Sometimes I feel like experimental improvisers can be a lot like alcoholics—they don’t know when to stop. I was going to keep these thoughts to myself but something happened during Mobtown Modern’s performance of Cobra last week that made me want to put it out there: I think I became the person that you’ll read about further down in this post. We’d been playing for close to an hour—not quite by my watch—and the performance could/might have reached a logical conclusion point. But I was so excited about what the group might be able to do if we did just one more cobra, I turned to the audience and asked, “Should we do one more?” And then there was this line from Baltimore Sun critic Tim Smith’s review of the show:
It might have been wiser to quit while they were ahead, though; by the time they played the last round, the diversity of contributions had lessened considerably.
Ugh. Let me explain a little more. I go to a lot of improv shows and there has been a high frequency of times I leave vowing to never speak of what I’d just witnessed and wishing for that 2 hours of my life back. Now that’s not to say that there couldn’t have been some supremely beautiful or bona fide compelling moments within that two hours, but I think that the old adage “you should leave your audience wanting more” should start being heeded. Maybe I’m being a little unfair, but if I’d heard a coherent, cohesive one-hour, or 45-min, or hell, even a 30-min improvisation recently I’d be less inclined to raise my voice.
In most of the long form improvisations I’ve heard in the not so distant past there seemed to have been several moments when the session could have ended to make a cohesive statement. Instead, these cadence points arrive and inevitably someone on stage gets a little too self-indulgent and mistakes the natural end of a piece for a big solo opportunity. What follows is generally a very similar process to what had just unfolded: 1) the players start mimicking the sounds that are already happening, 2) then they gradually begin introducing something contrasting, 3) and commence a really long build-up that may peak up to 10 times, 4) followed by a very slow decrease in activity and volume, and finally 5) the audience sits rigidly during an uncomfortably long silence praying that no one on stage is inspired any more. I love it when the musicians finish one of these long pieces and then look around at each other on stage and then invariably say, “Should we do another one?” That’s the best. Though I believe that nearly every audience member wants to scream, “NO!!!!!!” nobody ever says anything. Then the players decide to do a “short one.” And the band plays on. And on. And on.
But rather than just complain here, I’d like to make a sugggestion: what about a time limit? (David Byrne makes a really great point about time constraints here. Thanks to Bill Mill for that tip.) Rather than basking in the comfort that you can ramble on for over 30 minutes hoping that inspiration may strike if it’s failed to up to that point, why not try and aim to create a solid, focused, complete, and meaningful statement in, let’s say, 10 minutes? Hardcore folks probably won’t like this idea since it imposes an unwelcome parameter in a musical genre that tends to shun any kind of constraint. But I think that would be more challenging for the players. And likely more engaging for the listeners. Parameters like duration (of the shorter variety) might be worthy considerations for free improvisers who haven’t matured enough yet to sustain a long form session.
There are two types of experiences to keep in mind here—the experience of the audience member and the experience of the performer—and I’ve been on both sides. The joy and excitement you feel as a performer during an improvisation might not translate to joy and excitement to an audience member. How do you know when you’ve reached that point? Are audiences just stupid if they don’t “get” what you’re playing and can’t stay focused? Whose fault is it? When does self-indulgence become over-indulgence?
