Some excerpts from a great interview from The Revivalist. I'm reminded of how our Chris Brown conversation is centered around an appreciation of nuances and b-sides. But, more importantly, if you look close enough, you'll see this is testimony -- a look into the spiritual and philosophical journey of a present, disciplined practicer of life.
A Conversation with Esperanza Spalding
(SOURCE: The Revivalist)
Talk a little bit about your relationship to the bass. Is there a particular way you feel when playing versus practicing? How has your relationship or connection changed over the years?
When I’m practicing, or when anyone’s practicing, we’re honing the details. We’re studying physically how to become agile. We’re working out, in sort of frozen time, meaning we can take a long time with a concept or an idea or a pattern or sound if we need to, until we have access to it physically, and intellectually. We can sort of stop the clock, so to speak, and we can go in and hone in the details. Refine, polish. All these things that have to do with our physical and intellectual understanding, and ability to do something. So when you’re performing, ideally, you don’t have to worry, or think about those things. When I get on the stage and I’m performing, what I’m trying to do is to play from a place of transmission. I want to intuitively have access to these intellectual concepts—either it’s a sound combination, or a physical pattern. I’m passively trying to convey a feeling, or a story, or a thought through the notes, through my instrument. So I’m not worried about technique; I’m not worried about playing a certain shape or phrase. I’m assuming and I’m trusting that these things I’ve practiced will come out when they need to come out to contribute to the music in that moment. So, in a way, it’s like the clock is moving now. So once everything just happens spontaneously, in real time, you’re not really in control of it. The music that we’re playing is based so heavily in improvisation. So when I get on the stage, I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. I know something’s going to happen, but I have to be free enough to listen and react to what’s happening around me. So I kind of let go of all that intellectual control and physical planning, and just try to let the music come out of my well-refined machine, being my body, that is handling the instrument. I think most instrumentalists would say that’s the main difference between performing and practicing.
And as we all get older, we start having deeper connections with everything we engage with. You have a broader understanding of the way that you’re interacting with your work. So when I was much younger, the bass was just fun, and it was intuitive. And improvised music was just a fun, intuitive thing. And now it’s really starting to become a language that I’m studying as a language, and studying different ways of articulating, and vocabulary, and grammar, and different ways of putting together these fine words with their fine meanings, to say finer and finer, and more refined things, that are more meaningful to me. And I assume that as I grow older, and I mature as a human being, my relationship with the instrument itself, and with the music itself will become more ingrained in my being. Just like language—I’m not really thinking about my word choices right now. I’m trusting that what I want to say will come out, and that I have enough vocabulary that the idea I want to convey to you will come out clearly. And as an instrumentalist, that’s sort of what I’m striving for. And I assume that as I get older and have better words and a bigger vocabulary, I’ll just be clearer and clearer. And, of course, for me, the instrument is bass, composition, and singing, and lyric writing, so all of those things I consider my instruments, or perhaps, it’s just music as a whole that’s my instrument, and I intend to just continue to refine and distill my use of the language.
In what ways is the bass limiting (versus the other instruments you tried before it)? In what ways does it allow you more freedom?
I don’t really remember what it was like to play violin. I don’t know why. I don’t remember what it felt like to practice. And I don’t really remember what I physically thought about, what it was like to be a violinist. That was the instrument I played the longest, so I don’t think I really thought about it in that way. But compared to voice, I guess, or compared to writing, for example—again, writing can happen in stop-time, and you can take as much time as you need to work out everything and then you present it when it’s done. Which is very liberating, because you are in control, ultimately, of what gets put out. You can work on it until it’s like, “Okay. This is perfect. This is exactly what I want to say, and I know it, because I’ve edited out everything I don’t want to say.” So with the bass, at least with the way that I’m usually playing it, it’s much more spontaneous, so that is liberating, in and of itself, because you’re so in the moment, and you’re not responsible for everything in the music, so you can sort of relax and lay back, and just become a part of this musical entity. And the drawback to that, of course, is that in real-time, you could play something that you don’t really mean, or you might play something that’s frivolous, or out of tune, or placed in the wrong spot, or not be able to physically achieve what your ears want to hear, which can be a drawback. So the comparison between bass and voice I think would be that the melodies that I’m playing on bass, for most listeners, are much more abstract than what I’m singing. We have such an ingrained connection with the human voice, that however I open my mouth and sing, it’s going to have some symbolism or meaning for the listener—because it’s a voice. The way I breathe, the way I enunciate, even if I’m not singing lyrics, and then when you add lyrics—okay, so then it’s not abstract at all. I’m actually telling you what I’m talking about, what I’m emoting about. So with the bass, there’s a certain freedom in the abstraction. And then of course, again, it’s limiting. If I want to specifically convey an idea, I’m not exactly sure if the listener got what I meant. Whereas with words, I can say, “I am sad because my cat is sick.” So you can say, I understand exactly what you’re singing about. Those are just some comparisons. I don’t find any of them limiting. And they’re not inherently freeing either. With discipline and time, you become freer on all the instruments. And if you don’t practice, and you don’t work hard at them, you feel limited because you can’t physically achieve what you can intuitively conceptualize. So the instruments in themselves are neither, but our relationships with them dictate the relationship that we’ll have whether we feel like a free musician, so we can play and say anything that we feel, or we can never really quite achieve it. (source / full interview)
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7 comments:
Her answer to that first question posted here just rocks my whole world.
Word. You have me thinking about the possible subjectivity of instinct here ...
