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Derek Bailey (January 29, 1930 – December 25, 2005) was an English avant-garde guitarist and leading figure in the freeimprovisation movement.For listeners unfamiliar with experimental musics, Bailey's distinctive style can be initially quite difficult. Its most noticeablefeature is what appears to be its extreme discontinuity, often from note to note: there may be enormous intervals betweenconsecutive notes, and rather than aspiring to the consistency of timbre typical of most guitar-playing, Bailey interrupts it asmuch as possible: four consecutive notes, for instance, may be played on an ...read more

Derek Bailey (January 29, 1930 – December 25, 2005) was an English avant-garde guitarist and leading figure in the freeimprovisation movement.For listeners unfamiliar with experimental musics, Bailey's distinctive style can be initially quite difficult. Its most noticeablefeature is what appears to be its extreme discontinuity, often from note to note: there may be enormous intervals betweenconsecutive notes, and rather than aspiring to the consistency of timbre typical of most guitar-playing, Bailey interrupts it asmuch as possible: four consecutive notes, for instance, may be played on an open string, a fretted string, via harmonics, andusing a nonstandard technique such as scraping the string with the pick or plucking below the bridge. Many of the keyfeatures of his music - radical discontinuity, the self-contained brevity of each gesture, an attraction to wide intervals - owemuch to Bailey's early fascination with Anton Webern, an influence most audible on Bailey's earliest available recordings,Pieces for Guitar .Playing both acoustic and electric guitars (although more usually the former), Bailey was able to extend the possibilities ofthe instrument in radical ways, obtaining a far wider array of sounds than are usually heard. He explored the full vocabulary ofthe instrument, producing timbres and tones ranging from the most delicate tinklings to fierce noise attacks. (The sounds heproduced have been compared to those made by John Cage's prepared piano.) Typically he played a conventional instrument,in standard tuning, but his use of amplification was often crucial. In the 1970s, for instance, his standard set-up involved twoindependently controlled amplifiers to give a stereo effect onstage, and he often would use the swell pedal to counteract the"normal" attack and decay of notes. He also made highly original use of feedback, a technique demonstrated on the albumString Theory.Although Bailey occasionally made use of 'prepared' guitar in the 1970s (e.g., putting paper clips on the strings, wrapping hisinstruments in chains, adding further strings to the guitar, etc), often for Dadaist/theatrical effect, by the end of this decadehe had, in his own words, 'dumped' such methods. Bailey argued that his approach to music making was actually farmoreorthodox than performers such as Keith Rowe of the improvising collective AMM, who treats the guitar purely as a'soundsource' rather than as a musical instrument. Instead Bailey preferred to "look for whatever 'effects' I might needthrough technique.".Eschewing labels such as jazz (even free jazz), Bailey described his music as non-idiomatic, a label which has been much-debated. In the 2nd edition of his book, Improvisation..., Bailey indicated that he felt that free improvisation was no longer"non-idiomatic" in his sense of the word, as it had become a recognizable genre and musical style itself. In his efforts to avoidpredictability he always sought out collaborators from many different fields: players as diverse as Pat Metheny, John Zorn,LeeKonitz, David Sylvian, Cyro Baptista, Cecil Taylor, Keiji Haino, tap dancer Will Gaines, Drum 'n' Bass DJ Ninj, Thurston Moore ofSonic Youth and the Japanese noise rock group Ruins. In fact despite often performing and recording in a solocontext, he wasfar more interested in the dynamics and challenges of working with other musicians, especially those who did not necessarilyshare his own approach; "There has to be some degree, not just of unfamiliarity, but incompatibility [with a partner].Otherwise, what are you improvising for? What are you improvising with or around? You've got to find somewhere where youcan work. If there are no difficulties, it seems to me that there's pretty much no point in playing. I find that the things thatexcite me are trying to make something work. And when it does work, it's the most fantastic thing. Maybe the most obviousanalogy would be the grit that produces the pearl in an oyster, or some shit like that."Bailey was also known for his dry sense of humour. In 1977 Musics magazine sent the question "What happens to time-awareness during improvisation?" to about thirty musicians associated with the free improvisation scene. The answersreceived varied from lengthy and highly theoretical essays to more direct comments. Typically pithy was Bailey's reply; "Theticks turn into tocks and the tocks turn into ticks".Mirakle, a 1999 recording released in 2000, shows Bailey moving into the free funk genre performing with JamaaladeenTacumaand Calvin Weston. Carpal Tunnel, the last record to be released during his lifetime, documented his personalstruggles to come to terms with the development of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in his right hand, which had rendered him unableto grip a plectrum (and in fact marked the onset of his motor neurone disease). Characteristically, he refused invasive surgeryto treat his condition, instead being more "interested in finding ways to work around" this limitation. He chose to "relearn"guitar playing techniques by utilising his right thumb and index fingers to pluck the strings. « hide

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