How to Improvise Part 3: Limitations

Episode Transcript
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Steve Treseler (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to the Infinite Improvisation Podcast,
adventures in music and creativity.
And I am Steve Tresler in Seattle, joinedby my co-host Lauren Best in Ontario.
Hey Lauren.

Lauren Best (00:19):
Hi, pleasure to be here again.

Yeah.
So this is our third of five miniepisodes on the, how, how to improvise,
how to create original ideas.
And this one may be one ofthe most practical hands on,
here is here is how to do it.
I got a quote for you, Lauren.
That is I'm a real believer thatcreativity comes from limits, not freedom.

(00:45):
And that is a quote bycomedian Jon Stewart.
You may know the host of for many yearsof The Daily Show on Comedy Central.
Is that something youget up in Canada too?

Yeah.
Yeah.

okay.
But.
so we'll be talking about thisconcept of, of limitations in
various, in various disciplines.
So in, I mean, in the case of JonStewart, the Daily Show, you think
of them writing for the show, oh,they're just cracking jokes back and
forth, but they've got a deadline.
They've gotta produce something every day.
And they had a very clear repeatablesystem to allow the creativity to happen.

(01:19):
And so we'll be talking aboutself-imposed limitations today and
doing some, some demonstrations.
That we want to take some musicalrisks or artistic risks here,
live on, live on the show.
So even before we get to the music,there are many, many ways that we use
self-imposed limitations that the, thetools in our toolkit were restricting

(01:42):
what we're using in orderto generate new ideas.
So I know kick that back at you,Lauren, what are some, some types
of limitations that you've workedwith throughout either music or
writing or other artistic practices?

Yeah.
Well, as you said,self-imposed limitations.
I, what I thought of right away washow sometimes we don't consciously
think of what the limitationsactually are that we are assuming.
So sometimes, like we always have somekind of limitation and I think sometimes
thinking more actively about it and thelike self imposing additional limitations

(02:18):
can also help us look at what limitationswe have in place that we are taking for
granted or assuming, or not necessarilythinking about actively or realizing.
And what comes to mind there, right.
Is like using our instrumentin non-traditional ways or.

(02:38):
You know, when we'reguiding others in music.
Right.
And particularly I'm thinkingwith children, right.
Like we can tell them how, like, whatthose limits are with the instrument.
Right?
Like how what's the range ofpossible expression before they're
possibly breaking the instrument.
Mm-hmm so there's kind of consciouslimitations and unconscious limitations.

(03:00):
So of course I think of like, Ithink length mm-hmm is almost like
one of is, sorry is often one ofthe, the main limitations, right?
Because playing a three minute song isvery different than playing a 30 minute
song mm-hmm and, you know, with musicbeing experienced temporally the length

(03:21):
we choose can change the experience of it.

Yeah, absolutely.
There's and there's, there are, it'sinteresting that so many unconscious
limitations like the range of talkingabout music, the range of what we're able
to hear, or you're playing piano limitof how many fingers we have and how far
apart they're spaced on our, on our body.
Mm-hmm and even if, well, if I'm at a,a jazz session, like, Hey, we're gonna

(03:48):
play a blues and F 1, 2, 3, 4, right away,you've got a kind of a tempo limitation.
Mm-hmm , you've got an idea of whatthe harm there may be some, some
variance, but what the harmonicprogression is going to be.
Yeah.
So one thing too, I thinkabout is like writing prompts,
like creative writing classes.
Yeah.
It's not just, here's a blankpiece of paper and write something.
Right.
You get some kind of, whatare some something you've

(04:10):
done in your writing practice?
Maybe like a, a writingprompt that limits,

I mean, prompts where you choose a random word to start
. Steve Treseler: Oh, okay.
That's you know, and that the.
. I mean, sometimes it can be thatthat's the first line or the
first word of the poem, or thatcould be the title of the poem

mm-hmm

and then that word that was randomly selected, kind
of everything is coming from that.
So often I think a limitation,I mean, there's lots of other
ways of limitations too, right?
Like you could choose everyword in the poem randomly, but
then arrange them in a way

mm-hmm

that you know, or have certain words that you have
to include in the poem, but oftenI think for writing like we, it's
a jumping off point sometimes.
Yeah.

Or it's brought to mind actually erasure, which we had
talked about a bit, so somethingyou could describe, for our.

Yeah.
So, or in erasure poetry where we'reusing a pre a text or some kind that is
pre-selected and we're removing words byerasing them or blacking them out or maybe
cutting them out and rearranging them.
Mm-hmm like ransom notes stuff.
And so then your limitation is likethe, the media and the text that you're,

(05:20):
that you're using, coming into it.
And so, you know, I think musicallyof samples and using samples and, and
then some of the limitation is, iskind of like what your ingredients
are, but then it's also how you alterand change those ingredients as well.

Yeah.
And well, also for poetry too, thinkingabout a haiku, the syllable, and I
understand there's, I, I know littleabout it, but there's, there's more to
it than just the syllable structure, butsame thing when you're working within
that limitation, it's like, oh, I wantto expound and use a thousand syllables.
I'm like, well, no, you haveto, you have to dial it down and,

(05:57):
you know, working within workingwithin a limitation like that.

Yeah, totally.
And with the Haku, we have the 5 75,but then with, with each line for so
forth, the three lines mm-hmm and thenthere's other Haku traditions beyond that.
So it's kind of starting tothink of how, like, which
limitations do we want to include.
Right.

Mm-hmm

whether it's just the syllables or whether it's other elements
of, of haiku as well, such as there'sa term called the cut word where at the
end of the second line, there's a wordthat kind of changes the feeling or I,
I'm not, I'm probably not describingthe definition exactly, but it's it's

(06:39):
called the cut word because there'smore to that and, and, and it's a
shift that that would happen, butmany haiku don't have that nowadays.

Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Limitations before we get to, toplaying some music, but other.
Limitations is a practice that come tomind, like in improv theater games, or
even sketch comedy where sometimes theaudience will yell out a scenario or
a character, or here's a, a conflict.
And then the actors usethat to, to riff off of it.

(07:08):
If seeing who, whose line is itanyways, or whose line is it anyway?
Mm-hmm, other shows like that,where, and then within, yeah go ahead.

