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In considering how a band could operate "from a formal manifesto," Douglas suggests some basic rules that have been of some benefit to other bands, including "Not everybody has to be playing all the time. If it makes sense to sit out part or all of a song, do," which reminds me of this piece of acting advice from Christopher Walken, quoted secondhand over at Consumptive: "When you're in a scene and you don't know what you're gonna do, don't do anything."
As for myself, I've always found Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies to be a pretty good set of rules for any creative endeavor, and music-making is no exception. In addition, I like some of the mottos that come from the Zen Guitar Dojo, especially their "Simplicity and Repetition," and the more mystical "Fill yourself with the sky, then play."
As you draw closer to the world of conceptual music, of course, you begin to find works that are generated by nothing more than musicians following a particular set of rules, perhaps most notably Terry Riley's minimalist compostion In C. The score of this piece is available here (as a PDF) and it consists of one page of 53 short musical clusters and two pages of rules for how the musicians (on "any number of any kind of instrument") should use them.
Labels: creative_process, instructions, music_commentary
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
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