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Description: This class begins with student demonstrations of Indian classical music frameworks for improvisation, as presented at the prior class. Then they collaborate on devising and trying out several new frameworks.
Instructors: Phil Scarff, Mark Harvey
Guest Artist Workshop 2.2. ...
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PROFESSOR: Okay. So this is our second session with Phil [? Scarf, ?] please welcome him. So we're going to have our presentations based on the design assignment that Phil came up with. So who would like to go for first? There you go. Thank you.
PHIL SCARF: Can you tell us your design?
STUDENT 1: So we chose a raga. We decided on the notes C, Db, F, G and Bb. And we went with a more traditional, where you start out slow and you slowly expand the range. And then you add in more players and then you play a melody line together and then alternate whoever is improvising. And then we did a little bit of extrapolation halfway through by changing one of the notes in the raga actually. And just for a little different style and then we go back.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: That was very impressive. So let me just ask the performers. Did that performance go the way you envisioned it going? Since we're improvising, you never know what's going to happen when you improvise, right? So I'm just curious if that's the way you had planned for it to go, or you thought that anything might have been different.
STUDENT 1: So when I was describing it I said there was a section where we change one of the notes in the raga. That didn't happen. At the end, we had the option of going into that or stopping.
PHIL SCARF: Anything else?
STUDENT 2: So we sort of knew vaguely what different sections were going to be like, and sort of what we would try and do with them. But that was completely different -- like, we tried, we run through it a couple of times before, today. That was kind of different to what we'd done before.
PHIL SCARF: That's improvisation. It should be different. That's actually the point. It should be different. If you start doing the same thing over and over again, it's no longer improvisation, right? So that's great. Good. So any comments from anybody else? Any thoughts?
STUDENT 3: There were a couple of times when you played in unison, and I didn't really see any cues into those sections. I was just wondering if you were all improvising, how did you move from improvisational section to unison section?
STUDENT 4: We have this one particular melody, so when one person started, we could recognize that melody. Or one person began it, we would go into it. And there was a couple times we repeated it, so one person would get to the end of it and then we'd go straight into it again.
PHIL SCARF: Any other comments?
PROFESSOR: I'll just say, I thought it worked very well as a composed improvisation. I thought the framework was well thought out. And the realization through improvisation made a lot of sense. Very good.
PHIL SCARF: I think you really captured the frameworks very well.
Why don't you want to tell us about it? Because everybody needs to know.
STUDENT 4: So basically we came up with our own scale to base the improvisation on. And we decided to look into the range and note density frameworks at first. So we're each starting in different parts of our register, which is maybe different than what would be done traditionally, perhaps. But then we'll move out and expand, which is pretty similar to some of the stuff that happens with [INAUDIBLE]. And then we'll also be moving from pretty simple melodies and pretty simple [INAUDIBLE] to more complicated things that come up and we'll try to then [INAUDIBLE]. It won't start with a [INAUDIBLE] rhythm, but then we'll try to get into a rhythmic groove later on.
STUDENT 6: One more thing, I'm going to start with a drone, to imitate the tambura, and we're going to add ornamentation to the melodies, to imitate [INAUDIBLE].
PHIL SCARF: OK, sounds good.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: Nice. So any thoughts about that piece? So did the performance went the way you expected? Did you do anything different that you were thinking about?
STUDENT 6: I'd say in general, the note density and range [INAUDIBLE]. We were hoping to get a motif in there, but I don't think --
STUDENT 5: We were going to just let it develop organically. But we just kind of played off each other.
STUDENT 6: And the rhythm wasn't 3-3-2 like we were predicting, it did settle.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah, it did become rhythmic, about halfway through. Yeah, good. Anything else?
[INAUDIBLE]
STUDENT 5: Yeah, a little bit, yeah.
PROFESSOR: And then you jump right on.
STUDENT 6: Well yeah, I used the bass to really --
PROFESSOR: But that was very good listening, because it didn't take more than a second or two to really coalesce. And how about the ending? Had that been thought about?
