Ep13 Cello improv & Metamorphosis - Ben Roberts

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Luke 00:00:06  Welcome to the Info Pod podcast. Today my guest is Ben Roberts. Hello. So you are a cello player?

Ben 00:00:13  I am primarily a cellist. Yeah.

Luke 00:00:17  So what's your relationship with improvisation? Do you improvise a lot?

Ben 00:00:20  I did great classical training since a teenager. Really. I've played with bands, which has involved a degree of improvisation, but often that tends to be applying theory like, okay, it's G and C and D, I'll play G and C and D, and I know what notes go in those chords, and so I just keep it fairly safe. But over the years I've got a little bit more adventurous. And more recently I've been doing quite a lot of really free form improvisation, not regarding any particular rules. And I like to get creative with the way I play. So what noises can I make on the cello beyond just plucking or bowing the strings? Drinks. I've been doing work with film makers and dancers and art galleries and responding to what I think a picture might sound like.

Ben 00:01:09  And particularly I play acoustic cello, but I also play electric cello and have a bunch of pedals so I can create loops and soundscapes. And so building up pictures and collages in that way has helped me to express the cello in a really different way. I still play classical music, I play with orchestras, string quartets, and I do solo performance as a classical music as well. So it's not like I threw one out of the window and decided I'm going to do improv now. But yeah, so it's been a much more organic transition.

Luke 00:01:42  So I'm going to play a piece of music, and I want you to tell me what that makes you think of. So don't overthink it. Just anything that comes to mind. It's too.

Ben 00:01:52  Late. I've already overthought it.

Luke 00:02:54  So what did you think of that?

Ben 00:02:56  I love how music goes on a journey in such a short space of time. It started out as, I think, a late night New York jazzy kind of vibe, like it was a down and out thing, or it was somebody who was down on their luck, rather.

Ben 00:03:11  But it went on a montage of liberation in a way. The times with the arpeggios, it felt like somebody was out on a jog or something, but as a metaphor of an industrious time of creativity here that seemed to then resolve into an arrival at the end that altogether more wholesome and positive picture.

Luke 00:03:39  When I'm playing, I'm not thinking about anything. Really. Yeah. So occasionally something will come into my mind and I think, oh, that's interesting. That reminds me a bit of this. Most of the time when I'm playing, it's a blank canvas. I'm not necessarily going for visual imagery.

Ben 00:03:55  No, I totally hear you.

Luke 00:03:57  So if I was to ask you to reflect some of that journey on the cello. Do you think you could do that?

Ben 00:04:03  Yeah, of course. I'll have a.

Luke 00:04:04  Go. Just to reiterate, you're talking about the New York kind of down and out vibe, and then that resolves someone finds their way. So if you wanted to give that a go on a cello, let's see what I can take as much time as you like.

Luke 00:04:19  Oh.

Ben 00:05:50  Did you get the same journey?

Luke 00:05:53  I definitely got the sense of the cool kind of New York vibe with the the pizzicato. Yeah. Doom. And you could even imagine like a drum going.

Ben 00:06:04  Yeah, I was hearing that.

Luke 00:06:05  And then I got the sense of it becoming more abstract. Maybe there's a bit more self-expression.

Ben 00:06:11  So that's really interesting because I was just thinking the difference between what you were playing and what I was playing is that you were thinking of nothing, whereas I was trying to tell a story that already existed. In that regard, my ability as a performer for self-expression felt, like constrained then. I'm aware of that as I'm performing and I'm like, just, just go with it. I even had that internal dialogue myself. Well, remember, there was that story in that journey that you're supposed to be going on, but at the same time, it's just what feels like it's going to work as well.

Luke 00:06:48  We could try something just straight from scratch, like I was doing, if you'd like.

Luke 00:06:51  And I could tell you what that makes me think of. I mean, sometimes I don't have a particularly visual imagination for music. We could give a go. Sure.

Ben 00:07:00  Do you want me to improvise something. Okay.

