{"id":3763,"date":"2021-05-24T17:42:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T17:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/?p=3763"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:42:22","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T15:42:22","slug":"control-chaos-power-and-play-interview-with-dr-bill-bruford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/control-chaos-power-and-play-interview-with-dr-bill-bruford\/","title":{"rendered":"Control, Chaos, Power, and Play: Interview with Dr Bill Bruford"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dr Bill Bruford<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Drummer and author Dr Bill Bruford has had a distinguished career as a recording artist and performer spanning some 41 years. During that time, he witnessed a sea change in both recording-studio practice norms and the structure of the music industry: from the tape-edit tapestry of “Close To The Edge”(1972), to the advent of the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), \u201cproject-studio,\u201d and “artist-as-retailer” paradigm. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 as a founder member of Yes, Bill has performed with many other progressive bands over the years including Genesis, Gong, and U.K., as well as, collaborating with Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz (Moraz Bruford) and with Ralph Towner-Eddie Gomez. He has also led his own outfits Bruford (featuring Alan Holdsworth), and the jazz ensemble Earthworks; but is arguably most famous for his creative contributions with the band King Crimson. In 2015, Bill was awarded his Ph.D. by the University of Surrey and has since published the book “Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer” (2018). In this interview, he has agreed to discuss the role of play within the arena of record production as viewed from the theoretical perspective of structural-phenomenology; sharing some of his very personal (and, as he emphasises, somewhat fluid) perceptions and memories regarding what it’s like to be a professional recording artist, performer, and musical collaborator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Details of Bill Bruford’s latest book can be found here: Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dr Bruford, thank you for agreeing to have an informal discussion today about your experiences in the world of popular-music record production, as seen through the lens of play studies. One of the aims of recording popular music over the years has been to capture \u201clightning in a bottle.\u201d It\u2019s a phrase that so eloquently illustrates the paradoxical nature of reconciling control and chaos in popular-music making. Ever since \u201cRock \u2018n\u2019 Roll\u201d records first hit the airwaves in the mid 1950s there has been an ongoing power struggle between those that would have popular music more controlled and those that would have it more chaotic. In fact, it\u2019s a balance that needs to be negotiated each and every time popular musicians and technicians attempt to work together (either explicitly or tacitly \u2013 and nowhere less than in the recording studio). These three concepts \u2013 control, chaos and power \u2013 are also core concerns of play studies. Today, I\u2019m interested in looking at the role of play within the art of record production from a particular theoretical perspective; one that considers how individuals wilfully organise their thoughts and experiences from moment-to-moment and the roles that motivation and emotion play in that scheme. In other words, as seen from the perspective of \u201cstructural-phenomenology,\u201d as defined by Michael J. Apter (1991). Play scholars such as Apter and Mihalyi Cszikszentmihalyi (1979) \u2013 who observe play from this phenomenological perspective and are primarily interested in the personal experience of playfulness \u2013 state that any particular activity can be framed by adults, at any given moment, as play or (conversely) as work. A key criterion being that in play the activity is felt to be free of implications, so that reality seems somehow suspended. The playful frame of mind can therefore be said to be present-moment orientated.  Let\u2019s begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The traditional recording studio layout made a clear demarcation between the creative \u201clightning\u201d within the studio space and the \u201cbottle\u201d of the control room. When you recorded at Peter Gabriel\u2019s Real World studios in the mid-1990s that model gave way to a more unified open space arrangement. How did that layout influence your mood as a performer? Did it have any bearing upon the quality of the performances or recordings themselves?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relative\npower and importance of the artist\/performer\/conductor on one side of the glass\nand scientist\/producer on the other had, since the advent of recording, been\nreflected in the respective physical spaces allotted to both: initially, the\nmore spacious, better-lit room for the former, the dingy cubby-hole\/electronics\nworkshop for the latter. By the 1990s the design of Real World fore grounded\nand enabled both the rise of the scientist\/auteur in its grand \u201ccontrol\u201d room\n(and note the language here) but also the notion of solo \u2018overdubbed\u2019 performances\nby at most one or two performers simultaneously. Such overdubs would likely be\nrendered in the spacious control room, overseen by the producer. Large-scale\nsimultaneous collective performance of six or more was backgrounded and not\nanticipated. Being somewhat old-fashioned, however, King Crimson clung to the\nidea that something special happens when musicians play together, and sought to\nreshape the several small dingy performance spaces such that sight-lines might\nbe reinstated and\/or video screens installed \u2013 critical, certainly, for the two\ndrummers to cue each other with body language. Furthermore, the monitoring\nsystem had also to be laboriously reconfigured so all participants could hear\nas much or as little of their colleagues as might be necessary for an organic\nperformance. So all in all it was something of a technological nightmare\ngetting the studio to do something it wasn\u2019t really designed to do. We would\nhave been better, probably, at Abbey Road.