brettworks

(Photo: J.S. Bach’s sketch
for the first prelude of The Well-Tempered Clavier)

Version 1.0 of a track feels the most unsettled because you don’t know where you’re going with it yet; it’s still too new. What is this musical thing? This state of feeling is exemplified by improvising. When you improvise you’re making it up as you go along, noticing connections in the passing moment between all that you’ve ever heard, what you just played, and what you might play next. In some improvisations you find sounds you couldn’t have imagined beforehand, in others you struggle to get your bearings. But every improvisation is a valuable wayfaring that’s full of potential, its curiosities and expression flexes suggesting ideas you didn’t know you had until you played them.

Version 1.0 is a capture of a musical improvisation’s energy.
This energy is directly proportional to your not quite knowing what was happening as it was happening. Not quite knowing is key because it keeps you open, and improvising is the thoughtful play by which musicians maintain an open state by welcoming surprises and responding to them with pluck. This encounter creates an audible tension, a seeking energy. You can hear it when a musician’s playing optimizes for interestingness–it’s not programmed, it flows. Version 1.0 captures this energy and interestingness. It’s a gist that contains all one needs to grow music because clues for what might come next are tacit in what already is. In sum, work fast and free to build a Version 1.0 of a track whose parts and patterns and rhythms and structures you’ll refine and build upon.