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Artist
Stéphane Rives
12+ albums
french
about
The mechanism of the saxophone permits a concrete-acoustic approach to the instrument. The possiblilities of acting directly on the pads and the flexibility of the reed offer subtle means of altering the sonic wave generated by breath. Once one adopts a way of thinking based on the sort of filtering any electronic musician does, oneÕs attention is drawn to the tiny micro-events that are barely audible in a traditional approach. The sonic planes twist and acoustic distortion emerges, revealing the subtle grains and textures lying "inside" the acoustic sound. New materials arise as though they had always been right there, hidden behind the immediately perceptible. In order to gain control of them, one reduces any idea of willful intervention to an absolute minimum, leaving only the flow of air through the metal cone, an action that is discrete in certain parameters. My playing is not about arriving at something; instead, it is an instant that answers to that logic. My musical reflection focuses on questions of praxis. I am not driven by musical intention in the strict sense of the term, but the experience of sound I propose represents a means of "exciting" the listener, a way of questioning, of shaking up his feeling of psycological security and transforming his relationship to listening. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