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You once described the process of making a King Crimson record (in the 1980s) as \u201cagonizing … quite slow\u2026 We have no method and we can never seem to find one … or perhaps we\u2019re not looking for one\u201d (Tamm, 1990, p. 115). In retrospect, would an autocratic record producer have been a beneficial addition here? Or was the band attempting to let something surprising emerge out of the chaos?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A producer would have produced something different, not necessarily better. An autocratic producer wouldn\u2019t have got a record at all. We had, perhaps, a benevolent dictator, Captain Robert Fripp, who was not unreasonably frustrated on occasion by the more strong minded crew members\u2019 apparent disinclination to provide what the captain required, even though what was required was nebulous, little spoken. I think the well-meaning crew generally wanted what the captain wanted \u2013 a smooth passage to some undefined artistic excellence \u2013 but collaborative creation is ever full of misunderstandings, communication breakdowns and methodological pitfalls. I\u2019ve seldom worked with producers and when I did it wasn\u2019t helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue of power (and pecking orders) arguably influences a musician\u2019s ability to negotiate creative constraints when collaborating. Can power sharing make for better musical outcomes or are imposed constraints (paradoxically) liberating?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure this is an either\/or issue. Yes, power\nsharing (although I\u2019m not quite sure how you are envisioning that in the\ncontext of a music group) can make for better outcomes, and yes, I find\nconstraints liberating, be they imposed by self or other. The two are not\nmutually exclusive. Crimson\u2019s modus\noperandi<\/em> for music creation was more flexible and looser than many imagine.\nBroadly, an idea would emerge from somewhere; a partial or fully completed\ncomposition, an instrumental timbre or combination of instrumental timbres,\nhalf of a song lyric, a mood abstracted from an improvisation (\u201cSheltering Sky,\u201d\n1981), a thematic umbrella (the Beat Poets) or industrial wastelands (tracks\nlike \u201cIndustry,\u201d 1984a; \u201cNo Warning,\u201d 1984b). Individuals then devised or\ncompleted their own parts to further the idea with minimal instruction or input\nfrom others. Approval of one\u2019s contribution was signalled by people remaining\nin the room to continue the process: disapproval by people fragmenting and\nwandering off, listless and bored. There was little overt discussion about a\nco-performer\u2019s individual contribution. Benefit of the doubt was given. If the\ndrummer had thought it was the right thing to play, then it probably was, until\nor unless it was superseded by further incoming information necessitating\nsubtle adjustment or a wholesale rethink. This could be slow, laborious and\nhence expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve said that when you toured with Genesis in 1976 you\u2019d previously been more accustomed to \u201cmaking it up as you went along\u201d whereas the band expected a more functional approach. Recordings of the gigs seem to indicate you found a workable balance between an acceptance of rote parts and unknown outcomes. Do you think you were able to push the boundaries somewhat because of your own fame\/power or did a sense of camaraderie foster tolerance? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I didn\u2019t\nknow it at the time, the band (Genesis) broadly saw me as a \u201cstar\u201d player on\nthe back of Yes \/ KC success: they\u2019d caught themselves a top fish. So, yes, I\ngot away with murder and a fair bit of sloppiness (I wasn\u2019t familiar with their\nsongs when I started with them). They afforded me a degree of tolerance that I\nwould not be afforded today were I playing with say, Steely Dan, or Journey, or\nsimilar. Precise reproduction of the record is absolutely required now that the\nticket price might be north of 200 USD. Genesis, in my time, was interested\nonly in outcomes of the known variety!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you reformed King Crimson in early 1981 it seems that the consensual deliberation between yourself and Robert Fripp regarding how to approach your role as drummer \u2013 within a band that reframed the role of guitars in a radical new manner \u2013 was ongoing and very deliberate. Was this process stressful? Did the resulting negotiated constraints pay off creatively?