In the following review I will be comparing the improvisational performances of Olaf Rupp and Atau Tanaka from their performances in the SARC building at Queens. The reason I chose these performances was due to the fact they were widely different from each other, Olaf Rupp playing an acoustic guitar and Atau Tanaka using computer equipment. The only factor relating them both was their improvisatory style.
Olaf Rupps’ instrument of choice is a Nylon strung Classical guitar. This sound was altered in no way by effects or digital enhancements, the only technological device being the sound system the sound was amplified through. The first observation I made was that his playing style seemed to be heavily influenced by flamenco, as many of his rhythms and playing techniques were flamenco in nature. He showed a total mastery of his instrument, which could be seen from his technical accuracy, speed and knowledge of the fretboard. The majority of his improvisation was made up of highly technical passages played at high speed, this was occasionally interconnected with slower passages, which had a much sparser texture and simplicity. Some common chord shapes were repeatedly used throughout the performance in different positions of the fretboard, these short sections gave the piece some unity. The performance was made up of one single piece, which I believed was too intense for the average listeners attention span. Even I, an enthusiastic guitar player, found it hard to maintain concentration after 20 minutes of this display of technical wizardry. The tempo was too constant and lacked enough variation for general interest. Also due to the long duration of the piece I noticed many recurring passages and ideas, such as common chord shapes and arpeggios, this itself got repetitive and uninteresting after a while, although, as I said before, it gave the piece some unity. On the other hand there were many positive aspects to the performance, such as the wide array of sounds Rupp was able to get from his guitar, his impressive tremolo finger picking style and his inclusion of various techniques such as string bending, slides, vibrato (by shaking the strings and also by shaking the guitar itself) pedal point and chromatic passages and his percussive use of the guitar. This itself was an interesting aspect of the performance as he played many passages percussively through beating muted strings and striking the body/neck of the guitar itself. Another interesting aspect of his performance was the way in which he moved his guitar through the space around him, in order to alter the natural guitar sound, creating a pan/vibrato effect.
Atau Tanaka is the next performance I am going took at. He could be labelled as being from the new school of music as he uses computers and technology to create improvisational music. I have seen various different performances using the latest technology to create music, but this was the first time I had ever experienced the body being used as a technological musical device. Music is created via a Neural Interface Development Platform, called the biomuse. This device consists of wires connected to sensors on the body which acquire and analyse any human bioelectric signals which are created. Code created from this is then sent onwards to control other processor-based devices, such as a laptop computer. This is a highly innovative and interesting instrument to be used for improvisation. This instrument involves very little mastery due to the fact it is impossible to accurately recreate the same sound intentionally due to differences in performer and nerve control. The performance consisted of Tanaka playing various samples through his computer and manipulating them through movement in his hands and forearms. He had slight control over the tempo and pitch of the music, the tempo being controlled by the speed at which he moved his muscles and the pitch being controlled by the amount of pressure he exerted upon the muscles. His performance was more or less one complete piece but made-up of distinct sections, these sections were determined by his use of different samples. The first three sections were more of an introduction to biomuse rather than an improvisation in my opinion, although they were still improvisational in nature. The final section had a set beat and chord progression complete with melody, this first lead me to believe it wasn’t in coherence with true improvisation but seeing as it is was merely being used as a “backing track” and the fact that it is extremely difficult to replicate any sort of musical phrases with such unpredictable equipment, the music created by Tanaka would be completely improvised. The performance was completely unpredictable which added to the level of interest but this didn’t prevent the performance from being tiresome in parts.
In conclusion both performances opened my eyes to new areas of improvisational music. I believe it was much easier for Tanaka to create truly unprepared music due to the equipment which he was using but I personally found Rupps’ performance to be the more impressive of the two. Maybe this was due to his impressive skill on the instrument or the fact I could relate more to his instrument of choice, but personal preferences aside both performers showed unique talent in their field. They were highly interesting to watch and listen to, both in their performance and in improvisational technique. This itself made attending both performances a worthwhile experience.
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