I have allways had mixed feelings about free group improvisation, as I have never experienced a truly satisfying one. Especially doing it in a Conservatoire where people are ‘good’ at their instruments, it can get quite self-involved. People start caring to much about sounding good/cool/edgy/extreme because they see this type of improvisation as an easy path to musical masturbation.
Musicians are highly self-aware and critical beings, therefore putting a group of them together and telling them to play freely can be quite crippling. For the execution of Sigil music, I tried a couple of methods that proved to be extremely fruitful.
CASTING A PROTECTIVE CIRCLE
Creating a safe space, where before we do anything musical we explore it with our bodies in many different ways. Run around the space, explore it in forms of different animals and explore it blindly. One hour of this will do the job. Make sure you play as much as you can! Everyone should make fools of themselves in order to feel physically free and committed.
TRANSITIVE VERBS
At the time of our first workshop I came across a theatre method by Stanislavski that uses transitive verbs to enhance performance. It very much works they same in music. In the workshop we all listened to the same thing at the same time and decided on our action verbs. The first time round everyone had a different one that they kept secret. This became quite unclear and confusing. Later on, we tried all deciding on one verb. Here things started to get interesting because you could clearly see the creative discourse. Especially when a verb was challenging, for example: ‘slice’ the sound you hear, the outcome was much more genuine and exploratory, because all the performers where forced to really engage their imaginations but also listen out for ideas and interact. This was the first time I saw musicians sacrifice their ego to this extent in search of truly expressive sound, because it wasnt about failure any more.It was about group consciousness and trance. It had the essence of an initiation ceremony, where everyone had to die in order to be reborn. And maybe that is what this piece is – a form of initiation.
Sigil Music 