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, the role of the drummer seemed to be a key focus\nof Robert\u2019s approach. The guitars were settled (no chords, just single-note\nheterophonic weavings) and Robert never seemed to say anything to Tony Levin,\nwhose perfectly-measured contributions appeared to defy discussion. That left\nthe drummer, who clearly needed baby-sitting. Indeed, change is not always\neasy, and change was fast. I had an unlikely combination of instruments to play\nin a hybrid electro-acoustic drum kit of my own design, and a short list of\ninstructions as to what not to play and when not to play it. Broadly I could do\nanything I wanted so long as Robert had not heard it before. If I thought that\na tall order, I also thought it entirely possible to fulfil. It seemed to me he\nhad not heard much drumming. I do think the resultant \u201cnegotiated\u201d restraints\npaid off creatively, and on reflection I\u2019m pleased with my contribution to the\n1980s band\u2019s body of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the studio, when the red light goes on any sound you produce is no longer transitory but documented to be reproduced at will, manipulated and stored for posterity. Do you find that your frame of mind suddenly changes depending on whether the record button is engaged (or not), or does the overall studio environment have greater influence over your mood?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My frame of mind\nwas, or would have been, affected by so many variables of which the recording\nprocess \u2013 capturing the performance for posterity \u2013 would have been but one,\nand not necessarily the most important. Some react better than others when\nasked to produce a note-perfect performance right now, <\/em>in the company or\npresence of others whose performance may be overdubbed later. Am I keeping\nothers waiting? Have I read this right, considering I\u2019m largely guessing what\nmight be coming on top of my performance? Consider also the temporal aspect to\nthis. Technology has changed radically over my time. At the beginning, the\ndrummer\u2019s performance was more or less fixed from the start, and became a\nplayground upon which others might frolic. At the end, all aspects of a\ndrummer\u2019s performance were entirely manipulable in computer-based\npost-production. I suppose, broadly, I found recording more difficult than all\nother aspects of practice. But over-arching that, when I was young I found\neverything easy. Forty years later, it was all difficult. An illustration of\nthe latter can be found in my book Bill\nBruford: The Autobiography<\/em> (2009, pp. 187-193).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/em>Is \u201cframe of mind\u201d something that you, or your collaborators, spent much time thinking or talking about? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, but no time like the present to start thinking\nabout it. We might take the phrase to mean \u2018mood\u2019 or temporary mental\ndisposition. My mood is, for me, an emotional variable among many more\ninfluential environmental\nvariables (room acoustics, physical and emotional health my co-performers,\naudience disposition, lighting, instrument quality, sound monitoring and so\nforth) that mediate not only the performance itself, but its effective\ncommunication. Everything changes how I play. These variables conjoin to make\nMonday\u2019s performance different from\nTuesday\u2019s. I don\u2019t feel particularly moody as an individual and don\u2019t assign my\nframe of mind much importance, although I\u2019ve worked with many who seem to be\nvery changeable with their moods, allowing them greater play in the\nproceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think the project studio revolution has made it easier, or harder, for musicians to realise their potential of making great recordings (given there are now so many more roles to juggle individually)? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably harder. Doubtless the music inventor is now\nat liberty to produce any sonic confection that he or she wants, but if the\nconfection is to be attributed greatness it implies that it must be heard and\nassessed by others. And getting your music to those pairs of receptive ears\nwhose owners might confer greatness is now the last and hardest of the\ncreativity roles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judging by looking at film footage of your performances over the years, you seem to relish playing live. It certainly looks like you\u2019re having fun. Did you ever enjoy recording in the studio as much as playing live?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure I\nwas ever very good at \u201cfun.\u201d Most of the fun, for me, was in the looking back,\nin the remembering. There are recorded passages ranging from the very short in\nlength (a phrase or measure here, an idea there) to the quite substantial (a\nsustained lunacy here, a great feel there) that I am really happy were\ncaptured. They seem evidence of a sort that it wasn\u2019t all a waste of time; that\nthere was, on occasion, solid invention. But mostly these passages twinkled out\nlike little diamonds from a more prosaic moonscape of good ideas not very well\nexecuted. I thought the arrival of our American players Levin and Belew in\n1980-ish raised the bar on execution. Of course, between \u201crecording in the studio\u201d\nand \u201cplaying live\u201d lies the twilight world of live recording. As the decades\nrolled past, that process became increasingly painless and relatively\ninexpensive. It was quite hit or miss, and contrary to some assumptions Crimson\nhad a culture of \u201cdon\u2019t waste money fixing and re-mixing if it\u2019s really a\nturkey, in which case why are we trying to breathe life into this turkey\nanyway?