Bill Bruford’s Earthworks - The Wooden Man Sings And The Stone Woman Dances (Footloose in NYC)

Here we’ve got a note-perfect Patrick Clahar on soprano, Steve Hamilton on piano, Mark Hodgson on bass and myself on drums, taped in 2001. The piece has prog-jazz characteristics, with several sections, counter-melodies, meters, moods, and interaction. So, what is all this talk of ‘interaction’ in music that for many musicians is the staff of life? Look at it this way. You’re a medium-standard drummer. You can play a part with other people. Sometimes these parts are quite complex, but they never change. If the keyboard player goes for a curry, your performance of your part won’t change. But if the singer re-interprets the song from a shout down to a whisper, you might get quieter too. You’ve noticed. Something has happened, your part has changed. In a simple and direct way, you’ve interacted spontaneously and in real time, and changed the music. Heck, you’re practically playing jazz. On some level, just playing your simple beat along with anyone may be seen as a form of interaction, but a rather low-grade one. Just speaking to someone is an extremely sophisticated form of human interaction. But if your response is contingent upon what’s just been said, and causes you to reconsider your position, you may want to - or have to - improvise your next utterance. Now you’re off the interactive scale. Similar with music. I can serve up a repetitive, surprise-no-one, dynamically unchanging beat, and stick to it like glue, head down, brow furrowed. I could alternatively get my head up, start with something that motivates others, which will in turn motivate me – while being prepared to change it or abandon it altogether as the spirit moves. We’re interacting. And it’s fast. Hours of technical practice have given you the technical facility to play whatever you want to hear, so the skill now becomes knowing what is appropriate to play in any given situation. If your playing with a good saxophonist, like Iain Ballamy or Tim Garland, there is no perceptible time delay between him hearing the note in his head and generating it from the instrument. It’s years of practice. In conversation, you don’t have to think where you lips and tongue and teeth are going to go, in order to say the next word; it’s automatic, it’s years of practice. The idea comes into your head and can be instantly communicated. Sometimes saxophonists, like poor conversationalists, should take the instrument out of the mouth. We musicians don’t have to play everything we hear. For the popular music instrumentalist, much of what is to be performed requires no interaction – indeed actively avoids the idea. You want to do that, you cross a line and go to the House of Jazz, in this case the Bottom Line in NYC, where you will find a small but devoted bunch of active listeners, who still expect and demand that bands like Earthworks provide something unique to them, that the band didn’t do last night or the night before, and that will stir the soul and raise the spirits. That typically involve musical interaction. #billbruford #improvisationmusic #paistecymbals #tamadrums #musicimprov #drumsolos #jazzdrums #jazzdrummer #jazzmusic