consistency with which the standing still, the 'not yet acting', and the silence that goes along with this was executed and accordingly enabled led to a very particular intensity. Every occurrence that did in fact take place thereby gained an extreme meaning. The term Magenmusik [stomach music] was coined because it was frequently so quiet that stomach noises made by the audience became the loudest noises in the space. People also spoke of a 'holy' or 'tyrannical' atmosphere, because the smallest movement in the audience never went unnoticed and because some listeners didn't dare to move anymore. Since every single occurrence was given so much space, one was able to concentrate on the finest details of a sound and on microscopic changes within its structure. Due to the relinquishment of an energetic flow, attention was directed with increased strength towards the quality of a solitary, individual sound-when it began, when it ended, how it showed itself differently, if a second or a third sound supervened. Here I find it astounding that something that for many people sounds like 'head music' touches others, like me, deeply and emotionally.

The above-described type of sound treatment leads to a transparent music. Each action by each musician is perceived by every participant. It is possible that an event, as quiet as it may be, changes the total musical arrangement, as is the case with a mobile, where the movement of every element entails a change in every other element. The feeling that emerges from such a musical arrangement, a feeling of 'hearing and being heard', is, for me, one of the exceptional qualities of this direction in music.

In contradiction to the explanation at the beginning of this text as to why so few scores emerge from improvised music, here I will present instructions for the creation and playing of a sound:

Required material

A glass
A (damaged) glass marble
Sandpaper
Metal surface
AKG  pickups
Mixer
Speakers

Filter settings for both AKG pickup channels on the mixer

Pickup 1
High:  -11
Mid: -11
Low: 2

Pickup 2
High: 2
Mid: 1
Low: -11

Setup

A metal surface is amplified on its underside by two contact microphones.
A piece of sandpaper is fastened to the upper side of the metal surface.
A glass, the bottom of which holds a marble, rests on the sandpaper.

Procedure for producing the sound

Through a slight tilting of the glass, the marble at the bottom of the glass is set into motion and kept in motion permanently through continuous, slight changes in the angle of tilt.

One must make sure that the marble does not roll against the glass's edges.

The pressure that the glass sustains in the process is so strong that the contact microphones under the metal surface pick up the movement of the marble, but the movement is not strong enough to crush sandpaper grains under the pressure of the glass.

Result

Astoundingly, besides a low frequency that can be attributed to the movement of the rolling marble, a brighter frequency reminiscent of bright and quietly gurgling water is produced.