Contributing music︎︎︎
Here is a collection of guidelines that represents the kinds of strategies I use when making music on the spot—with improvised dance and sometimes with other improvising musicians:

  • Allow more silence
  • Avoid too many easy cultural associations
  • Balance the range of dynamics
  • Be inconclusive
  • Be well-organized
  • Change physical location
  • Contribute freshness
  • Emphasize subtlety
  • Encourage open-endedness
  • Include contemplation
  • Include multi-layer, multi-energy collages
  • Indicate connection with dancers/room
  • Less overt emotionality
  • Less pulse
  • Less pushing
  • Less theme and variations
  • Maintain stylistic variety
  • Make eye contact
  • Match intentions in room
  • More unfamiliar material
  • More unpredictability
  • Mystery (unknowability)
  • Occasional humor
  • Occasional surprises
  • Offer challenges
  • Pepper in friendly discontinuity
  • Play quietly often
  • Provide contrast
  • Respect self and others
  • Sometimes “non-music”
  • Sometimes less perfect
  • Subtract narrative content (not all “saying” implies saying something)
  • Support concentration
  • Support imagination
  • Take an extra moment
  • Use different rates of change
︎︎︎from Notice & Contribute Mike Vargas