STUDENT 5: We planned to just bring the range back in, basically, to where we had been in the beginning. That fade-out, literally fade out.
PHIL SCARF: That worked out great. Anybody else have any comments? Any thoughts, observations? Yeah.
STUDENT 7: Well in the beginning, I thought the piano player was going to drone on for the entire song, and just sort of be a drone. And I was waiting for him to come in, and finally I felt relieved when he came in and built on the violin.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah
STUDENT 6: Yeah, we didn't have any unison melodies planned, so I didn't want it to be really dense too early.
PHIL SCARF: I mean, I thought that was nice, you know? Because we had one solo voice with a kind of accompaniment, and then it became more of a duet. So there was an element of progression there.
STUDENT 6: Another thing we didn't anticipate, Austin focused on the mid-upper part of the scale, and I was just doing the first three or four notes.
PHIL SCARF: Anything else? Cool. OK. Next group.
STUDENT 8: So I actually didn't come up with my own scale. I just decided to use the D Dorian mode. It's a little bit more humble for me to play around with. My vision is around the piano to form a sort of drone, in low D. And use that, and also drone, and then as a little bit goes on, build up into a [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] necessary. It starts at [INAUDIBLE] but then I do have a melodic motif that I was going to center it around.
PHIL SCARF: Can I just ask, is the melodic thing a raga or scale idea?
STUDENT 8: I just came up with something on the guitar.
PHIL SCARF: So are there any specific frameworks from the set of 12 that we're using here?
STUDENT 8: I was looking at -- I can't remember -- there were two [INAUDIBLE] I was looking at. Looking at a little bit no density. Kind of applying it towards the [INAUDIBLE] notes, or the lower end. So the drone has a little bit of freedom, in terms of picking up, as he wants to [INAUDIBLE] tremolo, rhythmic framework, I guess.
PHIL SCARF: So is the note density going to change throughout the piece? Or not? Yes. Do you have a view of how that would change? Or is that going to be improvised?
STUDENT 8: I envisioned it as starting out slow, building up, more dense, little faster, slowing down towards the end. And the other one I was looking at was using the framework, the little melody, I guess, and working that around -- I can't remember what it was called --
PHIL SCARF: Oh, the [INAUDIBLE] maybe? That's what you mean? Melodic motif. Yeah. Yeah. Good.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. That was good. I like that amp. That's pretty convenient. So any comments from the performers? I'm particularly interested in what the collaborators may think about this, since they didn't have much notice before playing the piece.
STUDENT 9: I didn't have any idea what it would be like going into it. But having the framework really set an expectation of gradually increasing note density and the range. And having the motif definitely helps.
PHIL SCARF: That motif was cool. And the way that it was used was good.
STUDENT 10: I think it was just enough to provide a cool little phrase to work on.
STUDENT 8: That was one of the visions I had.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. That was great. The first group that's used the [? chellan ?] framework, so that's good. Any other comments? What about the designer? Do you have any comments about how this went?
STUDENT 8: I just didn't know what to expect going into it. Because again, I just sort of did this myself, yesterday. And I didn't know what the performers would think going into this. And from the outset, I knew, I guess the piano sort of provided the rhythmic background, I guess. And set the overall tone. And then I came in with some free time before I settled into the motif. And then everybody settled around that, as well.
PHIL SCARF: Anybody else have any thoughts? Observations, comments?
STUDENT 7: I really liked that motif. It really brought it all together. And I think it gave the collaborators a really solid base to start from. And build off of. Seems like a cool way improvise and make a framework. Just start with a tiny motif and then see where you can take it from there.
PHIL SCARF: Exactly. And then, the listener also gravitates towards that, as well. Every time it comes back, it's familiar material. In fact, I think that kind of illustrates one of the attractive elements of Indian classical music is use of [? chellan ?]. Even if it's something you haven't heard before, by the time you finish hearing it, you've heard the [? chellan, ?] some of the key phrases, you've heard them so many times, it become familiar. So like this motif, by the time we finished, it sounds like a familiar piece. Even though none of us had heard it before, except perhaps, the composer. So it's nice. Any other thoughts?
