Welcome to issue #14 of Tape Op.

In 1995, I had my first opportunity to try a musical experiment I'd been concocting in my head for a good 10 years. In short, the idea was merely to record some improvised music. In long, it's been an attempt to create a situation in which a group of musicians spontaneously write and perform pieces of music that sound like they were preconceived and/or prewritten. It is the antithesis of "jamming." It's composition. Needless to say, it's been an elusive prize to create and capture. Each session (I've done 14 so far) has been recorded onto an ADAT or two. One nice thing about this medium for this situation is that I can let tape run almost the whole session without worrying about tape costs adding up. Afterwards, I can mix the whole thing down and try to push and pull a little more coherence out of it. Eventually, I'll probably end up dissecting some of these things in a digital editing program. But my hope is to not have to-for it to happen the way I want it to while we are performing live. A big part of these sessions is their preparation. You have to plan where to do it, who to invite, what instruments to use, where they're going to be positioned, and what mics to use. On top of that, making sure you have enough recording tape, snacks and beer is not to be overlooked. The goal of being prepared is to make it seem NOT like a recording session. People love to stroll on in and just start playing with a minimum of fuss. Each time I do one of these improv sessions, I learn something new. And that knowledge is then applied to the next one. I make notes, draw diagrams, and take pictures to help me remember the details. In this Recording Recipes, I'm going to go through the first seven of these sessions and list out what ingredients went into them and what the results tasted like. Regardless of whether or not you're into this kind of music, there's definitely tips and tricks that can be gleaned and applied to where you need them.