Within that too.
There's like limitations that wewill like often keep, like, you know,
they're, they're staying on the stagefor the most part, but then if we choose
to go outside of those limitationsit can it can be a surprising moment
that can be really effective, but it'susually not used very often, you know?
So like coming out into theaudience or, or, or bringing up

(07:39):
the houselights and well, I okay.
Sometimes more thanothers and stuff shows.
Yeah.
But you know, like we have,we have choices about how much
to kind of break outside that

or bringing audience members on stage, like
you were talking about earlier.
Or some of those limitations wekeep, if it's a seven o'clock
show, I'm like, surprise.
It actually started atfive 30, you missed it.
We broke outta that limitation.
Like, oh another one that comes to mindtoo, is some of those think of like
a cooking reality show where they, Imean, I saw one where the there's the

(08:06):
master chefs and the, the contestantsand they had to make a, a dessert and
the secret ingredient was tuna fish.
So they had to make somekind of tuna fish dessert.
And, you know, it's, it's not, if theyhad all their devices, they would, they,
they, would've not found this, I guessthis angle of creativity and someone
came up with some pretty amazing dishes.

(08:27):
Apparently, I don't know, Icouldn't taste them, but yeah.

Yeah.
It adds, it adds a, a huge amountof novelty and of challenge.
And it kind of gets us thinking inways that we wouldn't normally, like,
I'm guessing none of those contestantswould've been like, ah, I can't
wait for the tuna fish challenge.
Like, you know, but then once they werein it, it, it I'm sure presented new
in mm-hmm and different possibilities.

And it shows as we also talked about last season, the difference
between just following step by steprecipe, rather than being a chef and
taking you know, seeing, seeing newpossibilities with, with the ingredients
you have, rather than just doing somethingyou've done several times before.
Yeah,

totally.
And that, I think that's such a fun thingwith limitations when we're working with
others, is that like, of course we couldeach just create something different and
it would be different mm-hmm okay, cool.
Like, of course it's different.
Mm-hmm but if we have similar sets oflimitations or overlapping limitations
and then to still see how those are,are different or divergent or, or how

(09:33):
there's some similarities or overlapcan, can be part of the fun of, of
working with limitations in a group.

Absolutely.
Just, and.
You know, I can think of visual arts even.
I mean, what comes to mind is Picasso'sblue period as well, that kind of li
you know, using limitation of, of color.
What else?
My, my wife does a lot of crafts andfiber arts and painting among other
things, but she has a book that I thinkit's just called one ball of yarn.
It's like projects you can do withyour limitation of you've, you

(10:03):
know, you've got one leftover ball.
What's something you can do withit without having to buy a pile.
Yeah.
Buy another pile of yarn.
Yeah.
Okay, well, let's takethis to, to, to music.
So we're gonna experimenton each other a little bit.
And well, here's how I usually frame it.
I mean, we've already kind of givenit away since the show's about

(10:24):
improvisation, but usually I'll just,you know, if it works like, Hey, do
you want, do you wanna play a game?
Just kind of framing this as a,as a musical game now wanna play
game, you gotta play a game.
Okay.
So you're gonna play a short, you'regonna play a short, short piece, and
this is using the time limitation.
So we'll say, you know, about.
Maybe 30 seconds to a minute andwe'll have a pitch limitation.

(10:44):
So you're only allowed to use thenote a on the piano, so, okay.
You can use a, but you can use any ain any register and how you play the
A's that's up to you, but you've got avery, very specific pitch limitation.
And then when you're done, you'regonna play the note D D for done.
And that's how we know.
That's how I know it's it's over.

Alrighty.
Those are the only limitations?

Those are the only limitations,

a 30 seconds, D done.

Yeah.
Approximately.
Yeah.
And yeah.
And then sort of the challenge of thisis like, well, what can we, you know,
they'll be experimenting, but okay.
How can we, how can we make this?
How can we make this interesting?
Hmm.
Or it's the game.

All right.
Here, we go.

Thank you.

(12:27):
You can feel all the listeners in thefuture clapping to this for performance.
That was awesome.
Okay.
So what did that, what, what wasthat experience like with that
working with that limitation?
Well, partway

through, I, I don't realized remembered it occurred to me that I
don't really know how long that was.
Mm-hmm like, I have a pretty good senseof time of like how much time is elapsed
sometimes, but we all know, right.
That like once you startplaying, sometimes we have a
very mistaken sense of that.

(13:01):
And so partway through, I was.
How do, do I know howmuch time has passed?
Yeah.
How close to 30?
I know you said 30 seconds toa minute, but I'm like, huh?
I wonder how close we're gonna get.
Yeah.
And as you know, like you don'twanna go too far down that rabbit
hole while you're actually yeah.
While you're actually,

it's like recording a podcast episode too.
These, these mini episodes have beenabout 20 minutes, but I'm giving
a sneaking little spidy sense.
This one may run long.
awesome.
Yeah, exactly.
You've gotten outta the back of your head,but you don't wanna let those kind of
thoughts distract you too much, but yeah.
Staying within the limitation,it kind of kind brings you back.

It's like how much do we want to like surrender into the moment
or, or just play in a more like physicalway where we're almost trying to be like
not plan or not think too much about it.
Mm-hmm and then how much do wewanna actively consider what we're
doing and kind of actively coachourselves or actively make choices?

(13:58):
I mean, that's already, kind of like,like there's different, there's different
approaches to that, but definitely withthe limitations, it's like making sure
I actually do the limitations becauseif I'm just playing in a more like kind
of like physically led way and liketrying to sort of clear my mind then
I'm, I may not stick with notes, so Ineed to remember what you actually said.

(14:19):
Yeah.
And do it, which sounds simple.
Like it's only two notes thatsounds like it should be simple.
Mm-hmm but we all know we canlose track of things in the moment.

Yeah.
And yeah.
So for these limitations, thesearen't necessarily prescriptive rules.
Like all 'em like temporary rules for now.
Yeah.
And so it's interesting with that.
So I mean, what, what I heard thatkind of kept, kept my attention with
that is you were playing with differentregisters, but, and the, the timing
and the touch, you know, that you'replaying very musical phrases and yeah.

