For the track Maximal Techno as part of minmax, I was following ideas outside of bona fide minimal techno. Like a very slow piece on electric bass guitar accompanied by a normal techno bass drum.
How to do that? Sometimes, Cage is the answer.
Improvised ASLSP for Bass Guitar
Cage’s 1985 composition ASLSP for piano is a pretty normally written piece, at least by Cage standards. What sets it apart is the guidance that each note, each sounds shall be played until it has completely decayed. Which makes it slow. As Slow as Possible.
Now you could do that on any type of instrument where the notes decay. Like, on a plucked string instrument. I opted for the Tune Gap 6 bass guitar that has a somewhat odd A-E-B-F#-D-A tuning.
But differently to the Cage thing, why not do a free improvisation?
Improvising very slowly
I opted to kick it off with a progression of arpeggiated chords that work well on said bass guitar. Bm7, B7, G9, D7. The duration for those four chords? Almost three minutes.
I then went on to play mostly monophonic lines. Which was an interesting experience. While you have all the time in the world to think about what to play next (with every note lasting more than 30 seconds), you somehow lose the feel how a melody works, as even a short one will last several minutes.
Musical value? Let’s see how it sounds once it received the factor 64 time compression treatment to be used for Maximal Techno!
