Enrique del Val:
Improvisation is about responding. Creating immediate responses to the challenges of the environment.
Before I start an exercise of this kind in the field of drawing or painting – where my activity is not driven towards a determinate specific result – materials need to be considered. I prepare the materials I intend to use. A selection of tools and implements in accordance to a relationship developed through practice, personal temperament and current state of mind is prepared. Materials are placed at easy access.
I distinguish in the process three characteristic energies or stages. These energies or stages overlap each other – their boundaries are blurred, appearing with more or less presence along the whole exercise. They all require a great degree of concentration.
The first energy is characterised by urgency – a potent inner propulsion or desire to create that is expressed rapidly, by a frenetic throwing of marks, where flow prevails over consideration. The main goal is to create a fertile soil for challenges to arise in successive stages. This is the land most open for experimentation. New ways of proceeding may be test out. As if driven by an inner voice that went "what would happen if I do this, what would happen if I do that?"
Like the sport of chess, at first the game is completely open – there exists a certain automatic quality. The movements are made quickly in order to create a scenario in which the dynamics of the game will develop.
A second mode of doing usually crops up at a latter point, as the high-pitched energy described above loses its momentum. This second stage constitutes the main sequence of the exercise. It can be easily described as producing creative responses in connection to what is going on in the picture. It is of a more slow nature, requiring more considered effort. It´s a process of seeing, feeling and responding. It involves a swift change from raw inner expression to restful attention into what is formally going on in the picture.
Following the chess example this stage would amount to all those small delicate movements devoted to create strength and harmony in the pathways of my own pieces and gain a good hold of the board.
The process tends naturally to a third energy, namely, the energy of conferring the piece an autonomous status. I call it wrapping up energy. This is the process of keeping on refining the raw energies invested during the earlier stages of the exercise. Decisions and efforts are made towards making the thing work as a whole. Improvisation coexisting with a level of intention. My intention is to tidy everything up so that the material result remains active, open and able to speak.
In chess, this would correspond to the calculated moves designed to capture the enemy´s king.
Once the exercise is considered finished, and the piece left aside to rest, the spirit of the practice must be honoured, and the will let go of. Then is time to relax and reflect upon what has been going on from the outside. Taking some written notes is often beneficial to obtain some clarity.
Tom Hespe:
TOM HESPE
Untitled 1
Live improvised performance with Charles Cameron
Saxophone and taps
5:32
TOM HESPE
Untitled 2
Live improvised performance with Charles Cameron
Saxophone and taps
6:43
ENRIQUE followed TOM'S written process to make his work:
Tom Hespe:
For me improvising is really about one thing: people. I can improvise on my own I guess but I usually I feel like I’m going around in circles. Chuck someone else in the equation and then it becomes reactive – a shared journey. The difference between wanking and fucking, writing and conversing.
But the question asked was how do I go about it? In truth there is no simple answer to this. It depends on the people, the environment, the mood, the powers of the sun and the moon…... Personally, this is the beauty and the thrill of improvising, being able to conjure music out of thin air.
Specifically though, it’s about how we go about it. On a practical level it can be as simple as the instruments being played. Sax and piano? Piano is gonna start and sax will follow. Bass and drums? It can go either way. Two horns? Same; either way. If I’m on guitar maybe I’ll start. Ideally everyone takes turns instigating something, leads and supports, drops out, features etc. The best improvising happens when peoples’ chops are on par. It’s no fun being out of your depth. Neither is it to feel limited by the lack of ability or imagination of someone else.
I have occasionally had parameters set – a scale, time signature, chord progression, concept – but the majority of the time it’s totally unscripted. At the same time at every point decisions are being made that can’t be reversed. Noise or silence, a step up or down, each one leads somewhere new. Infinite, immediate and never to be repeated. I guess it’s as simple as just deciding to start.
Enrique del Val:
For me improvising is really about one thing: people. I can improvise on my own I guess but I usually I feel like I’m going around in circles. Chuck someone else in the equation and then it becomes reactive – a shared journey. The difference between wanking and fucking, writing and conversing.
But the question asked was how do I go about it? In truth there is no simple answer to this. It depends on the people, the environment, the mood, the powers of the sun and the moon…... Personally, this is the beauty and the thrill of improvising, being able to conjure music out of thin air.
Specifically though, it’s about how we go about it. On a practical level it can be as simple as the instruments being played. Sax and piano? Piano is gonna start and sax will follow. Bass and drums? It can go either way. Two horns? Same; either way. If I’m on guitar maybe I’ll start. Ideally everyone takes turns instigating something, leads and supports, drops out, features etc. The best improvising happens when peoples’ chops are on par. It’s no fun being out of your depth. Neither is it to feel limited by the lack of ability or imagination of someone else.
I have occasionally had parameters set – a scale, time signature, chord progression, concept – but the majority of the time it’s totally unscripted. At the same time at every point decisions are being made that can’t be reversed. Noise or silence, a step up or down, each one leads somewhere new. Infinite, immediate and never to be repeated. I guess it’s as simple as just deciding to start.
Enrique del Val:
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| ENRIQUE DEL VAL Collaboration between musician Carlos Naranjo and painter Enrique del Val Conte on paper 115 x 154cm |