(14:51):
The, the ti the timing and dynamics forkeeping my attention, then the surprise.
Big low D at the, at the end.
It's so what's, what's important aboutthese limitations is how we have to be
resourceful in other dimensions ratherthan, oh, we just have to play one note.
That's gonna be boring.
I'm like, well, with thatattitude, it'll be boring.
So what, what can we doto make it not boring?

(15:13):
Make it interesting.
And so this is actually thestructure of a piece by do, do you
know where I'm going with this?
Maybe, you know, whereI'm going with this?

Keep going

by György Ligeti the Hungarian Austrian composer.
It's a piano piece that he usedvery specific pitch limitation.
So the first movement of this rich katais just like this, the note a and he
ends with D so two pitches and thenthe next movement is three pitches.
The next is four and then the11th movement is all 12 pitches.

(15:45):
And he's known for having very makingsome self-imposed obstacles and trying to.
Trying to overcome themin this, in this process.
So I'm gonna play, it'sjust about two minutes long.
So I put you on the spot with this, buthere's what Ligety came up with after
I imagine much, much consideration.
And so here we go.

(16:07):
Let's let's see.
Yeah.
Listen to it and kind of see what yourthoughts are after experimenting it with

(16:28):
yourself.

(18:54):
Well, there we go.

I just was thinking, it's interesting that you said end on D but
you didn't specify like, whether I wasending with like a phrase of D or whether
I was supposed to end with one D you know,and I, I noticed that like in both what
I played and the recording mm-hmm like,it was, they were in different registers,

(19:17):
but it was like that singular sort of D to
end mm-hmm

Yeah.
So were your impressions on that?

Well, I was thinking about how, like for different instruments
we'd have such different results.
Right.
Mm-hmm like, because of the range ofthe piano, but also things to play that
are like kind of typical on piano, likecertain octave jumps that I saw some, like
some similarities between what, betweenthe two sort of little pieces 'cause
somethings just kind of appear naturally.

(19:45):
Right.
Whereas if you had theexact same limitations I'm
guessing you might feel well.
Well of course it would be differentin, in, in many ways just because of
the differences between the instruments.

Yeah.
I, I enjoy doing this one more on pianothan on saxophone where I'm doing yeah.
Octa, Octa jumps and trying tokeep him in tune and all that.
Yeah.
You can just, you can just grab somuch the, the, the piano and I think
my approach would be, you know, moresimilar to how you approached it and
then it, it was really cool to hearthat kind of rhythmic pocketed stuff

(20:17):
and getting the, the interlockinggrooves and all that, that was.
But one thing that jumped out to metoo, is when he's really pounding in
the, the lower register, you can startto hear more and more harmonics and
the notes kind of split out into thisspectral, well, like a spectrum of notes.
So I'm hearing, oh,there's the third overtone.
I was hearing some like harmonicsevenths and that the note a,

(20:37):
isn't just an, a, that it's thiscollection of other frequencies and
kind of being able to blast it apart.
That that was kind of one ofmy, one of my favorite moments.

Totally, totally.
Especially with the damper pedalmm-hmm like with the damper open.
And so you can like reallyhear everything start to ring.
And I was thinking as well, how, howhe was playing on an acoustic piano.
And for me with the keyboard, especiallylike with doing one take, not like,
yeah, I mean, I play this fairlyoften, but I've changed the volume
and changed the settings and stuff.
And so just how, how the expression,you know, even on, even with the

(21:08):
same instrument or with the sametype of instrument on a keyboard
versus an acoustic piano, how the,how the results You know, that can,
that that's part of the limitations.
That's part of what whatbrings out those results.

Good.
Okay.
Well, I've got another one for you

for me?
You don't play that now.

Oh might turn to play.
Okay.
I'll or

no, you could, you can throw another one at you.
I was just teasing.

No, you're on the

I'm

in the hot seat
you're you're the, the lab rat.
Yeah.
Hots for, for more I'vegot you at the piano.
Yeah.
Similar to another pitch pitch limitation.
So this is you're gonna playDo re mi Fa so, La Ti do.
You're gonna play just the notesof the C major scale in order.
So one C one D one E, and then you canjust kind of continue do Re me Fa la

(22:00):
ti do Re mi Fa so, and just continue.
But again, you can change theregister so you can play C up
here and then D down there.
So they're in, or the pitchesare in order, but you're
free to move, move registers.
okay.
Does that make, you'll play some C some Dsome E some F some G and just keep going,

(22:20):
and then you're done when you're done.
Does that make sense?
Each could

each could repeat, like, I can play a C more than once,
or it's one tone of C it can last,however long one it wants, but not C

repeated exactly.
One, one event of C or one articulationof C and it can hold, but that's, that's,
that's the new, that's the new pitchlimitation and about the same length.
Sure.
Yeah.
About up, up, up to a minute, butdon't let that get inside your head.
If you get in the zone and goa little bit longer, I guess.

okay.
One more thing.
Can I play more than one of the note at.
Like simultaneous, like, or I'm nottrying to, I'm not, this is always me.
I like me in school was like, excuse me.

Yeah.
I was gonna say, whatwere you like as a kid?
Were you all?
Yeah.

Yeah.
It's like, you know what timeis the flow scheduled for?
I will go with the flow.

Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I'm not, not actuallytouching, you know?

Yeah.
I can double, I can double notes.

I see.
Are you I'll leave.
I'll leave that up to you.

Okay.
Okay.

(24:17):
I'll leave it there.

all right.

That was tough.

so that, that was, that was more challenging than the other one.

That was, yeah, a lot.
I, I think I actually broke therule once and like accidentally
repeated something cause yeah, thatwas, it was just how do I put it?
Well, it just, it, I felt likeI had to use a lot of my brain
making sure I obeyed the rules.
Mm-hmm you know, like, eventhough like it it's a fairly simple

(24:49):
rule , you know, we, our brainsall work a little differently.
Right.
Mm-hmm like, some of us will find somerules, easier to follow than others mm-hmm

especially that's.
And if you wanna start followingyour intuition and then oh, St.
Yeah.

