questionnaire

 Alessandro Bosetti
 Alfredo Costa Monteiro
 Andrew Drury
 Axel Dörner
 Bechir Saade
 Bertrand Denzler
 Bhob Rainey
 Bonnie Jones
 Bruce Russell
 Bryan Eubanks
 Burkhard Beins
 Christian Weber
 Christof Kurzmann
 Cor Fuhler
 Dieter Kovacic (dieb13)
 Doug Theriault
 Dragos Tara   new
 eRikm
 Greg Kelley
 Günter Müller
 Heddy Boubaker
 Howard Stelzer
 Ignaz Schick
 Jason Kahn
 Jeff Gburek
 Jeph Jerman
 Jesse Kudler
 Joe Foster
 Julien Ottavi
 Kai Fagaschinski
 Lee Kwang Goh
 Liz Tonne   new
 Lucio Capece
 Mattin
 Michael Renkel
 Michel Doneda
 Reuben Radding
 Róbert Rózsa
 Robin Hayward
 Ruth Barberan
 Sharif Sehnaoui
 Thomas Ankersmit
 Tomas Korber
 Valerio Tricoli
 Will Guthrie

6. Do you "practise" for an improvisation, and what are your general thoughts on the idea of "practising" for improvisation?
When you improvise, do you use sounds that you've already "tried out", and how much room is there for actual sound experimentation?

Alessandro Bosetti:
      There's both depending on what I wish to do. I mostly organize my work in a way where there's no actual divide between composing and practicing.

Alfredo Costa Monteiro:
      I sometimes practise but not for “an improvisation” as you say. I don’t play improvisation: this way of playing is part of my music, a mix of improvised and more or less fixed materials.
      If I have to play in a special context, I may work previously, but I still believe in the fact that, by playing too much, I would lose some kind of spontaneity. Of course, a performance is not a simple isolated act, it comes after a certain experience acquired by work, so, in my case, it is composed of learned and improvised or even accidental sounds. A live act is also an occasion to show what we’ve learned, so for every sound I tried out previously, there’s always a possibility that it escapes from what I expected, and this is improvisation too. I don’t believe in total control of what I’m doing either.
      Improvisation is also what you do with what you have (whether it’s fixed or improvised) how you can take it to a different point, even taking the risk of things going badly.

Andrew Drury:
      I don’t practice for an improvisation, I improvise.
      My practicing focuses on connecting me with my instrument, sharpening my timing and execution, and making me feel loose and able to actualize my ideas. Of course this task is unending. There are some really tedious technical exercises I do, and I absolutely love doing them. And then I also just bash. I’m sure practicing releases endorphins too. 
      When I have a good practice session afterwards the world feels more right to me. I perceive my relationship to trees and buildings and things in a different more lucid way, a rhythmic way perhaps…the rhythms and forms created between my body and objects in space. This practice is never aimed at free, non-idiomatic improvising—I practice bebop, rock, beats and grooves from Brazil, the West Indies, funk… I try to do things I pick up from watching other drummers. Little of this enters my improvising in any literal way. But when I get around to performing, whether it’s improvisation or not, practicing makes me feel empowered in relation with my instrument.
       Improvisation is largely about being with a specific group of people in a specific place at a specific time.  One practices—or prepares oneself—so one can be open, responsive, and able to be present.  I was fortunate to attend a workshop given by Tony Williams where he said (I think it’s a Zen proverb) “good luck comes to those who are prepared.”  So you prepare yourself in a general way to be aware and effective in any situation. If something fortuitous happens you have to be ready.

Axel Dörner:
      I practise different kinds of improvisation (for example jazz), I think it´s a good idea to practice musical ideas, but certain things you cannot practise alone, for this it´s necessary to play with other musicians or a concert. Usually I don´t experiment in a concert, but it happens that I play things which I have never played before, because of the inspiration from the other musicians or the environment.

Bechir Saade:
      Ok I think I kind of answered to that.

