The Essential Guide To Being Elliott Sharp, by Elliott Sharp

Improvisation and composition dance around each other in an interlocked feedback loop. I have always wanted my composed music to emulate the spontaneity and unpredictability found in an exciting improvisation and my improvisations to have the inevitability and satisfying narrative arc that a well-structured composition possesses. These polarities are not mutually exclusive. This applies across the board, whether I’m composing for a symphony orchestra or solo guitar piece.

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10 Things Sun Ra Can Teach Us About Band Leadership

Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, 1914–1993) was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his “cosmic philosophy,” prolific musical output, and energetic experimental big-band performances. He widely claimed (and legitimately believed) he was born on Saturn and was over 5,000 years old.

Ra released over 200 albums, many of which were home-recorded to tapes that he copied himself or cut to vinyl in small batches and sold at shows. He pioneered a lot of experimentation with technology in jazz and free jazz starting as early as the 1950s in Chicago. A funny tidbit about Sun Ra is that as he was experimenting with early synthesizer keyboards, electronics and tape delay, he was given one of the first prototypes of the Minimoog by Robert Moog to play around with before it even went on the market.

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