\u201d Some of us had a harder time than others with the \u201cwarts and all\u201d\npresentation of our work and saw a potential lowering of standards. It seemed\non occasion that what would have in earlier times been left as rubbish on the studio\nfloor was now cobbled together in something of a rush, time being money. There\nis no rubbish outtake any more, only archival documentation with pecuniary\nvalue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it important to have fun when making music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly if one\nwishes to communicate something to an audience, an appearance of, at minimum,\ncommitted engagement will go a long way. Whether the performer is actually\ncommitted and engaged may be another matter. The appearance of having fun I\nfound easy; the having fun I found harder. Sometimes I couldn\u2019t tell the\ndifference, even if I was thinking about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul McCartney once said that he doesn’t work for a living, he gets paid to play. Creativity scholar J Nina Lieberman (1977) calls artist the Practitioners of Playfulness. Is that a job description you can relate to? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, yes.\nOne way of re-framing McCartney\u2019s view is that the performance is free \u2013 it is\neverything else before and after it that you get paid for (travel, practice,\nrehearsal, composition etc.). Educationalists now suggest we teach playfulness\nand creativity out of our children at school. The creative engagement of\nchildren at play is something to behold, and the interesting (adult) artists\nmanifest that in their work. Again, that\u2019s what you\u2019re paying us\/them to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it important to have such people in society whose main function is to have fun and take creative risks? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, certainly. Those people, Lieberman\u2019s\nPractitioners of Playfulness, are perhaps more usually called artists. The work\nof a work of art is to communicate experience, as John Dewey has pointed out\n(1934).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When is adopting a playful frame of mind appropriate in creative practice? When is it not appropriate? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, drummers perceive of themselves as\nhaving the most powerful instrument on stage with which to make the music \u201cwork,\u201d\nor to fail to make it work. This, they attest, is their primary function. After\nthat, they may see ways to be creative, but only once the music is \u201cworking\u201d\nfunctionally, that is: \u201cswingin\u2019,\u201d \u201cgroovin\u2019,\u201d \u201chappenin\u2019.\u201d According to\ndrummers, if these things are not happening, it would be inappropriate to get\nplayful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You make a distinction in your doctoral dissertation between two poles of a continuum of control in musical performance: the Functional\/Compositional Continuum (FCC). As the name indicates, there\u2019s the \u201cfunctional\u201d approach (playing as directed by others) at one end and the \u201ccompositional\u201d (self-created parts) at the other, with most players operating somewhere in between most of the time (Bruford, 2015, p. 45). Is the playful frame of mind a luxury only a performer closer to the \u201ccompositional\u201d end can afford to adopt?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The playful attitude is more likely to find fertile\nground and induce playfulness in others in compositional performance rather than\nfunctional, because the former admits both greater interaction and greater\nintent to surprise. This in no way necessarily excludes playfulness from\nfunctional performance; it\u2019s just harder to bring it about. In fact, I\u2019m having\ntrouble thinking of an example. But my research people found little \u201ccreative\ncorners\u201d in all genres and styles of music (Bruford, 2018, p. 65).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it important is it to share a similar sense of humour with your musical collaborators? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is important. It helps as both ice-breaker and\nsocial adhesive; it reinforces the \u2018us-against-them\u2019 culture that bonds a group\nof outsiders catapulted into (frequently) an alien culture. Performance seems\nonly millimetres away from catastrophic absurdity, and colleagues unable to\nrecognise that tend to be viewed with suspicion. How did Kraftwerk keep a\nstraight face?! Along with many in the pre-rock first half of the 20th century,\nmy father viewed performance as an over-paid form of showing off, and thus a\nsort of indictable crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How important is it to be curious as a creative practitioner?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiosity is surely an essential component of\ncreativity; it sparks the sort of thinking and then action, which may result in\ncreative outcomes. The curious person or organisation asks questions, and\ncreativity may be involved in finding the answers. In King Crimson, one good\nquestion was \u201cHow can we go further?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you derive joy from taking creative risks? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undertaking creative risks is a core job-description\nfor the instrumentalist who wants to push things forward.  In a band like King Crimson, pushing ideas\nabout, and maybe in a forward direction, is meat and drink. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The King Crimson of 1981-1984 was originally proposed to you explicitly by Robert Fripp it proscriptive terms. It was to be a band that wouldn\u2019t do this, wouldn\u2019t do that and so on. You\u2019ve said that this approach really excited you. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Limitations and\nconstraints are the bread and butter of the creative thinker or inventor. They\nforce you to dig deeper in the hunt for solutions. \u201cIf I can\u2019t play time on a\nride cymbal, what can I play it on? Should I play it at all?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did this negative approach to collaboration always bring out the best in you or your band mates? Was there ever any resentment as a result of the approach?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creative\ncollaborations can require high levels of emotional fitness. Creative friction\nproduces combustion whose unpredictability may leave participants feeling\ndiminished or belittled even as the project seems to be yielding interesting\nresults. But that\u2019s the job. I developed a thick fire-proof hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did it feel to consciously have to avoid former musical habits? Was it a fun challenge? Did it cause anxiety at times?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being in a band\nlike this could be both anxiety-making and fun, sometimes almost\nsimultaneously. I\u2019m perhaps more interested in Csikszentmihalyi\u2019s idea of \u201cflow\u201d\n(1990). In positive psychology, flow or \u201cbeing in the zone,\u201d is the mental\nstate of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed\nin a feeling of energised focus and full involvement in the process of the\nactivity. The concept is widely referenced across a variety of fields including\nmusic, as I\u2019m sure you know, and that was my idea of fun, I think, being \u201cin\nthe moment.\u201d I like to be stretched, certainly, and can\u2019t quite see how else I\u2019m\ngoing to provide anything that interests me and\/or possibly others until or\nunless I am stretched. I get queasy when I feel I know what\u2019s going on. I bore\neasily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have mentioned in the past that King Crimson involved some \u201cground rules.\u201d Does this relate to Fripp\u2019s analogy of the band as a sports field where players have freedom within its limited boundaries? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, yes.\nHere is the perimeter of the ball park. We\u2019re going to play with these balls:\nwe want to avoid this, and we won\u2019t be doing that. Now let\u2019s play. Robert also\nwas good at proposing a strategy with no accompanying demand that it be acted\nupon. He described it as throwing some balls in the air. If we, King Crimson,\ncaught some of them and ran with them, great: if they dropped to the ground that\nwas fine too. We ran with the idea of a double trio in the mid-1990s, but I\nthought that had less bang for the buck than one might have expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Play scholar Brian Sutton-Smith (1979) states that to \u201c\u2018play with something\u2019 means conceptually to frame it in another way\u201d (p. 306), and he uses the term \u201cplayframing\u201d to explain how in play participants negotiate (and continually renegotiate) binding rules of engagement that temporarily suspend the normal ways of framing classes-relations, and reverse \u201cthe usual contingencies of power\u201d (p. 308).  It appears that the design of King Crimson (then known as Discipline) in early 1981 could be described as a band-as-playframe. How much input did other members of the band have with regard to this \u201cnegotiation\u201d of terms (either explicitly or tacitly) in the early days? Was power shared equally?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Sutton\nSmith has it about right, based on your two sentences above. There are two\nquestions here: one about negotiating terms and the other about sharing power.\nI think we negotiated terms in the same way as unsupervised children in a\nsandpit (negotiations can be successful and unsuccessful, of course). We threw\nsome sand about and built castles. Occasionally sand went in someone\u2019s face and\nthere were tears, there was heated discussion as to who had the best castle,\nbut there was no identifiable sandpit bully. It seemed that all members had\nequal input in the negotiations, but they exercised this at different times, in\ndifferent ways and to different extents. With regard to power sharing, RF was\nbeyond doubt the most powerful individual, in the sense in which he selected\nthe musicians, arranged when, where and how the organisation might work (or\nplay) together, and issued some restraints or rules. After that though, he was\nin the sandpit pretty much with everyone else. He vehemently denied he was any sort\nof bandleader, a function he was more likely to offload to \u201cKing Crimson\u201d or\nthe band ghost or the third in a perfect pair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was this combination of ground rules and creative restraints applied on a song-by-song basis, as an aid to arrangement or composition (i.e., songs as unique sets of rules and restrictions)? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On reflection, a\ntune that had its genesis in Robert\u2019s head would be readily amenable to any of\nhis strategies, rules, or restraints. One that emerged from Adrian\u2019s guitar as\n\u201chis\u201d composition seemed to be less easy to \u201cCrimsonify,\u201d the process of\nstamping some sort of collective identity on it. Adrian\u2019s songs were always\nhighly personal, despite (or because of) the fact that he often had to write\nunder a great degree of pressure. The instrumental components of the piece\nmight not have settled till almost the end of the session, leaving Adrian to\nfinish melody and lyrics at the eleventh hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think the rules and restraints approach to collaborative music making necessarily requires great confidence and mastery of one\u2019s instrument?