And I can't.
Yeah.
And like what earlier, when I was sayinglike, oh, I, we, we can, all, we all
know we can get lost in the music.
And I think we all know that,but I think I'm curious to
see if you'd agree with this.
Like as music teachers, I think wereally see that exemplified cuz we'll
see, like, you know, we'll be like,okay, repeat this like three times.
And then the studentplays it like eight times.

(25:21):
Yeah.
Cause they were just like,they lose count, like cuz their
brains are somewhere else.
And and you know, but some, for somefolks like, you know, some things
are easier than others to keep inmind or to get out of our minds.
And I don't know if thatfelt a little weird.
Yeah.
Because I was trying to not stay.
I was trying to like, letmyself go from it enough.
Mm-hmm that?
It would I guess that's partially becauseI didn't want it to sound super, like

(25:46):
I was playing what you told me to play.
Mm-hmm . So I was actually tryingto like trying to like distance
myself from that limitation.
Whereas if I played things that werelike just quick runs and stuff yeah.
Where like, I'd justlike, let that flow more.
That might have been easier.

yeah.
So I mean, some of these limitationsyou'll try and they'll just kind of flow.
I'm like, oh, this is such agreat, suddenly this music is just
flowing out and others are, can bevery challenging and frustrating.
And then that's part of the workis, okay, well, how can I work with
this limitation and make it happen?
But, you know, reality can alwayschange the limitation or, oh, this,
this got me going in a certain directionand I really want to, it may inspire

(26:24):
you to go in another direction.
And at some point, if you just bagthe limitation and then just go, maybe
that can set the stage for creatingsomething new, just starting with the
limitation, letting it go somewhere else.
And then, I mean, that's what we're after.

Yeah.
Like I felt like I was also really.
I was gonna say, really thinkinglike a piano player, you might
disagree with me on that.
But in that I was like, well,what if I just played the
limitation as my bass notes?
And then like, I stick with that orI like play like a different melody,
like, you know, like I wasn't in that.
So I was trying to, you know, likeit's different playing that and

(26:59):
thinking like, oh, I'm trying tolike play this as like the piece.
Right.
Mm-hmm versus if, if I was like,oh, I'm gonna play with that
limitation, like as my bassline.
And then I'll recordthat and come back to it.
I would have a really differentapproach than then kind of the pressure
being on of like, here's the whole,the whole thing, like, you know,

recorded yeah, the whole world's gonna hear it
if they download this episode.
So do you think that wouldbe challenging one to sing?
I'm not gonna ask you to do,

If I was changing Octas I guess.
Yeah.
I was thinking about that though.
Cause like, if I, I just probably wouldn'tchange, Octas doing it, but if I just
like kept it sequential and then likechanged things about the, the tone and
timbre and the, you know, the dynamicsand the articulation of what I was doing.

(27:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was thinking that about the other,about the other one too, like of the,
oh, just sing a and then sing D andI was like, it's funny because that's
so easy to do on piano, but to askme just sing A's and then sing a D I
would like be so frustrated you know?
Yeah.
Whereas if you ask me to improvisewith a lot of crescendos, I would
much rather sing that than, thanplay that on the, on the piano.

(28:13):
And that's actually a limitation I'vebeen thinking of a lot lately how
for the piano or the guitar, right.
Like our tone, like, it's just, it'sa, a state of constant decay, you
know, totally whereas with windinstruments or with our voice, it's
a much different mindset for howwe're actually like approaching.

(28:34):
Creating and sustaining a column of air.

Sure.

Yeah.

Anyway, with this, this is also a structure for a piece of
music, but speaking of, of it's a, ArvoPärt, Estonian composer, it's called
Solfeggio and it's a choral piece.
And I think when I first heard to,I had no idea that that was the
limitation and the lyrics are don'tworry, do re mi fa so la ti do.
Okay.
So check this out and I, I just,yeah, it's one of my favorite

(28:59):
composers, so I just love this.

(30:45):
Like, Have you heard that before?
Curious?

No, I hadn't, but it sounded beautiful and it it made
me, like the overlapping part.
I was one like this while I wasplaying, I did a little bit of that.
And I was like, is thispart, is this against them?
like, you know what I needed.
So yeah, but I, I, I, what I foundinteresting about hearing that, right?

(31:22):
It was, it was like those longersustained pitches, which, I mean, I
mentioned like just the differences interms of voice versus piano versus even
just like an organ sound or something.
I would, I would've approachedit differently with like an organ
sound, but also that, like the timelimitation of this felt like it
was like in some ways my primaryconsideration , you know what I mean?

(31:45):
Because like that would've been, solike, if you, I have three minutes
to think about things and to kind ofget into, get into some ideas and to,
to try things out, I'm gonna take adifferent approach than, than 30 seconds.
Yeah, but I wasn't at the time, I, Iwouldn't have said that was the most like
difficult constraint or whatever, butthen like hearing that other example,

(32:06):
it made me, it made me think more abouthow the timing, we can kind of forget
about it, but it can, it's actually,the, the length is a pretty major thing.
Right.
And people really notice if songsare like, if it's, if it's wildly
outside of their expectations.
Yeah,

absolutely.
And I like the shorter limitations,especially if I'm doing workshops and it
feels a little less intimidating to do a,to do a short one, but if you're kind of
wanting to let something fully develop,the short one can feel like it, it gets,
gets in the way mm-hmm, that's amazing.
I'm kind of a sucker for those diatonicclusters, you know, just that harmony.
Yeah.
You know, the pretty dissonanceand and you know, getting away

(32:45):
from, you know, when we're.
You know, people are working on scales.
I'm like, oh, doing scales are so boring.
I'm like, well, it doesn't soundboring if you do it like that.
I know.
Steven Nachmanovitch author of Free Play,who I keep bringing up, but he has a
passage in there about rainbow scales,which is playing, you know, working on
some kind of technical thing or scales,but changing something about the dynamics
and the, and the pacing and the tonecolor and all of this to make it a, a

(33:09):
musical experience and something creativemm-hmm rather than a dry technical drill.

