Where do you see the threshold towards too much complexity? or: When is it too little control?

see the answer above - depends on the size of the ensemble. Of course, also on the music - in a fast-reaction context such as the british improv style you may want to react in a more precise and quick way.

7.) While you perform how and in what terms do you "think"?

e.g. are you using the formalized terms of your computer setup (e.g.

envelope attack-decay-sustain-release times or filter freq and resonance or playbackspeed of sample etc) or more traditional musical terms (e.g.

intervals, transposition, variation etc)?

I don't think in technical terms, and I also don't think in terms of pitch. "Variation" is a good one, though, because sometimes I come back to a previous idea and play a variation of it. I mainly think in terms of form, and dynamic changes.

Another issue is frequency - you want to stay out of the frequency ranges of the other players.

8.) What role(s) do you (the performer) take on and what role(s) does the computer play? collaborator, mediator, input generator, improviser, (real- time) composer, mimicker, challenger or other (please describe)

Well, in any case it's me who is performing, and the computer is more or less commenting on me? I would like to say that we could be equal, but in fact the computer can't continue if I don't want it to do so.

9.) Do these rolesets change? when and how? perhaps give an example of a situation or a group setting which changed particular ways of playing your setup

I can't remember any, although I am sure that in the beginning there were many changes that came by playing with different kinds of players.

10.) More generally: For a digital/electronic improviser what skills and attributes do you consider to be essential?

Probably the same as if you'd play the clarinet. Plus, since we can inhibit all the frequency bands, I am looking for sensible players who understand how to play in a transparent way, and stay out of other's bands.

What potential and advantages do you see for using a computer?

I am not so interested in the part where the computer just saves time and weight. Interactivity is something the computer can really bring to the performance.

in other words: can you conceptualize your practitioners experience? how much of this is in fluenced by your personal performance style and

knowledge of playing particular instruments (the guitar)?

Everything. It grew out of a 10 year performance practice, and was an extension of it. It could also be said that my personal approach to music is still the same, this could probably be demonstrated in my chamber orchestra works, electronic orchestra works, and other non-guitar projects as well.

11.) Is it important for the audience to understand how you are creating the performance for them to understand/enjoy/appreciate it?

No. Nice to have sometimes, but not important.

This is not concept art, in which the concept is more important than the actual art work. If the music sucks I do not want to know how it is done. If the music is great, I don't need to know it.

7.5. Notes and Memos from Developing the Practice (on Technospätzle)

(August 2015, unedited original)

These rehearsals are more interesting than the actual concert, as they reveal the process how things evolved and how things were tried out. (as tom mentioned in the conversation: he took the course of some rehearsals to develop his particular “mixing desk technique” for performing). In the same way, did I try out different things.

My emotional involvement in the music is visible only very momentarily. Generally I am very much tunneled to my laptop screen. Whereas tom is very active operating his different devices in front of him. I am less doing so.

Insights from the playing (fully only after the project).

You need volume control at your hands, for every channel! This thought comes from the fact, that we wanted to be able to quickly transit from one thing to the other. As described below: this goes against the idea of navigating in indirect manner. But you want to be able quickly turn. Yet, then just like in sailing you need to prepare a few things, some necessary steps, before you can make the turn. Its not a simple turn. Wheras in traditional instrument, you simply stop moving or blowing. Its a simple, intuitive and fast action. Here, with machines, you need to prepare such quick transitions. And I did not do this in the beginning.

Then over the course of some rehearsals, material was collected. Now you wanted to be able to quickly execute those materials, so you would need a pool to which you had quick access. So I built a structure for that. In SuperCollider, this was a dictionary. From this arose a secondary problem: All entries to the dictionary needed to be uniform. They would have a name and a content. Now you needed to be able to remember them only by name and then know what lies behind the name to put them into the corresponding function, e.g. a pattern rhythm, a melody line, a filter function etc. This posed a challenge to my ability of memorizing things by names only. Clearly there are easier ways or assistive functions to remember things by names. It's a) a question of practice and memory, just like any vocabulary practice, and b) a question of clear and consistent naming – something which I am not good at, as this means, you need systematic naming. Because names are in this case symbols. So they point to their actual meaning, to what they refer to. For a particular c o n t e n t a n y n u m b e r o f s y m b o l s i s p o s s i b l e b u t i n p r a c t i c e o n l y o n e k i n d f e a s i b l e . These are some of the pitfalls of code design in development. And usually this goes very quickly in rehearsals. Hardly anyone spends many hours at home optimizing these insights after the session.

Same for effects: They need to be at hands for channel. Ideally.

In this project The code base grew bigger and bigger. Not necessary to my liking as it makes things more complicated for startup and more buggy, less error-prone.

But I threw in more and more modules. So there was the MasterFX Quark which seemed a handy way to find a wrapped