- Part of 'A topology of musical encounter' (summary) -
The many possibilities in connecting musicians with unique skills and knowledge might behold an enormous potential. My intention is to create more space for this coming together of musical collectives in our time. What I propose is the creation of a new type of musical laboratory where these connections can be established continuously, where they can be observed and researched in real life. Not every connection will lead to a great revelation and musical collaboration needs a laboratory to fail as well. Failure is as essential in this creative process as success. Participating musicians need a sounding experience to learn about new musical possibilities and as well develop creative solutions for apparent oppositions. This knowledge cannot be formulated beforehand and studied theoretically. It requires the real time sounding experience of the collective to internalize new visions.
To operate such a development on a large and influential scale, it requires leadership and guidance to a certain path that can be followed afterward by others, change in course or all together turn back. The importance of it is not the ‘rightness’ of the direction, but the fact that there is a path. Initiating this process is not an easy task, and requires delicate and careful guidance. It comes close to the work of a curator or concert-programmer -who structures a new collective from existing works therewith highlighting his view on their connections and differences- combined with the skills of a dating-expert who creates profiles of one’s characteristics and preferences and matches people on the basis of these self-reflections. This role I call the musical mediator, someone who can initiate a collaboration on solid grounds and has the skills to guide the expedition into the yet unknown collective space. It is a role that will suit a specific type of composers very well, but as well adventurous musicians, possibly creating collaborative realities around their own individualistics.
A clear distinction has to be made whether the mediator interprets the musicians individualistic, or starts with an abstract idea, a conceptual topic, and searches for musicians that fit this idea according to their individualistic. In the first case it will be a more concrete basis, since we have gained knowledge about the musicians point of view and found this individualistic to be fertile and interesting, or maybe we immediately recognize connections with others. This seems a more natural and less complex way of structuring an idea than the abstract approach. In that case there is just the concept and no concrete reality of musicians yet that fit this idea. It is a possibility that doesn’t need rejection beforehand, and in a certain case one can imagine the two approaches can sort of come to existence together at once. Clearly, the musical encounter that I imagine tends towards a personal approach, and therefore a more modest position for the mediator’s artistic conception.
More important is an intelligent facilitating of the mediator in the formation of encounter. When we start to use individualistics to form new collectives the possibilities seem infinite at first. Theoretically speaking they are indeed endless, but there are many considerations we have to take into account when we become creators of collective realities. Let us not confuse ‘infinite possibilities’ with ‘random choices’. Using an individualistic to bring together musicians requires a crystal-clear focus on the connective element that is chosen and a thorough insight of its position in the personal reality of the individual musicians. This is where the vision of the musical mediator is most urgent. Compare the task of the mediator to a composer sitting down in front of his empty piece of paper. To be able to compose one needs to have at least an overview, meaning no more than knowing where and how to start and how to continue. For the mediator of musical encounter, the choice for an individualistic is this starting point that has to be preceded by a clear intention what to search for, and followed by a growing conviction what will be found.
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