Bertrand Denzler:
      Most of the time, I don't practice, I play. Alone or with others, trying to produce some music. It's a continuous process, so I use sounds I already know. I am not able to reinvent everything on a daily basis. But the parameters of these sounds are flexible, they are not fixed. Speed, pitch, dynamics and so on can vary a lot. And I can mix them. So that they often feel like new. Sometimes, I hear a sound in my head, which I think the music needs at this precise moment, because of the instant band sound or the form of the piece, and I try to play it. Sometimes it's a sound I know, sometimes not. Sometimes it comes out exactly like I wanted, sometimes not. Sometimes it feels new, sometimes not. Sometimes, it feels like if the sound would come out by itself. It's experimentation and some kind of knowledge at the same time. Even if I try to forget everything I know, I am still myself.

Bhob Rainey :
      I don't think specific sounds are terribly critical to an improvisation. In fact, I think there is considerably too much emphasis on single sounds at the expense of overall musical ideas in improvisation. If a new sound happens to emerge during an improvisation, sure, that's an exciting event. But I don't beat myself up for using a sound one thousand shows in a row.
      That being said, every improvisation is a practice for improvisation. Not in the effort to get it right, but in the effort to be just there.

Bonnie Jones:
      Well I'd have to say it's all "practice" in a sense. I'm very fond of the idea of being always a student and never a master. I think it will keep me interested in and aware of what is happening around me. I definitely like to work out ideas at home before a concert or recording, if only to expand my understanding of the instruments I'm using. Fortunately, my instruments have their own mind and while I can learn the geography of the circuit board I can never really anticipate the full expression of the sounds that are possible once I start manipulating the current. I can still make sounds with my instruments that I've never heard before and unexpected sounds introduce themselves into musical situations very often – sometimes to my embarrassment.

Bruce Russell:
      Never practice! When we rehearse improvisation, we aren't rehearsing what we do later, we are just 'improvising now' and then we 'improvise later'. Sometimes I find sounds I like and sometimes I use them again, but usually I have chosen my equipment too well, and this is impossible. I want new sounds

Bryan Eubanks:
      As I said previously, I work with the same sounds quite often, sometimes maybe too much, so I become familiar with them and what they can do and how they can be used. So, yes, I use sounds that I have tried out, but the way they are used is not known to me beforehand in an improvisation, and there are no limits on their use that are pre-determined. I don't, however, practise for particular improvisations, which seems impossible, but I would devote time to something that wasn't entirely improvised in order to see what would or could work beforehand, which is the same proces that would happen in real-time if I were improvising. I suppose by improvising you are always practising for improvising and I am almost always playing in real-time and improvising. I enjoy this energy of a sound developing in ways I couldn't have predicted or planned, even if it is a sound I previously have used before. This is probably one of the big joys of improvising for me.

Burkhard Beins:
      I´m rather trying to „unpractise“ at the moment. Usually you practise to enhance control. At the moment I don´t feel so much a lack of control over my material, I´m rather curious what else there is to find inside of it beyond of what I have discovered so far. So I´m trying to use my musical material and playing techniques as rarely as possible in order to keep it as open, fresh and surprising as possible for myself.
[second question]
      Working with a group means working in circular processes, more or less coming back to similar subjects each time, always reentering a shared territory if you want. Each time round a necessarily limited selection of elements becomes requestioned and varied, possibly slightly extended, but also refined and established at the same time. One of the most amazing things always is, how surprisingly different a material you think you already know quite well can all of a sudden sound or behave in a slightly different context.

Christian Weber:
      I'd never practised for anything. I just practise for pure joy, for discovery, for meditation. Practising is a kind of calibration for me. Very simple, basic stuff. I never think about what is going to happen on stage. Things are always different. Some things I practised appear during a show, some in variations and some unheard stuff appears as well. But it's not so much about the material, it's more about the connection and relation of things (notes/sounds).

Christof Kurzmann:
      I never practise. Of course I use sounds that I used before. But I always treat them in a way that could be called "different" or "new". And of course no sound is innocent. So it changes it's meaning constantly, depending on the context it is performed with.

Cor Fuhler:
      Sometimes I do a bit of playing as practise, especially when I haven't played a certain set-up for a while. Although it's more checking the equipment. But mostly I don't practise fysicaly anymore. It's more thinking about it.
      On the other hand, for a few years me and some Amsterdam people (Eric Boeren, Wilbert de Joode, Joost Buis etc.) used to play every week in front of an audience. It was a very good thing to do. After that me and some people (Anne LaBerge etc.) set up the Kraakgeluiden in Amsterdam, because there was no place for electronic music and we all needed to play with each other to improve our playing and to get ideas etc. We did that weekly for about 2 years. That was very important.

