Joint Speculation

00:00:08: In episode.

00:00:18: Artist and musician Tim Lörde meets Thomas Lehn & Georg Greve at Café Weidinger in Vienna to talk about improvising and composing together with electronic and acoustic sounds, as well the unique qualities of their instruments – piano and analog synthesizer.

00:00:38: As a duo they present their electro-acoustic performance.

00:00:42: key commands and Lin's synthesizer are linked via microphones.

00:00:50: This connection opens up a new space for musical interaction in which each instrument shapes an response to the other, although they have known one another over thirty years this is their first joint performance.

00:01:05: Thomas Lien is one of the most prominent performers and artists in new contemporary music, electro-acoustics & live improvisation.

00:01:15: He's a founding member of the ensemble Hiatus and has worked with Tud and Markus Schmickler among others.

00:01:22: He also performed works by Eliora Dieg and Zbigniew Karkowski.

00:01:27: His current solo project is entitled Synklavia.

00:01:32: Georg Greve lives in Vienna.

00:01:34: At the age of eighteen, he founded his first quintet and later led numerous ensembles including The Grubenklangorchester.

00:01:43: He is a fixture on the international avant-garde jazz scene And has worked with Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker & Roscoe Mitchell .He currently conducts the sonic fiction orchestra.

00:01:56: Hi Thomas, hi Georg.

00:01:57: I'm very happy to meet you here in this Viennese café so thank-you for being here and i would like start right away with the first question Could You tell us how you connect with each other on both a musical & technical level during your upcoming performance?

00:02:15: I think musically we can connect because there is certain section of experience in a certain field of music that kind of intersects.

00:02:31: Not everything, but it's something I guess.

00:02:35: experiences and playing with certain people... ...and playing on the scene is so-called freely improvised.

00:02:45: Technically basically the idea for this performance particular as the title suggests key commands is a little bit that you give commands in the sense, instruments are interconnected.

00:03:06: So this means the piano signal runs via microphone mixing board into synthesizer and then happens.

00:03:16: two things happen.

00:03:18: one that I play with the piano sounds, if synthesizers sound together or merge them and transform it.

00:03:26: On other hand an audio signal is always a voltage... It's a tension.

00:03:33: so it changes amplitude.

00:03:36: And this amplitude we call as CV control.

00:03:38: voltage Is changing parameters

00:03:44: of

00:03:44: for example pitch, timbre, amount of reverb Or panning.

00:03:50: I would also like to point out that it takes a lot of experience... ...to do something.

00:03:56: We have decades of experience in dealing with musical composition.

00:04:06: I'd always like to say improvisation is the discipline of musical composition, It's the highest discipline of music composition.

00:04:16: A composer who can't improvise isn't a real composer.

00:04:22: That doesn't mean that he has to perform, but some composers can write very fast like Schoenberg for instance and they said that composition is slowed down.

00:04:31: improvisation.

00:04:34: And so I think it's one of the core elements of music making.

00:04:42: How important are musical instruments haptic in physicality?

00:04:45: To you... ...and how does it influence the way you perform and the music you create?

00:04:51: It was very important But I'm playing the piano, so you have to like it.

00:04:54: It's about... The feel of the piano is about how you deal with it and music making for me isn't a conceptual thing.

00:05:06: You gather lots of experience, you get a lot of information And then when actually perform You don't really want to think about that and you feel something.

00:05:23: Maybe even if it's only the keys or something, but I do feel something definitely.

00:05:28: So for me is like this Come from the piano It's my instrument And the synthesizer was just where i came back To.

00:05:38: in a way...I mean its also the mind who makes The body being involved.

00:05:45: so the physicality Is very crucial.

00:05:49: And you know, very strange is also and you will see that I don't like to sit behind the box.

00:05:57: That means... ...I'm not interested in any stupid show or something but i always sit there so people can see me doing with my hands!

00:06:07: I would love hear about your approach to improvisation.

00:06:11: how do you integrate electronic and acoustic sounds?

00:06:14: How these two words connect for you where are they different

00:06:18: If it's improvised, you know there are so many misunderstandings about improvisation.

00:06:23: Some people think that its just spontaneous to do something.

00:06:25: You know?

00:06:26: Its not like that.

00:06:27: Or like Joelle Leandre the eminent bass player from France said improvised music is not improvised.

00:06:37: I think thats a very good quote because there's so much preparation.

00:06:43: Preparation not in terms of like a concept or what you're actually going to do but just building up things, building an experience.

00:06:53: Yeah and I'd like much more talk about authorship than whether it is composed or improvised.

00:06:59: So we could say that music coming from this person Legative rise down.

00:07:06: We do our talk.

00:07:09: It's also not possible to do the same.

00:07:12: There are things which you can't write down, there are things that are composed and you cannot improvise... I mean this is totally clear!

00:07:20: No, nothing for me but... Not

00:07:22: for you?

00:07:22: Let's

00:07:22: agree on

00:07:23: being

00:07:24: different about

00:07:26: it.

00:07:26: You have to see some compositions in which you cant improvise as such when they're... no i don´t think you can improvise them..it would not happen.

00:07:37: And there are things, if I look to Xenakis pieces or Ligetti they're pieces which in that way would not manifest in an improvisation.

00:07:46: But vice versa.

00:07:47: what you manifest especially the directness of creation... You are not representing your daily life on stage.

00:07:58: it's like that!

00:07:59: It is art form itself and something.

00:08:05: Basically, you are anyway in another world at that moment.

