Rehearsal Notes and Most Prominant Issues    

These were our original plans Rehearsal ideas for 19 Sept 08 which obviously changed a bit.

most prominant issue  that I want to explore from this rehearsal: 

Thomas: the quasi compositional role of the outsider who listens to a dialogue and interjects their memories of the dialogue into the ongoing flow. It feels like a very strong role, and not one which is abstract or intellectual. A bit like a greek chorus.

Rehearsal Notes

1. Ambient – Kirsten played drum (‘Daffs’) : What is the difference between not  thinking and not knowing. With no advance experience of playing this instrument, how does that compare that with intuitive actions.

Seth :  there is a some kind of difference between non-thinking and anti-thinking

We talked about the structural difference in instruments (say between a shakuhatchi and a cello)

Stephen: sensory motor affective state, ethology vs behaviourism.

Thomas : (relating to Kirstens experience) The movements one makes on instruments relate to the movements one makes in daily life ie surging up, smooth, popping, repetitive.

All: This turned to talk about feeling. As in the connection between touch and emotion, and compared this with the Ouija board where no touch can happen.

2. Argument. Seth: Curious as Nej is a non-argument instrument of prayer,

Kirsten and Seth used the Daff drums for argument.

3. Outsider. Long discussion. A lot of discussion turned on the role of the interpreter/commentator and to whom the commentary was directed and whether this created a separate space, apart from the two players focused on their exchange.

Thomas: to me this is a very interesting part of the work. One of the objectives of the day was to explore the gap between environmental sound and close interpersonal response, and this seemed to be one way of introducing kinds of distance into the dialogue without blocking. Also, very interested in the different ‘musicking’ being done be the parties involved. The dialoguing pair are very much in the present, co-creating their sounds and reacting to each other, whilst the outsider is able to focus on the history of what they have done and to cast back to earlier moods and behaviours  and has more time for active memory and recall of what happened. The discussion involved impassioned feelings about what the outsiders comments actually did to the playing pair. Stephen felt that the outsider comments were potentially manipulative, and perhaps should be addressed to an outside audience, not back to the players.

Seth was put in mind of  the inner commenting voice heard by psychotics, which are not necessarily critical, and could even be constantly approving.

4. We then did a series of improvisations with Ouija, when I seemed to run out of note making time. But here is a picture

Rehearsing with Ouij

 Technical Preparation, created a wireless link from one computer to the other. Connected the new mixing desk to the usb interface on the computer – allowing multiple microphones to be input with volume ad dynamic. But it has lost the speaker 1 and 2 output for the performers.

Created a link to microphone dangling outside the building for environmental sound.