Dieter Kovacic (dieb13):
      This depends on the project and type of concert. I don't practise for solo concerts, but sometimes for ensemble-concerts. I think there should always be a lot of room for variations/experiments to keep things interesting.

Doug Theriault:
      I don't practice. I develop systems that I use in different playing situations. If I play solo, the systems are different then playing with other people. It depends on the playing situation.
      If you are any good at improvising you understand your instrument as well as you understand your arm and how it moves. It is literally an extension of your brain. Sometimes your brain misfires, that is when the music is best I think :)
      And no. the sounds I use usually are a surprise to me and I work with them live to create a piece of music. It is in the listening and understanding the instrument so well that the piece unfolds by itself.
      The systems have been worked out. The only experimentation going on is how the piece evolves live and the choices I make of where a piece might go.

Dragos Tara :
      For projects that are based on a special ideas or a concept, I love to rehearse. But if it is really improvised, I hate it. Anyway, with time, as I told you, you make choices that guide your work and make you more prepared for concerts.
I feel the same about practising on my own. I practise my bass in a rather conventional, classical way, just to keep in touch with it.
      Playing with electronics is always prepared for me, as I have to build my MAX/MSP patches, choose my interfaces.
      I couldn't really tell you how much room there is for actual sound experimentation, but I think this is more than ever necessary because of the increasing normalization that the musical business implies.

eRikm:
      See answer to question 2.

Greg Kelley:
      When I practice my goal is simply to keep myself in shape. I don't usually practice extended techniques except those which utilize muscles that are not used in a more traditional warm up. When improvising, I try not to think about "new" sounds or "practiced" sounds but about "music".

Günter Müller:
      I'm pretty sure that there is no way to 'practice' or rehearse improvising, you just do it. I often use sounds I already tried out, but I try to play and treat them each time differently and in new combinations. So there should always be room for new sound experimentation.

Heddy Boubaker:
      I regularly practice my instrument, in fact except for very few specific technical exercises, I mainly practice by improvising, just playing with no rules and sometimes trying to go deeply in such or such way in order to integrate something new for example.
      When I improvise everything is open and everything can happen - this blank sheet effect - I do not search specifically for new sounds, I do not try to play such or such thing, what I play is oriented by what happens in the moment, in fact I found almost all the sounds by myself (that is, the ones which I didn't steal from others), and they were found during live improvisations and rarely during work at home, as I said before, I then work on them in depth at home to ameliorate/integrate them into my "language". I really enjoy these moments when you discover something new for yourself and try to develop/use it without really mastering it, this takes you to intense moments of pure improvisation and sometimes catastrophic interesting ugly sounds :)

Howard Stelzer:
      When I started improvising, my friends and I would talk a lot about what we were doing and why... within The BSC (an 8-person group that I'm in) we've had some great constructive discussion about strategies, pitfalls, and management of improvisation... I've found this to be worthwhile. Conversation seems to take the place of practice for me, which I like because my gear takes time to put together and can be a pain in the ass to lug across town (along with an amp or two), set up, then tear down while my friends who play horns wait around for me to coil up all my cables.
       In my solo performances, I definitely use sounds that I have used before. I feel no need to be constantly new at every concert. That utopian idea of improvisation as being pure free expression is not at all interesting to me... I just want to play good music, and that can be a variation of a piece I've played before, or not.

Ignaz Schick:
      I don't practise improvisation, I practise my instrument, technical aspects like fluidity, independence, research on new sounds and possibilities, the economy of material (the reduction of objects used and the increase of achieved sounds) and I practise with special groups in order to create a unique sound. A sound which sort of becomes typical for each group. I am only rarely interested in ad hoc groups which have a sort of  a "one night stand” feel.
      The main focus is to work with selected trustworthy individuals over long periods of time, to create a certain deeper understanding for both the music and each other. This trust can not be forced, like in a relation it has to grow and that needs time. In a way you practise how to trust, same as in a friendship.
      There will be many ups and downs, so time is a very important factor here.

