SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION: cello edition

Last night I skipped out on an As You Like It rehearsal to attend a performance by Zoë Keating.

If you don’t know who Zoë Keating is, you should. She is a solo cellist who plays all the music you hear by looping the bits and pieces, in and out, in a dizzying array of skill.

Start here.

I could now stop writing this post, because if you listen to the piece above (her closer at her shows), you won’t be back as you pursue Keating’s amazing stuff.

For those of you still with me, here’s the Lichtenbergian point: Keating plays with these sounds, adding layer after layer, dropping some out, bringing others back, in a kaleidoscope of music. Every time she plays a piece, there are apt to be changes to it, she says, as she listens and responds to her own improvisation. This is SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION as art.

We watched her do it in real time for her encore. She told us she likes to end her shows these days with a real improvisation, one that might turn into something later or might crash and burn. I could not tell you how long she played; there was no time as we watched/listened to the piece grow and shrink and come together and fly apart. Finally it seemed to come undone and she laughingly stopped — I still wanted more.

With your art, your writing, your music, your gardening: loop back through; listen to what’s already there; make a choice (GESTALT); add/subtract as necessary.

Make your process part of your art.

Or, like Zoë Keating, make your process your art.