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How Many Is Too Many? Pt.2

I promised 6 years (seems like a lifetime!) ago I'd come back to this topic. I'll approach it this time by giving a brief summary of how I've approached roles in the music in CBS. As ever, welcome your thoughts coldbathstreet7@gmail.com.

Over the years we've had different lineups all loosely based around pop/rock conventions - drums, bass, guitar, keys and vocal. The band has varied in size, so sometimes we've had two drummers. two keys, two bass players, multiple guitarists etc. For me, and we are talking about personal taste here, it's what I've got used to hearing, so that makes it sound right... right? In most cases, multiple players using the same instrument is absolutely fine as long as everybody is listening. The only place it really hasn't worked out, despite best efforts, is with the bass playing. For some reason it really just needs to be one person undertaking this role at a time. Why is this...? Conventional expectations again...?


So what do these instruments play? I've always encouraged CBS to improvise using both the conventions of 'regular' music and also to be 'experimental'… and 'all points in between' or course! Gosh, you could go on about those terms for a long time, but let's not… To play roles in the regular stuff you need to have a traditional understanding of how music works. Yes, that's right, it's that composition and arrangement thing that you did at school a million years ago… but you apply those techniques in the moment of improvisation when you hear 'what the music needs' (Borgo et al.) That, surprisingly, has been the bit people have often 'got it wrong' (can you get it wrong?) Studying other people's C&A also tells you what your instruments are normally going to do... what they might or are expected to do... of course, you don't have to obey those expectations :)


Try these four grossly over-simplified conventional roles for starters - then mess with them:

Percussion

Bass

Mid-range inc.chords

Melody/Lead


Then there is the experimental part... again a whole thick & subjective book. Briefly for me, all the players must be listening and thinking 'what does this sound environment want putting in it'? or 'where could this go'? Roles do still exist, but who takes them and if/when they change is much less certain. Everyone should be working with their instrument as a sound creating source, not just as a 'bass' or 'piano' but as a potent sonic contributor, able to make a wide range of contributions. Of course, not playing is high on the possibility list. For both regular and experimental roles you listen to some stuff, you pickup some ideas and then when you try them, you don't quite do them the same way, or they sound very different when introduced in another environment. Gradually you develop your own practice, your own musical personality (individual and group) starts come out of it etc.


Back to the numbers - We did play for a while as a large group, this could make a big thick texture but generally needed lots of restraint and general ego-swallowing. It works great for some groups, particularly from what I've heard/done when there is some amount of direction or preset structure involved. A big group can easily do things like changing the sound quite radically or generate a luxuriously thick wall of sound to disappear into. Ultimately though, for me, the better improvising that CBS have done - where communication, listening and development of interesting content - magical musical places - where the whole is much more than the sum of its parts - have been in the smaller group sessions, where the group are light on their feet and can easily move the music. Ideally four or five players (to keep the option of thicker textures available). It's where everyone can hear (and see) each other and can pickup changes, ideas, nuances in the other peoples playing. They can make contributions/statements themselves and know they will be listened to heard and interacted with.


How many is too many? For me in CBS, four or five if everyone wants to play a lot, six if people are stepping out as well as in and playing more selectively.

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