Well, and the, and the, the notes and the tempo are just one
of like so many elements that we can,that we can change with the scale.
And it's also like wherewe direct our attention.
And especially when it comes totechnique and just being, you know,
taking some time to really experiencethings differently by slowing them down.
It's interesting, cuz I would say thatgenerally, like my, those, those, those,

(33:38):
like, you know, the overlapping tones andthe clusters and getting lots of harmonies
going I would say this normally how Iwould like naturally explore, like that
would be like generally like more of mylike instincts, but like, because of the,
like the short time limitation and becauseof the, oh, like you can use any note.

(34:00):
I really felt like I had to spread aroundthe keyboard mm-hmm , which I didn't.
Right.
Like I could have juststayed in one range.
That was just like one choice.
However, it's interesting.
Sometimes like having the limitations.
I felt like I needed to use a broaderrange within what I could choose yeah.
Than I maybe normally would.

So are you saying you wanna try it again or are we done?

No,
, Steve Treseler: that's not what,
cause I've talked too much about it.
Like now if I tried it again,I would have to really take
some time, well, I mean, yeah.
You know what I mean?

Yeah.
I guess I can be, I guess I can bein the hot seat now and yeah, maybe
both of those had pitch limitations.
So I think it might be interesting too.
I mean, I guess you're puttingme in the hot seat, but we can
kind of move away from pitch.
Like what are some other, othertypes of limitations that well,
yeah, we can, we can try that.
So I got, got a saxophone here, so

I'm thinking of like how mean I wanna be, so okay.
The like, like, and actually thisis, this isn't mean at all, but the,
like what the poet in me and the,like the, the sort of the singer
lyricist in me would suggest is to.
Have your, okay.

(35:12):
Choose a piece of text thatyou can see around you.
Mm.
And then your rhythm limitation.
Mm-hmm is the speech patternsof that block of text.

Okay.

You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm yeah.
That, that's what comesto mind right away.
Yeah.
And then pitches.

So it's an in instrumental version of, yeah.
So it's like text, textsetting sort of melodically,
yeah.

Okay.
Yeah.
And like the text you can J like, itcould be a list of ingredients or it
could be like, you know what I mean?

Like yep.
I got it.
I'm ready.

Like, choose your text in advance.
Don't pick something.
Don't, don't choose yourtext while you play okay.
Okay.
And do you want another limitationon top of that or is that enough?

I, I could, could do another one on top of that.
But that's that's enough aswell, but I can, I can handle,

well, I mean, that's a, how about we leave it at that and we'll see
what other limitations kind of emerge.
Maybe mm-hmm from that, right.
Cause like,

okay, here we go.

Cool.
I could definitely hear the speech in that

oh, okay.

Yeah.
So what did you notice?

I enjoy doing that and I've done similar, similar things before.
And that one, I was well as a, but beforeI tell you what the, the words were,
maybe what, what did it, I don't know.
What did it bring to mindas, as a listener or?

I was glad that we didn't choose pitch limitations, because
like, like I really heard the speech init, but yet like the melodic elements
weren't necessarily speech, like, and Ithink sometimes if we choose one pitch,
it can have kind of like a you know,just like that monotone speech vibe.
And so I felt like it was.

(37:43):
Like I felt the speechness . Yeah.
But yet, but yet it feels a little removedfrom that because the because the pitches
are, well, maybe some, some, someonewould speak with pitches like that.
Yeah.
But, you know, we're lesslike less tied to that.

Yeah.
So I was actually reading my zoommenu off the bottom of the window.
So mute, stop video security participants,chat, share, screen pause, stop recording.
So I was pausing after pause.
So I was doing some text painting, Iguess then breakout rooms, reactions,
apps, whiteboards, more end.

(38:22):
Yeah.
And the end was the end of the piece.
So some of those I was playing withit, but also just trying to think
about just our, I don't know, ourlove, hate relationship with video
conferencing and how it's awesome.
We do things like, you know, podcastsacross the continent, but still, you
know, how much time we spent on zoom.
So a little bit of.

(38:43):
little bit of anger inthere, but, you know,

and did you find, like, were you feeling the, the
melody of the words or were, werethose feeling separate for you?
Cause like, as you said that yousaid participants, I think, or
you said, you know, you said itlike with a very clear inflection.

I think a couple of those, I was trying to sing like how I
played it or something like I was, yeah.
Thinking about the, the shape andthe emphasis of, of each word.
Sometimes as instruments, we fall intothe, not the trip, we just fall into
like a steady, steady tempo, like,you know, security where like security

(39:19):
par-ti-ci-pants and like make itmetered when it's, when it's not right.
Cause our speech, if we come up with therhythms of what we're actually saying,
it's very, yeah, it would be very toughto put into a traditional time signature.
Like those are strange rhythms, butthey're very natural when we're speaking.
I was trying to pay attentionto that and to leave some space
between each, between each button.

(39:41):
And I was pre-hearing some of thosemelodies and shapes and, but that's

well, yeah, and by leaving space between each BU, like it's
almost you, you turned the the menuinto a graphic score in a sense, right?
Like you had the, the yeah, like the,the visuals were, were part of what
was, what was guiding your pacing.

Yeah.

That sounds like

that's great.
And yeah, I find text can be a reallygood entry point for some, for some
instrumental folks who are you know,starting with a poem, choosing a
poem, or, and then kind of finding,well, which words have emphasis
on which syllables and how can weshape a melody or theme around that.
And that often gives someone, you know,someone, something to, to go with, if

(40:26):
you know, I wanna compose something andI don't know where to start, and I don't
have any ideas, like, well, let's startwith some text, let's start with a poem.
Mm-hmm and it all that can.
to help people get, get moving.
Mm-hmm so you, you were wonderinghow nice you wanted to be.
Was that a nice one orwas that a mean one?

I don't know.
I think that was a nice one.
I was,

well, you could do a not nice one.

You chose your text

yeah.

Yeah.
And, and you chose text fairly, really?
So I was, you know what I mean?
It wasn't yeah, I, I did notat all pre pre-select menus.
Do you wanna do another one or did thatlead somewhere for you in terms of like,
did that bring anything else to mind?
Oh, for you

there there's a lot.
And we could do a whole thing on graphicscores and that's whole nother thing
now let's let's maybe do somethingthat's totally different, but again,
well, I just, I like, yeah, shyingaway from the pitch limitations,
which I love using, but so much.
I mean, folks out there in the,in the jazz world so much like,
oh, what scale do I play on this?
So people are thinking so much on like,what note do I play in this situation?