Luke 00:07:44  And. Oh. That's great. So what? I got was there's this lizard and he's just hanging around and he's pretty happy being a lizard. And then there's this process of metamorphosis, and he starts wandering where he's got strange things happening with his scales, and he's feeling a bit anxious about this. And then he he grows these wings as he progresses and suddenly flourishes into this flying lizard, I guess.

Ben 00:08:29  Oh, man. Good vision. I can't even remember what I played. Yeah, I'm not trying to relate back. I'm like, what bit was that? That gave that impression? I can't even remember what I did. Cool.

Luke 00:08:46  So you are for telling me a story. Okay.

Ben 00:08:49  I've got this really strong vision of a particular character. I realized, just riffing off that same theme of metamorphosis, actually, that have been in both of our stories.

Ben 00:09:00  An old man with a huge trench coat, and he's carrying his life in bags on his back and pots and pans hanging off of him, and he can't really see any of his body because it's all buried under his stuff. And he's walking down a path to the beach. That's where he feels at home, and he just takes all of his stuff off and sheds all of his load, and is suddenly like a surprisingly sprightly, athletic character who can run and swim and be with nature and be completely full of life.

Luke 00:09:34  All right, here we go. So what do you make of that? Oh that's.

Ben 00:11:01  Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. It told the story exactly as I imagined it. The kind of crooked, burdensome walking at the beginning and then dawning of realization. Oh, yeah. My life's a beach right now.

Luke 00:11:15  So all I was thinking about was the way he was walking. Guy. Who's you got the dissonance of that. And then there's quite a clumsy rhythm that goes with it. I tried to get the sense of transition when he discovers the beach and include the movement of the waves with those kind of arpeggios that it's moving in and out, kind of the waves were calm day and then his sense of liberation, if you like, when he's running across the beach, transforms.

Ben 00:11:46  Yeah. And then suddenly it's something that feels like it's no longer jarring. It's very easy for natural, like, the resistance isn't there anymore.

Luke 00:11:56  Would you like to play on the cello that that story?

Ben 00:12:00  Sure.

Luke 00:12:01  Because I'd be interested to see what you come up with. All right. Yeah. Nice. I've really got the sense of age there, especially to begin with that he's old. There's something to do with the texture of the thing you're playing as well.

Ben 00:13:41  Yeah, it's an old instrument and it kind of sounds like it, but also like it was hard work. These aren't quite the right notes. And this is like, oh God, I'm trying to play the right notes, but they're not quite. It should have been like. But it was like this really crooked kind. It's difficult. The quality of the sound isn't as rich and vibrant as I know it could be.

Luke 00:14:10  Interesting. All right. And then there's this sense of soaring. Wendy transformed. So you are telling me another story.

Ben 00:14:24  Okay, I will tell a story of a toy chicken. Not a rubber chicken. Like, you know, the little wind up ones. It doesn't really feel like it gets much use anymore. And he's feeling concerned that it's because he's purple. He is struggling with this identity crisis until he overhears a conversation between his owner and the kid's friend, where this child is talking about how much he loves his purple chicken and he doesn't know where he's gone. And it's because the chicken realizes he's been hiding. He's like, really invigorated by this news that actually he wasn't forgotten and disliked all along, that actually he wants to celebrate his purple ness and his realness. So he puts on a big performance and they're reunited.

Luke 00:15:16  Wow.

Luke 00:15:18  Why did that come?

Ben 00:15:20  Did I write it was I improvised the story. I didn't know where that was going to start.

Luke 00:15:24  I mean, how do you write a theme for a purple purple chicken chicken theme with an identity crisis?

Luke 00:15:30  Yeah.

Luke 00:15:32  I should bring up Head of Music and Pixar and ask him on his thoughts on this.

Luke 00:15:37  So you were talking about a story of acceptance or self-acceptance in fact.

Ben 00:15:43  And self-doubt and an insecurity. Yeah, it probably starts in a place that is a little bit lost and wary, but in a chick anyway.

