Review and reflection:
Snap: out of it, free improvisation its nature and practice.
May 12th 2008, @ the Cornerstone Liverpool.

present: Robin Hartwell, Phil Morton, Emily, Reinhard Fuchs, Chris Mcgugan, Mark.
Instruments: double bass, zither, voice, tenor sax, guitar, melodica, marimba's, grand piano, voices and misc.

Firstly, its quorate, six people and for three people it is their first session! As session leader this poses problems re planning, planning, planning: sometimes you can't if you don't know who is attending, their backgrounds and instrumentation etc.

So what do we do, well what I planned! the free improvisation version of the classic "singing in the rain" , which took up a good 45 minutes to over 1 hour. The group vocalised without instruments the sound-words of rain as devised by primary school children. A Murray Schaffer device, a vocal play set! The group voiced and stayed with this for sometime & duration, highly interactive with a staccato feel. Body sounds, slapping, scratching, popping were later added.

The feel or style of this rendition of falling rain was very narrow, focused with a interplay between play and concentration, as with many Snap session of late we stayed with this for some time and avoided that weakness of workshop tricks: that splash and dash when we quickly run through workshop games or strategies without giving then time or the attention they deserve.

Its a tough borderline! crossing or walking the game as ice-breaker or game as ...hmmm what is the opposite of ice-breaker? exploring the material? where does the boundary lie.

Later in the session: we explored the rain-sound words on instruments, using John Stevens CLICK and random counting as a way into it. There is more space than notes, it is space, narrow sounds and staccato. We add a piece where soloists are randomly added to this conceit whilst the remaining group stick with the plan. We stay with this, for a duration, making the whole session quite focused and specific.

We finish with a form of "Sustain" which is a nice contrast for me to the previous 1.5 hours. Sustained notes is the start and end with free improvisation in the middle. We negotiate the sections and joins by ear.

For me: a return of the double bass is a good sign and the opportunity to make the music after a day of PC hell and the "blue screen of death from microsoft windows!" is a life saver.

phil morton: 13th may 2008