So what's your framework? Can you tell us about your framework?
STUDENT 11: OK, so basically, we based off a [INAUDIBLE] in terms of -- we have a motif that we start out with. And then we're going late on build on it by adding some chords. And then while one person plays the melody, the other person will improvise on it, instead.
STUDENT 12: We had wanted a beat to feed us. He'll learn it.
STUDENT 11: OK. You'll get the melody after we play it. So basically, us two will play it, and then you can come in after four times or something. And then we'll take turns improving while one person drones on a D.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: So any thoughts? How did you think it went?
STUDENT 11: I think it went pretty well. I think originally we were supposed to play the melody and then harmonize a little bit to it. And then kind of stretch up from that melody. But in the end, we just started improvising instead so I guess that worked out.
PHIL SCARF: But there was harmony introduced as the improvisation evolved, too. It's coo. Any other comments or thoughts? How about the flutist?
STUDENT 1: I was playing in F natural for too long. I was like there's probably not an F# in this scale if there's a Bb, [INAUDIBLE] really confused. [INAUDIBLE]
PHIL SCARF: Anybody else, have any comments?
STUDENT 2: I thought it was pretty cool how the rhythmic moment of the melody became stronger almost, throughout. It was like a little more free in the beginning, maybe, when you decided to push time. [INAUDIBLE] almost like a very driving.
PHIL SCARF: That's true. Good observation. It was very effective, too.
PROFESSOR: So that's the second one that did that. Where it evolved into the rhythmic spectrum. It's an interesting way to do it.
STUDENT 13: So this is D Mixolydian rather than picking a new scale. And [INAUDIBLE] Jamie is going to set up a low drone at the beginning. And once Jamie has this low drone, the flute and trumpet come in on vibrato type lines. And then the flute and trumpet explore the different [INAUDIBLE]. So I tried it in a low range, [INAUDIBLE] Flute is going to start with low note density and gradually increase density.
Also Jamie is going to gradually adopt a rhythmic progression and eventually start playing [? jala. ?] And I think you said the [? jala ?] will be in different rhythmic groups, so that we also have a little bit of [? livhari ?], or rhythm play. And that will go on for a minute or two. We don't really have specifics of what's going to happen in there, it's just to improvise. And at the end, I drop out, flute drops out, and then Jamie just sort of continues with the drone and fades out.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: Nice. So do we have any thoughts from the performers?
STUDENT 7: I thought it went pretty well. We just sort of set up the framework last night and just ran through it once. We were like, alright, we'll do something like that. So it turned out similar manner. Had sort of the same feel. I think it went well.
STUDENT 13: I don't think it sounded quite as Hindustani as a raja, but was totally using the framework. Like it had the same idea, and it was easy to communicate with someone who just heard the framework today, what to do.
PROFESSOR: I like the rhythmic of the banjo. You really sounded almost like a mix between a tabla and something, I'm not quite what else.
STUDENT 7: Yeah, I almost wanted to play it on my lap.
PHIL SCARF: Maybe more like a [? surod, ?] actually it's a little like it's [? surod, ?] which is played with a pick and it's got more of an attack. Cool. How about the flutist? Because this is the first time you had been introduced to the piece. Any comments?
STUDENT 1: I liked it, it was easy to follow. [INAUDIBLE] set up the right image [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: You're a utility [INAUDIBLE], we bring you in whenever we need it. Thank you for that.
PHIL SCARF: I was going to say, I thought it was cool because the way you used the frameworks, you had assigned different frameworks to different people, which was interesting. First time, I think, we did that today. So that was cool. Good idea.
STUDENT 7: I really liked playing it because it sort of fit my instrument very well. I could do like the slower bluegrass picking, and just leave that D open the entire time pretty much, and that leaves a nice drone. That makes it easy to play around on the top three strings and it was a lot of fun.
