Author: Jacob Lindsay
Description: Jacob's Manifesto on Improvisation

JACOB'S MUSICAL MANIFESTO:

Leo Smith says "There are only two things in music: the known and the unkown. You start with the known and move to the unknown."

and Braxton says "To enter the world of my titles, so far as - what is that? We can't even deal with that right now, believe me. Let's say it's nonsense that Braxton has developed...it's a system - half of which is understood...This information [my mystical feelings and beliefs with respect to forces and forms, etc.] is not even something I can begin to talk about. Fortunately I don't even know it."

and Cecil said to Lacy "Never mind things, go for the thing."

and Lacy said "You have to work a lot in the dark when you're young...You have to follow your inspiration, your appetite, your bent, your ear, what interests you, what you like."

So I am in the dark. I follow my appetite, ear, interests...into the unknown...in search of the thing. I never want my music to be known, only half of it. If I find the rest of it then I will go looking for something else.

I am responsible for taking the listener along but they follow at their own risk. If I give them the information then they will not be as well off as if they had found it themselves. By following me, they might learn from what I do: what to do or what not to do; either way something is gained.

3 things I need to wake up in the morning: water, coffee, music.

Some music can physically open the mind, like sticking your head under hot water.

Some music will make you think deeper thoughts.

"The starting point is my desire to live - that is to do, to create something, with my hands and with my head."

"One of the basic questions...for me is how to produce interesting sounds and what I can do with them."

-Iannis Xenakis

If I sock you in the mouth, then that is something.

If I cook you pork chops, then that is something also.

Sometimes I listen to some music and I think "What the fuck is going on here? I don't understand. I don't know if this is good or awful." This is my favorite, because it means that a new door has been opened and that I might learn something new, what to do, what not to do; either way something is gained.

I hope someone will scratch their head when I play and say "What the fuck?"

I hope I will scratch my own head when I play and say "What the fuck?"

I hope we understand no more than half of what has happened.

Like Lacy, I think that the most interesting music is made from very unpromising materials. No one has looked under this rock because it is small and dirty. I will look under the rock.

Don't try to make the rock big and clean. It is not. It is small and dirty. This is it's value. Everything has value. Let a sound be itself (but also in the words of Prevost "No Sound Is Innocent"). Figure out what the possibilites are. Be obvious. Notice what is here. If something is not here then don't pretend it is. Leo: "A duet is two people playing together. Some people think there is something missing, but there isn't." Don't ask the
rock to play clarinet: It's a rock. Don't ask the clarinet player to be a rock: He thinks too much and could never be so graceful.

[This is the beginning of the first part of the manifesto. It is a work in progress and is subject to change without notice. The second part of the manifesto is unknown.]

Postscript: "Let's say it's nonsense that [Jacob] has developed."