Jason Kahn:
      I have never practiced for a performance in the context of free improvisation (i.e., improvisation without any pre-determined parameters). Practicing would be antithetical to my notion of a spontaneous discovery of sound and modes of playing. It would negate the very process I am most interested in.
      When I improvise there are quite naturally certain sounds which I know how to play at any time. This is not a problem for me as part of the process of improvising is how these sounds interact with the sounds coming from the other musicians, where and when I choose to place them. What I have found, though, is that improvising puts me in a situation where I often discover new sounds. There is something about being in this precarious situation, where I sense the audience and the other musicians, which somehow pushes me to what you term here as "sound experimentation." Of course, working alone in my studio I can also discover new sounds but the approach is completely different. It is always very thrilling for me after a concert to realize I have stumbled across something new.

Jeff Gburek:
      You can for sure practice improvising. But practicing for improvisation is a strange question. Even if you try out sounds before playing there is a new context which changes their perception and reception. Sometimes all plans must be abandoned or altered drastically to make some kind of musical sense in the situation. Sometimes it is good to stick with an idea even if you think it might not be working because the tension of its "wrongness" (who percieves it as wrong?) can create an interesting dynamic.

Jeph Jerman:
      Derek Bailey once wrote that the only way to practice improvising was to improvise, and i'd agree with that. I've worked with people who "rehearsed" for improvised performances and also with people who didn't, and in my experience things seem to work better without such practice. I personally play most days, to keep my body limber and my ears open. As for trying out sounds, I sometimes will make sure something works physically before I use it, but I don't very often work out what i'll do with it in the context of playing with others.

Jesse Kudler:
      I personally don't practice at all. The closest I might come will be playing with some new pedal or device and getting to know it. I very rarely will just play music by myself, but that doesn't feel like practicing. That said, I play very regularly in private with a pool of local people and sometimes out-of-towners. Sometimes these are one-off get-togethers and sometimes they are in anticipation of specific concerts. HZL played quite a bit when we first got going.
      I don't have general thoughts on practising for improvisation. I understand that musicians who play instruments that call for breath control, or more precise muscle control, probably want to work on these technical things. I don't know what one does specifically to practice for improvisation - beyond just improvising. If you want to expand the definition of "practice," I do spend a lot of time listening to recordings of my concerts and playing sessions, listening to other music, reading, and thinking about all this stuff. I find listening to recordings very helpful - it's easier to hear the "big picture" and how your sounds fit in and how the piece moves than in the heat of the moment.
      I notice that I think less and less about specific sounds. Partially, I have already staked out a lot of my vocabulary, and partially I think more about technique than the exact sound (i.e. production over precise result). I have a more general sense about high/low, fast/slow, loud/quiet, clean/dirty, etc. Sure, there's room for actual experimentation. But groping around for sounds is boring as hell.
      Lately, my primary concern as an improviser is on placement of sounds and development of pieces. Creating a piece of music that works, or is interesting. There is too much emphasis on specific sounds and instrumental technique and on "being a good player." I wonder if this is perhaps a holdover from the values of jazz or classical music? People focus so much on the relationship with the instrument, rather than the relationship with other players, or the group's music. I generally get incredibly bored with "great" instrumentalists who just want to make crazy sounds with their instruments. I could name names, but I won't. It's always exciting to stumble on some exciting new sound in a performance, but it's much more challenging and fruitful to figure out how these sounds function, and how to arrange a compelling piece of music on the fly.

Joe Foster:
      Typically, I play a lot - a couple hours almost every day - but I never practice. Recently, however, I've tried playing less, maybe once a week. Regardless, I try to approach every playing situation with the same attitude about its function. I think of all my music as "a practice" (like yoga or running). This attitude has reinforced itself to me by noticeably improving my ability to drop into focus and escape myself when I'm playing. When I play, I rarely think in a conscious way, I'm thinking too fast (or slowly) to even notice it. I sometimes experiment with new sounds and techniques when I play, and I actively try to seek out my habits. Habits will always exist, but seeking "lines of flight" has been fruitful to me so far.

