TOM: Meet the Music (while dancing about architecture.)

Inside the global experiment where real-time orchestration sounds and feels composed.

Tiny Orchestral Moments is not a group with one sound, one style. It is an international ensemble of musicians practicing Continuous Improvisation, demonstrating what is possible when players commit to listening first and orchestrating what is needed. Together, in the moment.

For more than a decade, TOM has invited guitarists, singers, string players, percussionists, drummers, and world-class artists and composers from Argentina, Japan, Europe, and the US to workshops generating everything from meditative chamber textures to ferocious orchestral surges. TOM music is dynamic. And unpredictable. It changes every time. All the time. The commitment to attention does not.

However, I’ve heard (the cliché of clichés) that “talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” * So, why not stop reading, shut your eyes, and find out what TOM sounds like for yourself from this (now-out-of-date) 5+ year old trailer designed to give you a sense of the diverse music pouring out of TOM:

A “Tiny Orchestral Moment” is the instant when randomness evaporates and individual threads suddenly and unexpectedly transform into coherent meaning, with a purpose that transcends this subjective moment. A TOM happens when Music is invited and appears as a visceral form of collective intelligence.

In my book Being Musical, you will explore and develop practices that enable the reliable experience of momentary musical miracles. These are the unpredictable, unplannable moments when time slows down and heavens pour open with energy, meaning and harmony.

TOM music is the direct result of the practice of Continuous Improvisation in groups, and as a way of life. The TOM documentary series, by Seattle director Louise Amandes is launching in March. It exists to make that invisible work visible.

Q: What kind of musical world are you in (or wishing to be in) right now? Perhaps you’ve just come from NAMM and the tempting promise that owning state-of-the-art gear will deliver vital and energizing music to your doorstep?

Or, perhaps there is another way to Meet the Music?

Call to Action: Invite someone unexpected over to collaborate: practice together. Dance about architecture. Don’t “jam” and randomly take turn repeating your existing, pre-programmed licks and personal pre-sets. Even the world “jam” feels like cramming in some pureed fruit and preservatives into a jar for use in a fallout shelter.

Instead: play. Stretch. Play less. Listen. Change your instrumentation. Shift the room. Listen and decide what is needed before moving your fingers. Listen for an answer to the question: “what does this music require of me” — vs. the classic, me me me-centric default question that leads to noise: WIIFM (what’s in it for me?)

Don’t play what you know: challenge each other to only play what you don’t know.

Or, better yet: if you are in Seattle, and you really wish to shake up your playing: come experience Continuous Improvisation live in a safe group setting at one of our Thursday-night Music Improvisation Calisthenics workshops.

If you are in LA, join us Feb 15 from 1 – 4 PST for a MIC workshop in a world-class mastering studio. And bring a friend who has never improvised before. Then Meet the Music, you wish to make via an explicit invitation: show up ready to listen. Work. And play.

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* this quote is often (mis)attributed to Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson, Martin Mull, Picasso, Miles Davis, David Byrne, and sometimes Elvis Costello. IMO, there are thousands of visceral examples of dancing about architecture. And likewise, I will be here for the next three years, talking about Music. With visceral and practical examples designed to help you invite it more deeply into your work, play and life.

TOM merch: www.tinyom.org
Main site: www.tinyorchestralmoments.com

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