(41:31):
So and I was.
Sticking you with pitch limitations.
So well, something different.

I was thinking of like atmosphere, mood, emotional quality as a
limitation that I think often folks whoaren't playing music all the time don't
necessarily consider some of like, someof those, these limitations might not be
top of mind mm-hmm or they might kindof think of speed as like one thing.

(42:01):
And like, not necessarily like tease outlike you know, like tempo and density and
like, and, you know, and changes in speed.
And like, those things don'tnecessarily pop to mind for people.
But I find that even people who aren'tplaying music very often, often will
have ideas of like emotional qualities.
Right.
I think it's actually sometimeseasier for people who are, like

(42:24):
play music less often to be like,oh, I'm just gonna play this thing.
That is emotional.
Whereas as musicians we'relike, what does that mean?

Yeah.
Right.
And then the emotion, if you'resaying something's, you know,
joyful or suspenseful, we canjust sometimes go right at it.
But some other limitations startfalling into place, whether
it's our association with a, asoundtrack or other, other music.
So a limitation like that can justautomatically bring to mind many more.

(42:51):
Well, should we use, did, didyou wanna use the menu or,

well, I had an idea, but it's, again, this is a very
like throwing you into like atheatrical situation as opposed to
being nice and choosing simple menu.

Yeah, yeah,
yeah.
That's fine.
Which is

like a conversation that is going well.
It's another speech based thing.
I don't know.
Okay.
But it, not that, not that the sounds haveto sound like speech, but the, the vibe
is a conversation that you think is goingwell and you realize is not going well
and becomes increasingly more awkward.

Hmm.
Right on

I was like, get me out of here.
It's too much conflict.

Hey, that was fun.
And as I was playing, I became awareof the structure that I was, the
new limitations I made for myself.
It became like a, that was fun.
I mean, either of these are notthings that I would have not played
exactly those things and in theother content, but it's still like,
oh, this make, this makes sense.
It's like getting the, the juices flowing.

(44:59):
I wouldn't have played those samephrases as I was looking at the
zoom buttons versus the, so I wasthinking to make it a conversation.
I mean, some call response phrasing,obviously the two different registers
for the two different voices.
That's kind of low, lowhanging fruit for that.
And, and the conversational thing,I mean, that brought to mind.
You know, like blues phrasing andthere's a lot of just call response

(45:21):
and some of the jazz and blues that Iplay, so kind of started there and it,
it very much started in a, the pitch.
It wasn't on purpose.
It started in a minor mode, kind of minor,I guess it was a Dorian pitch limitation
I was kind of, but then I startedstraying away from it for the tension.
And then I started ch I mean, I wasn't,I actually wasn't planning on it.

(45:43):
I was just gonna startwith the call and response.
And then other pitches startedcreeping in that were more dissonant
mm-hmm . And then I started changingthe, the timbre and making it edgier
and then doing the split tones andjust making it, I wasn't planning on
making it that, that much conflict,but that's just kind of where the
conversation where the conversation went.
But as I was doing it, I was aware of I'mlike, oh, there's a spectrum of going from

(46:06):
consonance to dissonance and from likea mellow mellow to an edgy tone quality.
So there was like a slider that was going.
this way.
And it was getting more, more dense too.
It was more sparse to more dense.
So it, it was weird being aware ofthose, but it came up more intuitively
and then I was just kind of like,oh, here's the, here's the things I'm

(46:26):
playing with as I'm, as I'm doing it.

Yeah, totally.
Totally.
And what occurred to me was that well,just that there's like, if you played
that again, you might, well, you mighttry to take a similar interpretation
mm-hmm but you might take like adifferent interpretation and we would
likely, still like, have a sense ofhow that conversation went mm-hmm or
I wondered, I mean, like conversationkind of implies some kind of call and

(46:50):
response, but I didn't know whether youwould take it to mean like, like I'm
hearing one half of the conversation,like, you know, I'm hearing like
someone on their, like talking on theirphone and I'm hearing one half of it.
Right.
So like there was mm-hmm yeah,there was a choice there too.
And, and as you're saying, likewhat, like how that contrast
changes or like how, how.

(47:10):
like, yeah, the ener the energy of itbecoming less consonant can, can go in,
can go in different directions becausesomething that was, that that was sparse
at the end still would have had a feelingof it being like less cohesive mm-hmm
Right.
But it was like just a, even though itwas an opposite choice and it would've
had a different feeling at the end.

(47:31):
It still kind of would've likecommunicated like that scene in a way.
Yeah,

absolutely.
Cause I kind of went, I just kindof ran with it, the kind of the
theatrical novel too, like itjust turned into an explosion.
Yeah.
So it was kind of kind of funny,but what might be interesting
is something that yeah.
A conversation not going well,doesn't have to be that violent.
It could just be like, imaginean awkward first date that you
could tell is not going well.
And you're trying to exit the stage leftand like, oh my friend's calling me.
I gotta hold on.

(47:55):
See, you know, that might evenbe more interesting of a thing
where it's like, oh, it's going.
And then something is not quite right.
And then there's that,that tension in the air.
That's not the kind of inyour face attention that.
That I was going for.

And the other thing I thought of while you were doing it was that
what I love about limitations mm-hmm isthat like, that's a pretty like complex
thing to try to communicate in a way.
Yeah.
Right.
Like compared to like very sort oflike straightforward limitations
that don't have kind likethis theatrical element to it.
Mm-hmm . And yet I think if we gavesomeone like, you know, like a, I was

(48:37):
go, I was gonna say like a pencil anda glass mm-hmm or, or wood block an,
a mallet if we give them an, you know,a more traditional instrument, but
that they could also communicate somestuff, even though it's non pitched.
And even though like, you know, insomeone who isn't necessarily used
to making these interpretations,despite the fact that it's this kind
of complex theatrical thing, like.

(48:59):
There's there's lotswe could do with that.
Whether it's someone like yourselfwith a lot of experience or whether,
you know, it's someone who's justbeen handed a percussion instrument
that isn't normally an instrument.
And on the other side of, so, so wecan work with that, that sort of very
open ended and kind of complex thing.
But yet like really simple, clearlimitations that don't necessarily

(49:24):
have, have these more like abstractor story based ideas can also
work really well for people.
Whether there are people who are reallyexperienced or, or less experienced.
And I love that.
I think it's like, it's a, a similarstructure for how we might think about
it, but yet it's actually quite flexible.