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, both would\nbe helpful. An ability to play things a different way, to offer an alternative\non the turn of a dime, while accommodating and balancing the demands of the\nother participants, demands a degree of confidence. One of the endearing faults\nof popular-music small groups is that all the musicians tend to play all the\ntime, for understandable reasons. It\u2019s hard to stand around under a blaze of super-trouper\nspotlights and do nothing, trust me. \u201cLaying out\u201d though, is a particularly\neffective music strategy with lots of consequences, generally welcomed by\nco-performers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think the rules and restraints approach could be used as a way of \u201clowering the bar\u201d (i.e., matching skill level to challenge) so that novices can make music together effectively? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An excellent idea\nthat I think that would be entirely fruitful. One might say that one current\nrule in rap or hip-hop might be to avoid (or at least background) music harmony.\nThe removal of such a foundational and advanced component of traditional\nWestern music making throws light on those remaining, in particular, rhythm and\ntimbre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

REFERENCES:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apter, M. J.\n(1991). A structural phenomenology of play. In J. H. Kerr & M. J. Apter <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Eds.), Adult\nplay: A reversal theory approach <\/em>(pp. 13-29). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Swets\n& Zeitlinger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruford, B. (2018). Uncharted: Creativity and the expert drummer. <\/em>Ann\nArbor, MI: University of Michigan Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruford, B.\n(2015). Making it work: Creative\nmusic performance and the Western kit drummer. <\/em>(Doctoral dissertation)\nUniversity of Surrey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruford.\n(2009). Bill Bruford: The autobiography<\/em>. London, England: Jawbone Press.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of\ndiscovery and invention<\/em>. New York, NY: Harper Collins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: the psychology of optimal\nexperience.<\/em> New York, NY: Harper and Row. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). Society, culture and person: A systems\nview of creativity. In R. Sternberg (ed.) The\nnature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives <\/em>(pp. 325\u201339).\nNew York, NY: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Csikszentmihalyi,\nM. (1979). The concept of flow. In B. Sutton-Smith (Ed.), Play and learning <\/em>(pp.\n257-274). New York, NY: Gardner Press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience<\/em>. New York, NY: Penguin\nBooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lieberman, J.\nN. (1977). Playfulness: Its relationship to imagination and creativity<\/em>.\nNew York, NY: Academic Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sutton-Smith, B. (1979). Play and learning<\/em>. New\nYork, NY: Gardner Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamm, E. (1990). Robert\nFripp: From King Crimson to guitar craft<\/em>. Boston, MA: Faber and Faber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DISCOGRAPHY: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

King\nCrimson. (1981). The Sheltering Sky On Discipline. <\/em>[Vinyl album]. London, England: EG Records. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

King\nCrimson. (1984a). Industry On Three of a perfect pair. <\/em>[Vinyl album]. London, England: EG Records. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Crimson. (1984b). No Warning On Three\nof a perfect pair.<\/em> <\/em>[Vinyl\nalbum]. London, England: EG Records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. (1972) Close\nto the Edge On Close to the Edge.<\/em>[Vinyl album]. London, England: Atlantic\nRecords.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the aims of recording popular music over the years has been to capture \u201clightning in a bottle.\u201d It\u2019s a phrase that so eloquently illustrates the paradoxical nature of reconciling control and chaos in popular-music making. Ever since \u201cRock \u2018n\u2019 Roll\u201d records first hit the airwaves in the mid 1950s there has been an ongoing power struggle between those that would have popular music more controlled and those that would have it more chaotic. In fact, it\u2019s a balance that needs to be negotiated each and every time popular musicians and technicians attempt to work together (either explicitly or tacitly \u2013 and nowhere less than in the recording studio). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[439,440,441,445],"class_list":["post-3763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-editorials-provocations","tag-bill-bruford","tag-drummers","tag-drums","tag-king-crimson","author-dr-marshall-heiser"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3763"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3863,"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3763\/revisions\/3863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arpjournal.com\/asarpwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}