Ep8 Royalty, Death & a Misunderstanding - Dylan Allan

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Luke 00:00:16  Welcome to episode eight of the Improv Pod podcast. Today I'm interviewing Dylan Allen. So tell me about your relationship to improvisation.

Dylan 00:00:25  I played with a band up in Bristol for a bit, and we composed some of our own stuff. It was mostly quite simple 4 or 5 chord stuff with a bit of color added. I don't have a great deal of experience improvising jazz on an advanced kind of level, because.

Luke 00:00:41  You play piano yourself.

Dylan 00:00:42  I do, yeah, but I'm more classically trained than jazz. Trained started taking it seriously when I was about 21, so for about six years now. But I did study music at university. I do have a bit of a musical background.

Luke 00:00:56  Okay, so I'm going to play a piece of music and I want you to tell me what that makes you think of anything that comes into your mind. Yeah, I'd love to. All right. I don't know what I'm doing. This is completely made up.

Dylan 00:01:06  On the spot. Improv. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Dylan 00:01:51  Well, it was very, dramatic and majestic. It kind of reminded me, maybe of a evil King being overthrown from his throne. The way it was walking down the descending chords as you were going down in the intro made me think of an evil king where his time was coming to an end. And then I guess the kind of jazzy, beautiful bit at the end was kind of melancholic, and it made me think of a compassionate queen coming and taking over the monarchy, but also somewhat mourning the loss of her husband because he did have his good sides, even if he was ultimately evil.

Luke 00:02:28  Great. Where did you get this sense of royalty from?

Dylan 00:02:31  I think it was definitely the wide opening majestic chords. At the beginning they just reminded me of royalty.

Luke 00:02:40  So you've got a minor third and then the octave thing? Yeah, which is quite a triumphant shape, I guess. Yeah.

Dylan 00:02:55  Triumphant is a good word to describe it. Yeah.

Luke 00:03:04  Are you up for telling me a story of some sort? I'll play a soundtrack to the story.

Dylan 00:03:08  Yeah. I guess. well, my grandma died a couple of months ago, and I remember getting a phone call, my mum saying she'd had a heart attack, and I went over to pick up my uncle, and in the car over, he drunk a load of alcohol and was getting really emotional. And the car ride over and you should had a heart attack, but I didn't actually realise she'd died. We found out in the car, my dad rang my uncle and said that the paramedics weren't able to bring her back and she had gone. So I guess it was, quite a shock to the system. I think when you're our age and young, you take your life for granted to some degree. But as you get older, the fact you're mortal becomes a lot more conscious on your mind.

Luke 00:03:58  that is to break down the story into different sections. You've got this moment of realization if you say you're in the car.

Dylan 00:04:05  Yeah. And then I guess when we arrive at the house, there's a sense of it's just a mixture of emotions when you get to the house, obviously sadness, but also confusion and also organization, whilst also trying to look after my granddad, who I think it was probably worse for than anyone because it says his wife of 60 years or whatever.

Dylan 00:04:26  And then the car ride back. God, I just remember it being quiet and sad and daunting really.

Luke 00:04:35  Okay. Right. It's quite tricky in some ways because I don't have an idea of how you experience that, but I don't.

Dylan 00:06:30  I felt as if you captured that really well. Actually. I could hear almost the different phases of the evening planning out. I think you did really well in terms of structuring the events, and I could pinpoint what point in the evening you were going for based on the musical idea you, you played. So I think it actually worked really well.

Luke 00:06:49  This is kind of going for sort of calmness, just having a dinner. And then that phone call did you get the idea of the phone call?

Dylan 00:06:54  I did, yeah, yeah. And then I got the sense of dread.

Luke 00:06:57  And I sort of imagining a phone at the end of the corridor, and it rings for way too long, and then, like an old fashioned phone, obviously. Yeah. It wasn't.

Luke 00:07:06  And then there's the car ride and then this kind of sense of sadness and confusion and you're not sure what's going on. You try to incorporate that sense of space when someone's gone. There's like a release of the sense of something that was more positive. She's gone. But that's what happens.

Dylan 00:07:21  Yeah, particularly when it's a grandparent. You do have to be philosophical about it to some extent. I think you did. You captured the, the, different events of the evening. Well, with each of those musical themes. Yeah. I think you did it justice. Right.

Luke 00:07:42  So do you have a lighter story? Maybe you could tell something that happened to you that was supposed to be a bit ridiculous, or a contrast in terms of tone.