STUDENT 13: Actually, the reason we split up frameworks is the first time we decided what to do, Sarah and I were both just like, yeah, we can both do range, we can both do note density. And then we ended up running through the piece once, and I focused more on range, and she focused more on the note density. So we said, well, why not just make that the framework instead?
PHIL SCARF: Yeah, that's a great idea. That is a very cool idea. Excellent.
STUDENT 10: At the risk of overworking the flutes, can I ask one of you guys to -- alright, cool. So like most of the other groups, the frameworks we ended up using are range and note density again. So I was going to start toward the lower end of the range and then gradually work up. And then vice versa for the oboe. So I guess rhythmic progression is just like a natural part of that, as well.
So we are thinking of playing in concert G natural minor. Yeah, so we're going to start off just alternating, with one person doing a drone on the concert G. And then the other person just kind of soloing off of that. And then just interchanging a few times. Maybe two or three times or whatever. And then, just gradually working into playing together.
PHIL SCARF: That's cool. And did you have a specific idea about the rhythmic progression and how that would work?
STUDENT 10: Just in the vague sense of gradually speeding up. Starting off with slower, sustained whole notes and working to faster rhythms. We kind of wanted to work some [? chellan ?] in there, as well. We don't have any kind of set phrase we wanted to repeat. I guess it's something we kind of wanted to figure out as we go. If we find something worth holding on to, then we'll do that.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. Nice.
PROFESSOR: So you're just coming into this cold, right? So I noticed, you were watching him. Had you determined that you would watch each other and do those phrases toward the end in synchrony?
STUDENT 2: That was just based off his -- he said that he wanted to do something with [? chellan, ?] so I was trying to pick up some very distinctive phrases and see whether I can put them into different ranges. And so I picked out a couple, and just tried to repeat them and then put them in different notes with the same rhythm. But by and large, most of it was just like, oh, that sounds nice.
PROFESSOR: Well I personally thought it was very good, the way it worked out, and very interesting the way it all synchronized. I mean, it was like you planned it. Which obviously, you didn't.
STUDENT 10: Yeah, one problem we ran into when Ben and I were rehearsing was just, when we got toward the end each time, and we tried to make the rhythm go faster, it kind of became more difficult to play in synchrony. Because there's just so much loudness going on.
PHIL SCARF: Anybody else have comments?
STUDENT 7: You could really tell you could find that [? challen ?] motif, you repeated and played off of. I think it worked out nicely.
PHIL SCARF: Anybody else?
PROFESSOR: I was just thinking, it would be interesting. We can do this through the magic of taping, to play all these exactly in sequence. And then hear them as a unified suite. Which we could do through the mystery of taping. [INAUDIBLE] It was very interesting how we started with a slower idea doing some things. Then we got more rhythmicized as we got to the middle. Then we had this as the ending. Well, your thing just before that and then this thing at the end, which is very different.
PHIL SCARF: Cool. Thank you.
So what I thought is, maybe, as a group, we can try some of the frameworks that didn't get selected for today's assignment. So I was thinking, why don't we do -- I forget what I called it, the constrained range. Confined range, OK. So there's one called [? tans ?] confined range. And then we have the expanding and contracting [? tans. ?]
So maybe we can try those. And actually, why don't we as a group figure out a a design? Why should I say what the design is? Let's use those frameworks. And who wants to volunteer, who wants to give us an idea of how we can start? Or how to use the frameworks?
I see an elbow going up. You got to be careful. It's like you're at an auction, and if you do something like that, you just bought it, you know?
OK, well I know you guys been thinking about these for a while. Yes, go ahead.
STUDENT 7: Normally with range, we start low and then go high, why don't we start high and slowly incorporate the low notes?
PHIL SCARF: That's fine. That's cool. And so that takes care of range. But who can think of what to do with this confined range idea? And then expanding and contracting. What could we do with those two things? When you say start high and move low, did you mean we have the confined range times? OK. So the confined range times, we'll start high. And then what are we going to do?