Luke 00:15:52  I've got a very distinctive way of moving around a chicken.

Ben 00:15:55  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is a very strutting kind of thing. They're like quite cautious animals. They have to be quite flighty, don't they? They're like, escape from the fox. It almost seems like they're constantly a little bit on edge. Maybe. Anyway.

Luke 00:16:09  I'm gonna try taking a kind of bluesy.

Ben 00:16:12  Right. It's a blue. It's a blue chicken. Yeah.

Ben 00:17:54  Yeah, they're friends again.

Luke 00:18:00  As by far the most obscure story with a thing, but yeah. Did you feel that was effective? And I felt if this was a film or something about this chicken, maybe it was Pixar thing to use a bluesy feel might be kind of a fun idea. Yeah, I.

Ben 00:18:15  Think it gave it a really relatable sound.

Luke 00:18:18  I mean, did you feel there was a sense of transformation there?

Ben 00:18:21  Well, there was over the whole scope of it, like it wasn't. They didn't feel like there was a particular moment necessarily. It was more of a gradual transition than that into a happier state. Again.

Speaker 6 00:18:33  Yeah.

Luke 00:18:39  I think one last story then.

Ben 00:18:42  I have a son who is nearly five, and we are going to all sorts of birthday parties all the time at the moment. We went to one, a soft play a little while ago. And I don't know if you're familiar with these places, but they're like incredible for children and kind of challenging for parents because they can be very overwhelming, overstimulating environments, usually in some great big metal shed with quite bad coffee. So I wasn't necessarily looking forward to this. I've been microdosing with magic mushrooms recently, and I thought maybe I'll just take a slightly stronger dice and I'm sure it'll be fine. And it made me realise that I didn't have to sit around drinking crap coffee and making small talk with people I didn't really know.

Ben 00:19:34  I could just go in soft play and everyone, all the parents, were really grateful that I was in there looking after the kids. If you actually get in to these places and really throw yourself into it, I had to choose to do that, to like go in with enthusiasm in the spirit that the environment was intended. You can actually just have a really fantastic time. My realization was that I had to choose to invest myself in the playful vibe that is so natural to children and for whatever reason, what difficult for adults to transition into that? So that's my story, and I was only microdosing. I just have to say I wasn't like fully tripping whilst also being responsible for my child and other people's children. It's important to emphasize I chose to invest myself emotionally in the environment and the magic mushrooms, the like. The psilocybin in the system was an aid. It prevented the inhibitions. A few I didn't think I had any good stories. You. Are so perfect. I loved how you created that sense of trepidation at the beginning.

Ben 00:22:26  I think you really captured exactly that, like sense of, oh man, what's this going to be like? And then the kind of maltiness as it warped the reality, bent a little bit for a while. I was waiting for that point where it just broke into like, yeah, you know, it's just fun. And it totally happened. I tried.

Luke 00:22:44  To induce a sense of play.

Ben 00:22:46  That was feeling it.

Luke 00:22:47  Would you like to give it a go?

Ben 00:22:48  I don't know, I don't know that I can follow that. I feel like I should, though, having set up such a weird story to give it a go. Have you got any magic mushrooms?

Luke 00:24:26  Nice. I think we'll call it a day there. But thank you very much for being on the podcast. It's been very insightful.

Speaker 6 00:24:31  Pleasure. Yes.

Ben 00:24:33  It's a weird mind.

Luke 00:24:35  Did you find that you got anything out of the podcast?

Speaker 6 00:24:37  Yeah.

Ben 00:24:38  It's always really valuable to take the time to consciously dive into something, a to dive into the imagination a bit, but also to be present.

Ben 00:24:46  This is like the ultimate goal of improvisation. It's a really mindful exercise, right? To think of nothing. I'm just going to enjoy myself in this moment. So which I have done. So thank you.

Speaker 6 00:24:58  All right. Cool.

Luke 00:24:59  Join us next time for another episode of Improv Pod. Thanks for listening.