Yeah.
And, and musically, yeah.
When I'm working with kids, Ioften do some non-musical themes.
Like what you're having me do.
And so that falls, I guess, underprogram music where there's some
non-musical element, you know, when Ihave groups of kids or adults, I say
kids, but I do the same thing with,you know, music majors in college.
adults in, in groups like agame, like guess the animal.
So I was just doing a check-in with agroup of middle school kids and I had each

(50:03):
of them and, you know, you're gonna play asolo improvisation in front of everybody.
I didn't do that.
I just had them do an impressionof their pet or if they didn't
have a pet their favorite animal.
And they just had fun, you know, right onthe fly, doing impressions of, of animals.
So in certain situations, like whenyou had, you gave me that scene of
the conversation not going well, thatcan really be a great jumping off
point or thinking of a soundtrack,but then there's the more, I believe

(50:27):
it's called absolute music where it'sjust the, the music is on its own.
It's not representing something else.
It's the music.
So when I'm having you like the limitationwith the a and the D or sometimes they
can be more technical limitations andthen you have to make the story happen
and different people, I think react tothose in different, in different ways.

(50:49):
So

when you do guess the animal.

Yeah.

Do you SP like when some kid who's like me is like, yeah, does
it need to be the animal's voice or canit be other sounds the animal makes,
do, do you specify or does that come up?

Do you find well, oh, it, it does.
Cuz there you go.
Well, how am I supposed tomake the sound of a rabbit?
It doesn't make sound, you know, so I'llor this animal doesn't make a sound you
say, so it could I say that it could be,if they ask that it could be an impression
of the sound the animal makes, or it couldbe the soundtrack for an animal do doing
something or, you know, the theme songfor the animal or, or something like that.

(51:26):
So you can, yeah,

I had piano students doing this and then I, I think
I, I told you that one of mystudents played a colony of ants.
Yeah.
And like he explained it and ittotally jived and it totally made
sense, but it was, you know, it wasn'tthe literal sound of, of the ants.
Yeah.
Although I got a video of an, ant eatingthis tiny little caterpillar right up.

Whoa,

close and got like the video of the mandibles.
So maybe we'll have todo a soundtrack for that.

Yeah.
That's nice soundtrack for that.

We've done the colony.

Yeah.
I, I did a guess the animal.
Some of these games that I often do withkids, I did it with a group of improvising
musicians of the game symphony ensemble.
We did that on my birthday at theRoyal Room, but we did a version of
guest to animal where we had, we weretrying to do some, like, even sketch
comedy things where we had people fromthe audience drawing graphic scores
or telling jokes or reading stories.
And, but we did a round of guessthe animal and someone from the
crowd whispered in our ear thatwe had to play Armadillo and we

(52:21):
did it and someone guessed it.
I was like, I was, thatwas like a highlight.

Yeah.
Yeah, totally when it's bang on.
But especially for Armadillo.

Yeah.
So one thing that we, wementioned, we didn't actually
use talking about this menu, thiscreate creative limitation menu.
This is something that comes from.
My ebook and we will include alink in the, in the show notes,
so you can download this menu.
So it's it gives us someoptions for creating your own
limitations and let let's see.

(52:55):
Do you have yours up, upin, up in front of you?
Oh, there we go.
Actually, I do.
It's so it gives you somedifferent categories.
And so this is a way toyou'll choose two limitations.
So if you wanna work with limitations,you don't even know where to start.
Well, here's a menu.
It's like, you know, it'slike, you're ordering lunch.
Doesn't matter if younecessarily pick the right thing.
At some point, you just picksomething and, and and roll with it.

(53:16):
So on the basic menu,there's different categories.
There's dynamics, pitch range,articulation, rhythm, and density, and
several options within each one of them.
So you'll choose twodifferent limitations.
And within the limitations play the shortimprovisation like we were just doing.
And as we were talking about playfulness,you know, treating it as a musical game.

(53:38):
So we may choose something fromthe, you know, dynamics category.
So it could be an improvisation thathas a gradual crescendo throughout.
Okay.
And then from the rhythm category arhythmic ostinato a, a repeated rhythm.
So something that's repetitive,rhythmically and gradually gets louder.

(53:58):
And there's your limitation in workingwith that and just kind of seeing what
happens and now, I mean, this bringsback the other creative practices, right?
Talking about experimentation andplay and set up an experiment and
see if it works and maybe it does.
And if it doesn't, you may have to changeyour approach or change the parameters.
And anyway, I just wanted to giveyou that give you that resource
so you can start doing this.
And it's fun.

(54:19):
It's really fun to doin, in groups as well.
Mm-hmm

and a couple things.
I, a couple suggestions I would add to it.
One would be to recordyourself and then consider.
Trying the opposite of some of thelimitations or some, some of the
things that you, that, that you noticeyourself doing a lot in, in your
recordings consider trying the oppositeor at least something different.
And I thought of that, especially whenyou mentioned the ostinato I find, I

(54:48):
spend a lot of time suggesting that peopleimprovise and seeing, seeing what happens
when I challenge people to improvise.
And I notice often peopledon't repeat things very much.
Like there, I don't have you noticedthis too, this too, Steve mm-hmm cause
you're, you're in, you're in differentcontexts than I am sometimes doing
this, but often it it's kind of like arun on sentence, as opposed to, if you

(55:10):
imagine something that has repetition.
So sometimes structuring your wholeimprovisation around ostinato or a
drone, something that, that is quiteconsistent can help with, with, with, with
changing your thinking around that a bit.

Yeah.
People.
Oh, I ran out of ideas.
You know, what do I do?
So, yeah, I do a lot of work withfolks on thematic improvisation, taking
the theme and making some changes,repetition, like you're talking about.
And as I was playing earlier withthe conversation, call and response,
especially teaching jazz and workingwith blues and other black American
music, this element of call and response.
So I have people approach thingsconversationally, like being able to

(55:47):
play a question phrase that goes upand respond with an answer, or have
even like a preacher congregationkind of conversation back and forth.
And that helps it helps move away fromjust kind of the wandering noodles,
which happens particularly on.
Sometimes people are just worried aboutwhat they're kind of randomly noodling
on a scale and it's, it's not repetitive.
It's not clear.