I’d like to think that instinct, like intuition, is mutable, capable of being altered – sharpened or dulled over time. There are instincts that are not always obvious or expressed; instincts that require exposure to certain stimuli in order to manifest or activate. And then you have the degrees of that exposure to stimuli – sustained or infrequent – and the qualities of the stimuli (discipline, deep contemplation, repetition, study etc.), that can determine how an instinct manifests.
Given this, I'm led to consider the possibility that a well-honed instinct, or the process of trying to hone instinct (through the practicing of intuition maybe?), could, too, at some point, require and be concerned with trust in self, others and process; or more specifically, be susceptible to the results of a sustained, deliberate process of trusting in self, others and process.
I wonder what does (can) it look like when your intuition gets to the point where it accesses and requires trust in self, others, process AND a well-honed instinct? And what can a reconciliation of the two, intuition and instinct, look like (if the space in their proximity is determined to be significant) … Playing from a place of transmission? It's wild to me because the process of instinct- and intuition- honing is not much unlike the process of sober inspiration-cultivating ...
True, I'm working with a definition of instinct being related to impulse and patterns of behavior, which is limited (although I would need some help locating the subjectivity in that definition.) And true, instinct is adaptable, based on "qualities of stimuli." But isn't that adaptability directly related to instinct's primary purpose, which is (emotional, mental, physical) survival of the subject? I think of intuition, on the other hand, as rigid because there's a solid-ness in knowing, with inexplicable certainty, what one knows simply because one knows it--in defiance of what others would consider reason or rationale.
I'm admittedly still playing with the distinction between the definitions, but it seems like instinct requires reaching inward for self-protection and/or self-satisfaction, and intuition requires looking inward, but reaching outward. Can there really be a reconciliation between the two if instinct is concerned with self-preservation, and intuition with self-actualization? Doesn't honing/sharpening either of them widen the space between the two?
This mish-mash of instinct and intuition does manifest in ES in really incredible and inspiring ways that warm my cynical heart and blur the lines between art and profession, surviving and thriving.
I guess I lean toward reconciliation, because in conjunction with defining, I’m also interested in exploring practical function. When I contemplate the possibilities of reconciliation I do so considering the notion that instinct and intuition are at their optimal capacities because they are interdependent and interplaying with each other; and that it takes a deliberate, unifying strategy of mind to work toward this.
Thus, while it is possible and healthy to specify the definitions (form) and concepts of each, it is a challenge, when it’s manifested in a stabilized individual and with each at their highest capacities, to separate and isolate the function of one from another, (instinct, intuition, the intellect, etc.) which, to me, speaks to their subjectivity.
And so it’s here, for me, where it goes beyond the actual space and practice of art, or writing, teaching, or whatever medium you choose as a conduit for transmission, because this concept serves as a site of transmission for these ideas of interconnectedness and stabilization – a creative, spiritual, intellectual, instinctual and intuitive homeostasis, of sorts.
Seems like the metaphor of language is really important here. So, I would lean towards @kammyd’s theory of reconciliation
“And I assume that as I get older and have better words and a bigger vocabulary, I’ll just be clearer and clearer. “
So for me, there wouldn’t be a gap between intuition and instinct, as much as an overlapping that over time is less muddled and becomes clear into one idea/state.
I cant help but think of my own experience with capoeira. Im very very much a beginner but I think it applies. As it is a physical art, the instinct of my body responds to the rhythm and to the other person’s movement, particularly if that movement is requiring me to duck or move. When I first started, it was ALL instinct with no real language driven from a study of the art since I had no knowledge of it. But as I am learning the movements, or the language of the game, and train, those movement become second nature to me (or perhaps intuition), I can feel that nature merging with my own instinct of ‘normal’ action or movement. For example, I find myself moving my body in response to a stimuli in the form of a capoeira movement instead a ‘normal’ movement. Even though I make that choice, my subconscious brings up the intuitive movement from the game before that of the normal movement. So as you watch much more skilled players you see that there can no longer be that separation between their instinct and intuitive study of the game b/c they have intellectually and physically absorbed the language (in addition to the culture, songs, etc.). It becomes a space of absolute immersion in strategy and expression (and history), not hindered by specific concern for the individual forms that marked your years as a beginner. And that’s when your game becomes ‘your game’ and you're 'not worried about technique' (pointing to @kammyd’s thought toward subjectivity) And obviously you would reach that point thru a sustained process and trust in self and a community.
I hope that made some kind of sense lol.
Either way, it’s a very interesting and ‘nuanced’ discussion…
Some notes from a couple interesting articles:
The essay on time and the brain has an interesting example of language that made me think of our conversation here, because I thought about how different languages (cultures of instinct?) handle this "problem" of human cognition.
/////If someone says, “The mouse on the desk is broken,” your mind calls forth a different image than if you hear, “The mouse on the desk is eating cheese.” Your brain registers the word “mouse,” waits for its context, and only then goes back to visualize it. But language leaves time for second thoughts. The flash-lag effect seems instantaneous. It’s as if the word “mouse” were changed to “track pad” before you even heard it/////
The essays on whales made me think of our conversation both because it illustrates that whales (and humans and apes) have their "intuition" stored in a specific type of cell (Spindle Cell) in the brain and because it illustrates that whales' use a "combination of the sun’s position, Earth’s magnetism and even star maps" to navigate. But it's the part about that being interpreted as "orienting with something outside of themselves, not something internal" that struck me. It really re-complicates the distinction between intuition and instinct to me; which I'm sure you can tell I like.
a nice convo with bobby mcferrin...he talks about sound and improvisation, among other things...
http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/catching-song/
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