Search - percussion and W.A. Mathieu, piano George Marsh :: Game/No Game - 21 Improvisations

Game No Game George Marsh & W. A. Mathieu Percussion Piano 21 Improvisations Viola Spolin characterized the original theater games she introduced as "?a timeless moment when all are mutually engaged in experience. You don't know what's going to happen, and that's where the joy is, the everlasting spiral." In the 1950s, as theater games emerged in the culture, artists were learning a new definition of the present, which seemed limitless and beckoning. By 1970, free improvisation was in the air, and game playing was well on its way to becoming a standard training method for both actors and musicians internationally. Meanwhile George and I have had four decades of collaboration to develop our work and trust. Game/No Game, recorded between 1999 and 2002, represents not so much the games themselves as their end result: the musical mutuality that games engender. When George and I play together we tend to hear compositionally, that is, we try to weave coherent stories told through musical ideas. Surface texture, which is like the atmosphere of a story, does arise, of course, but strictly musical ideas drive the narrative from the inside. This means remembering (as best we can) what we've been playing. Consequently the pieces are short, typically three or four minutes. In the table of contents on the next panel, we've numbered the pieces, but left them untitled because no matter how hard we try to find names for them, for us they remain simply pieces that sound the way they sound.