Dylan 00:07:51  I went over to my friend's house on Sunday over in Hobbiton. There were two of us that went over to see my friend, and, we ended up getting quite drunk and, going down to the pub called The Church House. I was playing the piano in there, actually, and, I was talking to these two people, and it was all going very well.

Dylan 00:08:12  And we were talking about old pianos, actually, we're talking about old Steinway, 19th century Steinway. And, I said, oh, yeah, when you get an old piano like that, they're so beautiful to look at. It's almost like piano porn. And this old man dropped his jaw and just looked absolutely mortified that I just said the word porn. He was obviously really not very impressed by it, and shortly afterwards we saw him leaving the pub looking a bit mortified. I remember thinking to myself, get over yourself. A bit like in the context. All I said was it's like piano porn. I didn't do anything, coarse or grotesque, but I think maybe he was quite posh or very middle class. And perhaps maybe he could have been a born again Christian or some religion where they're really not comfortable with that kind of world. But, I mean, me and my friends ended up having a little bit of a laugh about it because it was a bit ridiculous. That sounds about my Sunday.

Dylan 00:11:03  Right about there. Oh, great. Can definitely exactly pinpoint when porn comes in as well. Can you play that chord again? No.

Luke 00:11:13  That's the thing about doing this. I can't really remember what I've done. Yeah, I kind of got an idea that clash y.

Dylan 00:11:19  Yeah. Oh, dear.

Luke 00:11:22  The rhythm of it. This is kind of insult to the majestic idea of what a piano is. You know, it's an amazing instrument to perform incredible music, you know.

Dylan 00:11:31  By the great composer. Yeah.

Luke 00:11:34  Yeah. You've just insulted my entire existence here.

Dylan 00:11:37  And I think it's an identity thing. So you get a lot of music with identity. if you look at kids at school, you have the kids that are into metal and rock and the ones which are into dance music. And I think the same is true for classical music. You get a certain kind of, I guess, civilized person that wouldn't want that association with the wonderful piano.

Luke 00:12:00  I tried to get a sense of drunkenness. Do you think that came across?

Dylan 00:12:03  Yeah, I do.

Dylan 00:12:04  In the earlier stages, I could definitely hear it with the way you were going up and down the notes with the right hand. There was an element of swaying ness to it.

Luke 00:12:13  Yeah, that kind of like. Yeah, you're a bit pissed and you're quite sure.

Dylan 00:12:18  Yeah. As a slight stumbling sound. Yeah. You captured the stumbling ness of it brilliantly.

Luke 00:12:23  Yeah. Would you be interested in having a go at improvising drunkenness?

Dylan 00:12:28  I could give it a go. Yeah.

Luke 00:12:30  All right. If you want to swap.

Dylan 00:12:32  It's been a long time since I've done any kind of improvisation. I guess one idea that could work is a.

Luke 00:13:27  I thought it was a bit relaxing to start with. It didn't reflect personally to me, but the the last bit you did, getting this sense of not sure what was going on and that chromaticism, there's a sense of confusion. Yeah. You just basically you got to break it down as to, to you what drunkenness is. To me, it's kind of a clumsiness to it, which could be reflected in the rhythm, say, or there's a sense of not knowing what's happening.

Luke 00:13:52  This could be reflected in the way the melody works or something.

Dylan 00:13:55  Yeah, I guess it does also have a side of conversations running hot. Everyone's loving the chit chat. It has a happy side to it as well, doesn't it? It's not all falling down the stairs. I guess alcohol does affect people differently. So if you ask musicians to improvise what it means to them, you would get a different thing from each one because they would just be working on their own experience. Maybe if you were a lary drunk, you could express it through playing really loudly.

Luke 00:14:22  So how would you do a lairy drunken? You almost got devilish qualities from that.

Dylan 00:15:07  Yeah, yeah. Larry. Angry? Evil. Kind of drunk. Yeah, I'm sure we've all met. 1 or 2. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if it would have worked better if I'd have actually gone down with it instead of up.

Luke 00:15:29  Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's like descending into the depths.

Dylan 00:15:32  Of the depths of rage. Yeah.

Luke 00:15:35  How did you feel when you were doing that? Do you think that would be something you could do?

Dylan 00:15:38  Yeah, I could see.