STUDENT 7: Expand them slowly out?
PHIL SCARF: So expanding. OK. Right. So expanding more down, because we're going to start high. So expanding them down. And when we do the expanding and contracting, these are more like linear. So you're kind of going up and down, progressively up and down. So you would make the point, if you're expanding downwards, you'll say you'll start here, and go down and back up. And then go down, farther and back up, and then farther and back up. Every time, you go progressively farther and farther. And then, is that it? Or anybody else have anything else to add?
STUDENT 13: Maybe when we contract, we can contract the top note, so that the top end of the range is getting lower. And then we can track down to the bottom tonic.
PHIL SCARF: That is a killer idea. I love that. OK. So that's good. And then, anything else? I think that's enough. So I think we can play with that. So let's just review this one more time, make sure I got this right, OK? I'm going to try to summarize what I think we're doing.
So we're starting with a constrained range or confined range [? tans, ?] which are fast lines, as opposed to these slow lines which everybody's been starting with. So we're starting something fast. But you've got to pick just a few notes. Like three or four notes, and just stick with those notes and just keep going fast passages using those notes. And then after a while, we're going to start doing expanding and contracting, expanding [? tans. ?] Expanding downwards, progressively farther downwards.
And then start doing it but reducing the upper part of the range, and then wind up with some probably confined range, constrained range [? tan ?] at the bottom. Yeah. OK. Great.
So any questions or anything about? Does that reflect what you guys want to do?
STUDENT 13: Do you want to pick a mode or the key?
PHIL SCARF: That's a great question. I am tempted to say no. Because everybody's doing that. So I think we should do something different. My two cents is no. No. That's just my two cents. Because everybody seems to be still worrying about the modes and the scales.
STUDENT 13: But there's like a dozen of us. Won't it --
PHIL SCARF: OK. You guys, feel free to override me. My two cents is I wouldn't get too worried about it. But if you want to pick a starting note maybe. That might be good.
STUDENT 4: We can try both. We can try it twice. We could just try both. We could just try it as you say first, and then see what it sounds like.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. Because, hey, we can always do it again. So let's try it without overly defining this too much. And see how it goes. And then we can talk about it, and see if it's something we want to change. How about that? All right.
So I'm going to let you guys start -- maybe I won't even play. I'll let you guys play, why do I need to play? Is everybody ready? OK.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: Cool. OK. That was nice. So any thoughts about this?
STUDENT 13: One thing I noticed, is by the time we ended, I think, most people already done the contracting, and I hadn't. And it was just very difficult to listen to other people, to figure about what kind of range they were in. Since everyone was in a different part of their range. I couldn't just listen to the sax and be like, oh yeah, he's in the low part of his range. Because listening to the flute or the banjo would like get me sort of confused about what range everyone was in.
PHIL SCARF: Well there's so many people playing. It's pretty thick with everybody playing. You know, the thing, in Indian classical music, of course, normally there would be one lead performer, one lead melodic performer. There might be two if it's like a duel under your duet kind of program. There would typically be an accompanist or even two, but they would be playing a much more secondary role, usually. So we wouldn't have this kind of size ensemble. Wouldn't happen. So these frameworks, really, we can certainly apply them to a large ensemble. Traditionally, it wouldn't be like this. Any other comments or thoughts?
STUDENT 12: I felt like we sort of ended up finding a modal center, but we had some type of tonal center of some sort. I don't know.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah, I think you're right. It's sort of emerged.
PROFESSOR: I thought you all started on one. Sounded to me like you were all, I don't know what that note was, but -- anybody else notice that? I mean, after all that discussion. Everybody just intuitively said, okay, we're going to do over, and that was pretty interesting. And again, I was the only non-playing observer, but in addition to this concept, of the range increasing and all that kind of thing, contracting, you're also dealing with texture. So the whole thing could be looked at as an exercise in texture. Particularly in the beginning part and the last part, as I was hearing. Which is interesting. Which means that your specific contributions, it's the overall that's more important. To me, anyway. I don't know what you think about that.
