weimerhead

This Thursday’s forum contained an extremely intriguing presentation from saxophonist Derek Pascoe. He talked primarily about his experience with improvisation, taking on a purely personal perspective. Rather than taking the common ‘this is about what I do and why everything do is great’ angle, he simply deconstructed his improvisational technique and how he developed it from the ground up. I really enjoyed the way he was able to meld completely abstract concepts like spirituality with practical ideas to consider in an improvisational situation. He talked in detail about techniques he has practised in daily to become prolific in improvisation. His own worship to improvisation, through such practises, has given him a personal and unique view into the art. Every concept mentioned he was able explain how he came to arrive at that idea. This made the forum very interesting, particularly as did not simply seem to constantly quote ideas from other musicians, but rather discuss his solitary approach to thinking about improvisation technique.

As a part of the presentation Derek Pascoe perform with one of the improvisation project’s groups. There were four songs performed, which by and large progressively improved as the afternoon progressed. The first song involved audience participation, however everyone was too nervous and really the whole thing was not worth mentioning. However, during the next three songs there were certain moments that were really quite fascinating. In the third song, the performers were instructed to follow and mimic each other’s noise. This unfolded with quite interesting results, with at one time the bass, guitar and saxophone sounding quite trance-like. The last performance involved the performers having conversations. To get the ball rolling here Derek Pascoe played ‘smoke on the water’ and whatever that song you hear on the trumpet at the race track. John responded, but unlike Derek Pascoe who extended and lengthened each note, he embellished the line in a guitar shred. In that respect I think that John was what Derek Pascoe titled “the villain” towards the saxophone part. All considered, it was a very interesting couple of hours, and it certain changed, in some way, how I listen to music since.

Bibliography


Pascoe, Derek. “Improvisation Technique." Workshop presented in EMU Space, 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide, 07/09/2006.