Organizing Raw Material
Muhal Richard Abrams
I like being random, because when I get ready to perform, or compose music, I have to be random. Because I fancy myself as organizing raw material, which is apparent and not apparent, or seen and not seen, you see. My belief, there’s a world of raw material. And it doesn’t just have to be music, it could be anything; it could be literature, it could be painting. There’s a world of raw material that you can tap if you can relax enough to perceive the proper simplicities. And that’s how I approach it.
Now, I perceive each day, it’s more or less like that, I’m going to practice the piano every day, unless I’m called to do something, or travel or something where I don’t get to it, but usually that’s what I do, I practice. And as I practice, I practice in different ways. I practice playing music, of course, piano playing, and I write things to practice, that may turn out to be compositions, or fragments of compositions later. And when I’m practicing, if I run across or play across a particular idea, a challenging idea, I might write it down. So, it’s sort of that kind of procedure.