Julien Ottavi:
     I have answered to some part of this question above in the others, so I won't repeat myself on this.
      But why are we preparing ourself to improvise? This is nonsense if you think a minute about the concept of practicing & improvisation. The reality is, for me, that we prepare ourself all the time to be prepared in situations where we lose control, since we are a child of our parents/family, the educational system, sports, the army, the prison, friends, everything is taking part in the preparation to be integrated in the society, to have a certain kind of a reflex in certain kinds of situations. Fortunatly the human being in itself has some part of resistance which is not really predictable and that creates in some situation these special neuron activities that make us create a crisis situation where things are not controllable and where your real sense of improvisation is put in question... The question behind your question is: How could we accept to not control every aspect of our life? How do we welcome the stranger, the foreign, the artefacts, the uncontrollable, the irrational?

Kai Fagaschinski:
      Practising the clarinet is very important for me to have a good relation with the instrument. Especially with this instrument you need trained mouth muscles to have full control.
      I find that, for me, the best way of practising improvisation is to play concerts. I find it sometimes difficult to build up what is necessary within an afternoon rehearsal. Rehearsals are in most of my projects not really about practising improvisation, it's more about checking things out or warming up with each other.

Lee Kwang Goh:
      I don’t practise, I just make sure my mixer can still make sounds a day before I have a gig.

Liz Tonne :
      I practice technique not improvisation. When my voice is really warmed up and I have reconnected with the physical sensations from which most of the extended techniques come from I am very free musically. Then I am free to focus on listening which is where the music comes from. I do use sounds that I am familiar with. If I'm lucky the improvisation will enter a place of deep concentration where new sounds will spontaneously evolve.

Lucio Capece:
      I practice my instruments. I have a basic technical routine that I try to play everyday and after doing it I just try to work with the sounds and discover new possibilities. I do not practice improvising, mainly I do not do it alone. I play with other improvisers in ad hoc meetings and occasional meetings with musicians I play with in stable projects, but not so much. Just a few times. I prefer to surprise myself not working too much together. I think that it is good to play with sounds that you have already tried out, and worked on. Gives you a deeper idea of how they work, and to work on them when you practice gives you some intuition on how to modify them, how to try them as a living element. Then it will be different when you play live. I think that what you work on when you work on these sounds is your capacity to work on them live. I think that what you work on when you work on these sounds is your capacity to work on them live. We do not only work with sound in a live performance, there are many other elements (form, development of language, interaction of ideas, density, etc), and I do not think that these elements become less alive if you have worked your sounds before, but the contrary. If the sounds are rich and interesting, and are played in an alive way but not as a catalogue, the sounds stimulate yourself and the musicians that play with you, and create enjoyable music.

Mattin:
      If we are talking about improvisation happening in the concert context taking all the aspects into account (room, people, amplification, lights...) then there is no possibility to practice as the concert is going to be a single special occasion. You just basically have to do it. Of course you can think about it, but what then actually happens happens and you cannot go back. 
      I use the concert situation as a place for research, like a “social studio” to try things out .
      Also the conversations that I might have with the audience and other musicians are very important to me to try to find out what it was that actually happened.
      For me to “practice” is  very problematic, especially since I am not so interested in showing off my musical abilities with my instrument. I try to reduce possibilities as much as possible.

Michael Renkel:
      I practise classical guitar and I develop my computer patches.
I try new sounds/preparations and I meet with other musicians.
On stage I like longstanding groups, and on the other side it can be exciting to observe a process of creation of a group meeting the first time as well.
      Practising means finding out what is special about a certain combination of people and/or material. The second thing is playing with a certain group for a very long period (for example my duo with Burkhard Beins (Activity Center) has lasted almost 20 years now). This means something like a living composition because you know each other so well that the difference between plan and execution is almost abolished.
[second question]
      Yes.
      On stage I don't experiment too much. I think about this kind of music as a special way of composition, so I try to set my thought out material sensibly; but you have to learn and react in every second of your life.

Michel Doneda:
      Never and all the time. I am living with this process in me. And when you play a brass instrument there are also some technical aspects you have to practice. When I start an improvisation I have nothing in my head. I try to be there and concentrate as much as I can.
      (second question) Yes, my memory is always in function, but it is not because I decide so, I would prefer to be able to be like a "blank page" but this absolute and abstract idea is impossible. Also there are mechanisms employed in the playing which are deeply anchored in my body. But I try to have a fresh listening-place. And I follow the sounds in the space. I always feel refreshed by the activity of listening. Sometimes of course I discover a sound which I can never get back at

Reuben Radding:
      I practice technique on my instrument, and since I make my living as a freelance bassist, I usually am practicing music I'll be playing that week for gigs, but I don't generally rehearse improvisations. I used to worry about repeating sounds and ideas in my improvisations, but less now that I've come to realize how valid it is, or perhaps how little it matters.