(56:08):
And it's just wanderinggenerality of something.
So some of those things, yeah, sameI'm I'm with you with you there.

And so to play with all, with things that are less dense, so taking
more space, playing less in general.
So like playing things that repeatmore, taking more space, playing
more slowly can help just adjustthe, adjust the approach to it.
And then another suggestion is to considerhow other artistic disciplines would
approach a creative menu and I'm, andthere's, you can, there are resources

(56:39):
for other, for other disciplines,you know, there's language that
movement artists use more often thanmusicians and there's overlap there.
And then there's places or waysin which that's very different.
Or if someone was painting, you know,how might they, they describe what
they're doing or the limitationsto what they're doing mm-hmm and
how can or, and we, we showed someexamples that were more theatrical.

(57:00):
And so like, how can we approachour creative discipline or our,
our artistic practice in a way thathas a different mindset than what.
Typical or idiomatic or standardor what immediately comes to mind?
For us.

Yeah.
And I was just working with, I dida new student come over, like a
young adult student who came over.
Who'd worked a lot and he was playingjazz, but felt really trapped 'cause
he had learned, learned a lot of,you know, jazz phrases, what we call
vocabulary or licks that he could cutand paste something in the right spot.
That sounded cool.
And he had memorized all of thesephrases trying to learn like this

(57:38):
vocabulary based jazz approach.
And, but he just felt like,oh, it's always the same.
Or he was just not feeling that it wasvery intuitive or, you know, if he ran
out of things to cut and paste, you knowwhat to do, but you know, very skilled.
And I, I was in a similar place when Ishowed up to music school, my teacher,
Jerry Bergonzi who I talk about alot, just snapped me out of that.

(58:02):
And I was like excited to workthrough the same thing with him,
like through musical limitations.
So we were playing this tune andhe play, you know, it sounded
very proficient and excellent.
Resembled jazz and, and all of thatand like, okay, now you're only
gonna play short phrases with shortrests, like kind of choppy phrase.
And he's like, oh, okay.
And he was playing that.
And suddenly he was like developingthese themes and, you know, still
playing, still playing the tune.

(58:24):
And then I had him go through theopposite, like you're saying long
phrases and long rests, but theway he was playing the long rest
sounded very awkward and not musical.
So like, well, how can you set up a longrest in this jazz context to not sound
like that you're lost or your solo's overand someone else jumps in and also, okay.
Play only eighth notes, whichis he was doing that anyway.

(58:45):
So I didn't have to use that one,but I'm like no eighth notes.
And it's like, uhoh, you know,what other options are there?
You know dotted quarter notes, wait,I could, and suddenly, but he was
doing, you know, some, some made himuncomfortable, but then some things were
like, oh, that that's something new.
That was not something you hadpredetermined and pasted in.
Cuz he had all of these skills.
, but it's the limitations that all, yeah.

(59:06):
I told him it's a prettyexciting place to be.
Cause you got all these skillsand now it's time to like
actually do the creative part.
And yeah, the, the limitations andthat's how I was introduced to it too.
Not.
And then I brought it to some moreof these these, these approaches that
are more open are not about a specificgenre, genre, neutral or genre fluid.

(59:28):
I don't know we what we call it, but yeah.
I came to it through the, the jazztradition and then backing yeah.
Backing to some other, othertraditions and just finding that yeah.
That the limitations, yeah.
They're the ticket
. Lauren Best: Yeah, for sure.
Both both limiting and expanding.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, ha have fun experimentingand playing and working

(59:52):
with these limitations.
Mm-hmm and.
yeah, we'll be doing, we'll bedoing some of these together.
We're we're in the process of puttingtogether a discord community and we
want to have some of these promptsand exercises and connect other people
together playing and experimenting andsharing the process with one another.
So stay tuned for that.

(01:00:13):
And you can join us in some ofthese musical musical experiments.

Lauren Best (01:00:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And my one last tip is to write downsome of your own menu because both in
terms of creating a menu to go forwardfrom, but also like sometimes we there,
once you start thinking of all theseindividual choices you're making, it can
become clear that there's a lot going on.

(01:00:38):
And there's a lot to think about.
So sometimes like, just like some, somelittle notes here and there of like kind
of keeping track of what you're up tocan, can help give some perspective on it
because I think one of the powerful thingsabout limitations is that it restricts
the number of things we can think about.
So then we can actuallythink about those things.
Yeah.
Because our brains are not designedto think of a lot of different
things all at the same time.

(01:00:59):
Yeah.
they don't work that way.
We actually have quite small memoriesand we can jump around between things
to, to some extent, but being able tokind of be within one limitation for
a bit mm-hmm can be quite revealing.
And so actually kind of journalinga bit for yourself to keep track
of what limitations you are andaren't exploring can also be quite

(01:01:20):
revealing and can, can be helpful.

Steve Treseler (01:01:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's what, you know, the menusthat we're providing that can help if
you don't know where to start and evenchoosing something is overwhelming.
Well, grab something off,off our menu, but yeah.
Make, make your, if you have an idea forother sets of limitations, for sure.
Go for it.
Recording yourself is a good idea.
We have a future episode on reflection.

(01:01:46):
So kind of what what's, what's ahealthy way to listen back and listen
and observe, and then also figure outhow to make musical decisions going
forward, you know, without gettingsuper critical and beating yourself up.
There's an art form to that.
It's not easy, but

the time helps.
Yeah.
A little distance betweenyourself sometimes.

Steve Treseler (01:02:05):
Absolutely.
And, and sometimes you'll hear, you'lldefinitely hear things that yeah.
That you, you didn't noticeat the moment while playing.
I'm sure we will too, when we go backand listen to this episode and post, but.
Anyway, I think we can, we can leave it.
We can leave it here, but yeah.
Connect with us and you candownload even more resources at
infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast.

(01:02:27):
Any final, final words?

Well, have fun.
Let us know how it goes.

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