PHIL SCARF: I don't know, with so many people playing, everyone has their own contribution. Everybody's listening. And there's so much going on, it's hard -- some people are probably trying to pick out maybe what one person is doing, or maybe others are kind of trying to hear the overall sound. When you have so many people improvising, it's challenging to figure out how to fit in. Yes.
STUDENT 12: I thought speaking of fitting in. I think this was the first time in this class, for me, at least, that I wasn't trying to fill a space. I was just like, oh, I'm just going to go. Because we had talked about having that type of texture. And I think, most of the time when you improvise, somebody starts something, and then somebody else comes in and is trying to fill a space that they left. And this was different because we were just, like, who cares about each other's space, and just went all over it.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. That's right.
STUDENT 7: I think one thing that really would have helped is if we'd trickled in at the beginning, that way we could have sort of set a --
STUDENT 12: I liked it, I mean, we've never sounded like that before.
PROFESSOR: The effect was pretty strong.
STUDENT 7: I feel like we did sort of start funneling in. The beginning just started as chaos, everyone was doing something different. We did start to funnel in towards the end. We might have been funneling in to two or three different places, but we were funneling.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. You know, part of improvisation can be chaos. It doesn't have to be. But it can be. So that's part of the game, you know? If it goes into chaos, then where's it go from there, you know? Does something start to gel? Or come together? Improvisation, especially when you're doing with a group, it has a life of its own, you know? And everybody's kind of going with that.
Anything else? What else? OK. Cool.
So let's try something different. Let's try -- OK, I'll take ideas. Ideas about how to set up an improvisation. Let's say we want to use the constrained range, I want to do this constrained range, confined range. OK. We use the confined range idea. But this time we're going to extrapolate it. And instead of picking notes that are close together, pick three or four notes that are far apart. And use that.
But I also want to change this density. So that's it's not continuous high, like everybody playing all the time. So I want to solicit some ideas about how we should do that. How can we make it thinner?
STUDENT 7: We could designate people who would be more drone, lower, longer pitches. And who would be higher, melodic type instruments. That way we can sort of differentiate between that, and not everyone's trying to do melody.
PHIL SCARF: OK. That's a cool idea. So by default, people would be droning. And then those who are going to play the so-called lead part would emerge. OK. Yes?
STUDENT 2: We could maybe have a shifting window of maybe two or three people at a time, who are out there trying to make a new motif, or kind of -- even for the people who are just droning, they might be playing something. But maybe designate a moving group of people. Not any one, but like. You know, Ben can experiment more, I guess.
PHIL SCARF: Playing the lead -- we'll call it lead and drone. Just to differentiate the roles, right? So having small groups of two or three people at a time playing the lead. Right. Yeah. That's a good idea. So any thoughts about how do we implement that? How are we going to know who's going to play the lead part at any given time? Any ideas?
STUDENT 2: You can just start with first two or three, and then when one drops out, the next person --
PHIL SCARF: OK, that's fine. Cool. So we'll start with three. When the first person drops out, the next person adds in. That person drops out, the next person adds in. And we work our way across the room, how about that? OK. Great.
This is for the lead part. By default, everyone's going to be droning, more or less all the time. And then when it's your turn to play the lead part, you jump out, you emerge out of that, and you go into the lead part. And I was just thinking also, maybe we should put in one more element here. Like a note density element.
Yeah. Everybody's going to pick like three or four notes, which don't have to be the same notes. You can pick whatever notes you want. And you could base it on what the people are playing who played before you. Or not. It's up to you.
But let's do this. Let's start it at a very high density, and work our way to a low density. OK? But still, the notes should be rapid. So to achieve a low density with rapid notes, what you have to do is maybe play a few notes and stop. Play a few notes and stop. So that it's not as dense, but when you play the notes, you're playing rapid lines. So let's not play sustained -- the lead players should not be playing sustained notes. It's only the droners who are playing sustained. And let's do the drone -- let's pick a note. Who wants to pick a note for the drone? A tonic? F. OK. Cool.