Róbert Rózsa:
      Practising in the classical sense does not exist, especially any kind of  training, because then it is not improvisation. But one should play as much as they can, and work on discovering and expanding their sonic possibilities, ways of expression. So, trying out, yes. Using already “tried out” sounds as well. And, the new and the unknown should always be the imperative of improvisation, because, to experiment and to search for new possibilities is something is possible and necessary.

Robin Hayward:
      I don't practise for a particular improvisation. I do rehearse with other musicians, but this has to do with developing and clarifying what we're doing, rather than preparing for a specific improvisation. Sometimes we practise exercises for improvisation, usually arising from having observed that something's happening by default rather than because we want it to. The exercises are intended to make us more aware of whatever it is and learn strategies of how to avoid it. Yes, I do mostly use sounds that I have control over, which implies having tried them out and practised them. But I try to avoid simply playing repertoire - the challenge is to use the sounds so they make musical sense, though it's not always easy to say why a sound seems to make sense in one context and not in another - it's necessary to work very empirically. There are definitely rules, though it's often hard to say what they are. It's mainly just a question of remaining sensitive to the present moment and intuiting what it seems to imply.

Ruth Barberan:
     Yes, i practise, but not in a regular form (I´m not in the regular audience in artistic activities (litterature, cinema, exhibitions, etc...)). I think everyone must do what they need when they need it in order to reach new situations.
     Of course, when I improvise I use sounds that I’ve found alone or during a rehersal. I also search the language that I want to use with these sounds, what I want to do with them. That´s more important for me than how I create the sound.
     I think that the real experimentation with sound is done during the rehersals or alone at home, but sometimes you can find something during a concert or a recording. In a gig, sound experimentation can be improvisation in the sense that we have to take decisions in real time because of the situation, the space, the other musicians...etc...if we want to make this improvisation real, we have to be able to risk and even to do a bad concert, as I said before. 

Sharif Sehnaoui:
       There is solo practicing where indeed you are both trying to master a specific type of sound, or playing, or technique. But also the will to try something else, to elaborate on some ideas that you would not in another context.
      There is group practice where the main purpose would be to understand and put in memory the various sound worlds of the people you are working with.
      Some might argue that this reduces the spontaneity of the improvisation as you are no longer surprised by the other. Yet on another level I believe it enhances it because by knowing your partners well you are able to react much faster and more efficiently to any idea that is put forth. This creates some of the most powerful music in my view.

Thomas Ankersmit:
       I rehearse certain things to be able to repeat them, but not "for" an improvisation. Instead of practicing, I just improvise, together or (mostly) alone. I generally start with something I've tried before, but frequently end up in something I couldn't have predicted. Either because my instruments or my body or the acoustics of the room didn't behave as I expected and led me somewhere else, or simply because another musician's actions transform the meaning of what I'm doing. At the moment, I'm attempting to teach myself to play a new synthesizer, so I'm consciously listening for what I can do with it.

Tomas Korber:
      I wouldn't call it "practicing", but yes, I do play at home quite a lot. Sometimes in an improvisational setting I start with playing something I have already "tried out" and slowly move from there into unknown territory.

Valerio Tricoli:
       I think that practising is really important, expecially for a band. But I feel that band practice should just lead to some sort of telepathic communication between the members, and not to the development of pre-arranged structures. Then, I practice alone with tape machines, to spread the "window of opportunities" of the instrument.

Will Guthrie:
      I used to practise drums for hours everyday so I could be closer to being technically able to execute any idea that came into my head. This is still relevant for the drums, but not so much for the more electronic stuff I do. For the electronic stuff I am thinking about music all the time, about how I can arrange sound, how to deal with form and structure, so in a way this is practise. Playing live is always a balance between playing the things I already know, stuctures I have already thought about etc...and trying to get to the place where the unknown can happen, or sometimes I deliberately introduce random or chance elements to use sounds that I don't know how they will turn out, this can force me into different areas...