Hello! & Thank you for choosing FLEXIBLE TIGERS!
- What is it?
F.T. (Flexible Tigers) is a machine composed of 7 4-track tape recorders, some cables & 4 pre-recorded tapes.
Looks like this:
- What's it sound like?
Well, F.T. can produce any sound, because of the nature of tape. You'll probably hear some hiss, too, regardless of what else you hear. You'll have to live with that.
- More on what it sounds like
Any sound, huh? This sounds like another brutal evening of horrendous noise, brought to you by TBW! personnel...Well, since I'm so fond of horrendous noise, you'll probably hear a bit of it. But this piece - cleverly titled, "F.T. Script #1" - is "composed" (or, rather, scripted) in such a way that that's not exactly supposed to happen. What should happen, is that you'll hear some funny parts, some disturbing parts, some quiet parts, some loud parts, some disjointed parts, some funky parts & maybe, if you listen hard, you'll hear some knock-knock jokes.
- Ok for now. How DO Flexible Tigers work?
Ok. Refer to the F.T. schematic. A/B & Y/Z compose 2 teams of two. A can only hear the output of B, B of A. Y of Z & Z of Y. A/B & Y/Z are (all 4) each responsible for the tapes in their own 4-trax & (hopefully) keep time sheets of their own output so they will pretty much know what they're sending to their teammates. Based on what they hear & what they have placed on tape, each team mixes their own output. It is sent "ahead" (i.e., to 2 & 3) where it is remixed (with the added knowledge of the current house sound).
2 & 3 send their output to 1, where it is remixed one more time for the house.
- Uh...ok, why?
I thought you'd never ask! There's a couple things on my agenda:
1) Within an improvisational context, I love the idea of not being necessary (personally) to the process to make the process work. (You might note that this is a theme in the movie, The Glenn Miller Story. A fav of my mom.) F.T. are modular, replaceable & can be made to behave (hopefully) in such a way that one can, to the extent one wants, control the production & arrangement of the sounds on tape, yet is still fundermentally (to my way of thinking) improvisational. This leads us to my 2nd goal.
2) It is "improvisational" in that the composition & execution of the music are spontaneous & simultaneous. But, there is complete separation (in terms of personnel) of these two roles. It is then, a sort of opposite of "normal" improvisational infrastructures, where the spontaneous composition & execution are simultaneous because they're in the brain, hands & lungs of the same individual.
Because A/B & Y/Z can't hear each other, nor the house, their outputs, taken together, can be regarded as spontaneous, then to 1, 2 & 3, where it is (from the perspective of A/B & Y/Z), simultaneous to its production (i.e., its composition), immediately executed (in terms of an arrangement). It's entirely possible that this is not a terrific leap forward for improvised music, but it's the sort of thing I get-off on, ok?
- So how scripted is this?
This piece (F.T. Script #1) is not very scripted. A/B & Y/Z were presented with one filled time sheet (mine), & also have various instructions like "In minute 18, tell a knock-knock joke on one of yer tracks," or "gimme a backbeat about 120BPM at minute 5" or somesuch, & the mixers (1, 2 & 3) have instructions like "at minute 18, listen for a knock-knock joke from Y & try to get it in the mix. If you hear it, turn up trax 1 & 3 on 1, if you don't, at minute 19 put everything to the left for a few seconds." Large chunks of time are unscripted for both "composers" & "executors." Mostly, I just tried to sketch out various musical terrains so the whole thing doesn't sound all like a bunch of racket neither all like some dreadful minimalist composition, nor a techno dance record, while working in some thematic material that I'm into lately (Glenn Miller, Formula One racing, stuff like that). You can think of this as a listing of possibilities for future compositions that are more thematically concise. By scripting for both composers & executors, one can exercise a fair amount of compositional control while still being fairly unobtrusive.
One default rule seems to be developing as a nod to the improvisational natures of the personnel manning A/B & Y/Z. That is that the scripter can only make demands on 3 of the 4 trax of each composer. This not only further empowers A/B & Y/Z as improvisational entities (from the perspective of the scripter), but it also allows the composers to keep a time track for scripting, (while they are then free to record over).
- Am I gonna like this?
Hell yeah! In fact, since it'd be pretty dull to watch 7 people twiddle knobs for 20 minutes, we're running video material for you to watch. Dang thoughtful of us, if you ask me...
[Tony]