So let's start. And we're going to start over here and work our way around. Three people at a time. OK. Is everybody ready?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: Right. Good. So comments? How well do you think we followed the framework, or the design?
STUDENT 7: We followed it pretty well. It seemed like we were keeping to the groups of three.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. We were keeping to the groups of three. That's true. I was kind of helping that along. Because sometimes it was getting hazy. But yeah.
STUDENT 13: I didn't hear the change in note density, I guess?
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. The change in note density didn't really seem to happen. It wasn't too obvious. Maybe a little bit, but it wasn't nearly as pronounced as I was hoping it would be.
STUDENT 12: I guess I wasn't sure exactly what that meant when you described it.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. Well I'll try demonstrating that with my reed -- aw man, I'll tell you, this weather. When it's cold and it's dry in here, the reed dries up. While we're talking I'll try to get this resolved.
Picking three or four notes and only playing those notes. I was hearing like scales and different things going on, which wasn't really part of the design. So that was the other observation I had.
STUDENT 7: I thought we were just supposed to start with three notes and then build out.
PHIL SCARF: Oh. That's not what I had in mind. But that's certainly a possibility. But it wasn't what I was trying to communicate.
PROFESSOR: If I could just interject. It's almost the most difficult thing, is just [INAUDIBLE] a reduced parameter. So three or four notes, that's really hard. Because our inclination always is to expand. So the idea of staying with this limited whatever it is, range or density or something, it's one of the hardest things to do. So just something to keep in mind. We'll probably try to work on that as we go forward.
PHIL SCARF: I agree. That's true. It's a very natural tendency. Once you start with whatever the parameter is, you try to build something. OK.
So for example, I'm going to pick three notes and just play some rapid lines with just three notes.
So that's pretty high density. To go to lower density without reducing the speed, you just leave space. So.
And you could reduce the density without changing the speed. So that's more like what I was thinking about. So I don't know if we want to try it again. Maybe try it again with that in mind and see what we can do.
PROFESSOR: So just time-wise, we have room for one more.
PHIL SCARF: OK. That's cool. So we'll do this. So we'll do the same basic thing, with everybody droning by default. And then we'll have our window of three. And I may just do the same thing. So let's just start. Yeah, still on the F.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
PHIL SCARF: Still have a couple minutes, right? OK, any comments? That was much better. Much closer to what we were trying to do. Yes. Good. So how did that feel? Start to compare the last two, from the performer's point of view. How did it feel the play those two?
STUDENT 7: It's interesting. Because we look at it on a micro scale. Each individual person is playing this random, chaotic assortment of just three notes. And when you look on the macro level, when everyone was playing together, it actually sort of made sense. I don't know. But if you just listen to each individual part, it really didn't make sense, it was just sort of random.
PHIL SCARF: OK. Anything else? Other comments?
STUDENT 1: I feel like high density is also just as restricting as like low density. There's only certain things that you can play if you're forced to play fast. There's certain things when you're forced to play slow. But you're restricted to those things.
PHIL SCARF: As opposed to having a full pallet, of all possibilities.
STUDENT 1: I didn't mean restricted as a bad thing. I meant, it's just definitely more constraint than I expected.
PHIL SCARF: Yeah. You have to work within certain limitations, and it generates a certain thing. And, you know, these kind of concepts -- it's great to think about it ahead of time. And have this design worked out, and then try to implement the design. But you can also spontaneously just play, and use these ideas as you go. And let the framework, or let the whole design itself kind of evolve spontaneously. It doesn't have to be something that you've planned out before hand.
PROFESSOR: The one thing I would say is I thought everybody, comparing the two, is the second one, everybody was listening much more closely than I thought. Which is why I think it worked out better. Because you got to listen as much as you make your individual contributions.