00:08:08: In any case... Yes?

00:08:10: ...in the ideal case!

00:08:13: You know what I mean?

00:08:16: That's actually also a beauty of it.

00:08:19: The beauty is to be somewhere else.

00:08:22: for

00:08:23: some time now i'd say um For me It´s like you're in the realm of pure speculation.

00:08:29: I think speculation was a good word.

00:08:33: And would you say there's any difference between improvising or composing

00:08:38: with

00:08:39: acoustic sounds, or electronic sounds?

00:08:42: It gives some... There may be one little thing but it is also a more technical thing.

00:08:47: Because the electronic instrument synthesizer and computer can offer something to you as well.

00:08:54: You have an auto-activity that can throw something at you which accidentally could also happen in the piano.

00:09:02: Something falls or you hit another key than expected.

00:09:07: There is something that a machine gives to you as a player, sometimes I'm like oh let's hang on!

00:09:17: So i react what came out

00:09:20: back?

00:09:21: so maybe it may be tiny difference but nevertheless make my position to it and progress on.

00:09:33: A piano offers you a lot, You have to keep rejecting all the time because it offers way too much.

00:09:44: Everybody can get a sound of your piano.

00:09:47: It's not like a trumpet or anything... And then something comes out!

00:09:52: Even if you learn to play A lot of things are offered to you that you just don't want.

00:09:58: So, I find this

00:09:59: actually... So we're not so far?

00:10:01: Yeah!

00:10:02: We were not.

00:10:03: Not so far because also that is true.

00:10:05: No i think it's much easier for you because the piano has all these history.

00:10:10: what comes out?

00:10:10: oh there sounds like that and then its much harder to find your own.

00:10:20: But as you said there are still sounds coming from the instrument that you have to work with or react, right?

00:10:28: I mean i like to be surprised by incidents.

00:10:33: I really love that if it happens also With other players and something comes on the other And you are oops!

00:10:39: You're listening up but so You only think

00:10:42: of slaps.

00:10:43: The

00:10:45: only thing So, the only thing which is really one thing in technology a challenge and playing it when something doesn't work.

00:10:59: For some reasons you missed for the synthesizer.

00:11:02: It happens that sometimes... ...it does not go where we want or then you have to give up.

00:11:09: what do you want?

00:11:10: Its also training!

00:11:12: You need to give-up to want.

00:11:14: so you must let You know, and then I have to switch myself in that moment when something the synthesizer has a mistake or is something patch bin what whatsoever?

00:11:24: Something.

00:11:24: I forgot to plug Or something it's not coming What i think should come.

00:11:29: And then comes a thing like a technological thinking which absolutely Interferes with the process where you are actually in at the moment.

00:11:37: so this isn't disturbance.

00:11:41: and also there I Have to adopt and let it be like is.

00:11:48: You know, I have to deal with that!

00:11:50: Actually this practice very much also about accepting a situation... ...and going all of these from there trying keep in touch with it.

00:12:01: Sorry i'm just laughing because.. ..i held the situation all time because im playing different instruments where ever i go And so you have adjusts to that.

00:12:10: Some do this some don't Do That.

00:12:12: So we had to find out You have a different instrument, every instrument is different and you need to adjust that.

00:12:19: And find out what it can do.

00:12:21: or would just ignore something else?

00:12:26: But I was also going say from me some kind of poetry... ...I don't really think about the instruments but there's technical side.

00:12:37: when we get on stage hopefully sometimes not We'll check our piano.

00:12:43: Okay, then you can check out certain deficiency in certain regions or whatever.

00:12:50: That's all right I You can deal with that.

00:12:52: so your just-you're playing to that and don't ask the piano to do something but it cannot do at All.

00:12:59: So my last question is what?

00:13:02: Do their current

00:13:03: technological developments in creating music with AI mean to you?

00:13:09: i'm scared about I'm not using, try to use it.

00:13:20: When digitalisation came up in the nineties... ...I was really a fan of it but today i am more and more turning away from it.. ..I don't like the commercialization of the internet which became so strong and so dictating our lives very strongly dictated what we have to do.

00:13:44: We will definitely be strongly dependent on these things, they are already and I don't know where that goes?

00:13:52: I think something amusing is... What you read all the time it's like pop music isn't real furor about.

00:14:02: because.

00:14:03: but these products, this AI songs they sound the same like what we've been doing for many years because there are no ideas.

00:14:11: Because it's always maybe if comes to... It might not even be ten chord sequences that pop music is using all of a time and so its easy to copy.

00:14:23: I mean you don't need an AI to copy them!

00:14:26: They have done that before anyway.

00:14:28: And now they say oh it's an AI generated hit?

00:14:33: It was before,

00:14:34: even before AI they generated it like that.

00:14:38: So there's no real gain is I thought?

00:14:40: There's not intelligence in that because there are no intelligence in these pop songs right from the start.

00:14:47: so you actually don't need AI for that!

00:14:49: I think AI can do more and will.

00:14:52: With decades of experience, these two musicians show us that improvisation is not just a spontaneous act but one of the highest forms of musical composition.

00:15:04: We hope this conversation made you as curious about their upcoming performance as we are!

00:15:10: You can experience Thomas Lenz and Georg Reves' performance on the twelfth of June at The Domicile Endortment during our festival.

00:15:21: A big thanks to our guests Thomas Lien and Georg Greve, and Tim Löde as well as Veronica Batzdorfer for the editorial contribution.