Dylan 00:15:39  Myself getting into, improv. I think I just need to do a bit of research and decide on the best way to to go about learning it. Would you say it's better to learn it theoretically, or do you think it's better to just play around and see what feels good? Or perhaps a bit of both?

Luke 00:15:56  I just spent a lot of time messing about. All I'm doing is thinking about an emotion or something, or the nature of something. So like that glass of water, if you were to describe it, obviously it's transparent. There's an interesting thing with the light coming through. Water is quite neutral in taste. You know, something transparent conducts light. And it might be. I'm just immediately thinking of fourths for some reason. Water has a flow to it. Yeah. So.

Dylan 00:16:38  I see you apply the theoretical stuff to what it is you're thinking of in your head a bit.

Dylan 00:16:43  Yeah.

Luke 00:16:44  That might be completely different for you though. Did that sum up for Glass of water in terms?

Dylan 00:16:48  Yeah, that sounded like a glass water and a stream a bit even as well. Yeah. So I think you even captured more than a glass of water. Yeah.

Luke 00:16:56  he was. Feel free to disagree. I think that's just bullshit.

Dylan 00:16:59  No, no, I think it did. I think the force worked quite well. The arpeggiated to capture the sense of flowing, of water, you know.

Luke 00:17:06  But if it was concrete and you don't, obviously, when it's wet, concrete flows a little bit, but like, solid block of concrete are getting more of a fifth vibe.

Dylan 00:17:29  Yeah, I see.

Dylan 00:17:30  What you mean.

Luke 00:17:31  If you wanted to do it, maybe just start with just concepts of objects or something. Yeah. And then you just sort of break it down into what characteristics they have and then without thinking about it too much, you just experiment on the piano. If you've got a sense of musical intuition, which you have, then you probably will come up with something.

Dylan 00:17:50  From the musicians.

Dylan 00:17:51  I've noticed a lot that improviser. When we were playing in a band, there was a guitarist who improvised. He was a good improviser, but you could tell it was his improvisation because he picked his own thing and did it in different keys. It was, similar kind of patterns on each track. Not exactly the same, but I guess you do build up patterns and rhythmic patterns and notation patterns as well, which you can apply to more than one scenario. It's not like because it's improv, it has to be 100% different each time. In fact, you probably want to look for some patterns and what you're doing.

Luke 00:18:24  Yeah, I mean, I do look for patterns and repetition is important because you also don't want to feel lost and also repetition. Sometimes it helps reinforce the idea. Would you about up for telling me another story?

Dylan 00:18:41  Yes.

Dylan 00:18:42  Yeah, that sounds good. We just think of one. So I remember going on holiday to Morocco and we were on the beach and in Morocco they have loads of stray dogs.

Dylan 00:18:54  And we got surrounded by this pack of aggressive dogs that were all growling at us. There was 5 or 6 of them, and we ended up lobbing a bit of food in another direction and trying to run away from them. And then once we got off the beach, they didn't bother following us into the town, but they seemed almost more like wolves, even though they were just domestic dogs, which had presumably been abandoned or whatever.

Luke 00:19:21  What kind of emotion did you experience when you saw those dogs?

Dylan 00:19:24  I wasn't in fear of my life, the dogs. I didn't think I was going to be at risk of dying. There was something slightly intimidating about a group of dogs growling at you and I knew down. So I guess quite a sense of horror.

Luke 00:19:39  Do you remember what the weather was like? It was.

Dylan 00:19:41  Quite hot. Yeah, it was a nice day. Yeah, that was really good. I thought you captured the different phases of that really well, and you could really hear when the dogs arrived as well.

Luke 00:21:44  Did you get the sense of the sea side? I didn't really.

Dylan 00:21:46  Pick up on that too much. I got the impression we were on the beach, but not so much waves or anything specifically associated.

Luke 00:21:59  I think right about that.

Dylan 00:22:00  Okay. Yeah, great. Thanks for being.

Luke 00:22:02  On the podcast. What do you think you got out of it?

Dylan 00:22:03  I guess I learned.

Dylan 00:22:04  A lot about improvisation, which is definitely something I'd like to explore more in the future. It was very insightful as to how you compose these pieces, which was really interesting. It also made me think a lot about music and memory. When you play a piece of music, it can be a good way to express yourself, to think of a memory or something. It can sometimes be more effective than focusing solely on your technique. Thanks for having me on the podcast.

Luke 00:22:30  Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for being on the podcast. Join us next week for another episode of Improv Pod. Thanks for listening.