Chris Swithinbank

This se­mes­ter I am as­sist­ing Hans Tutschku with a class at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity on im­pro­vi­sa­tion with elec­tron­ics. I asked sev­eral im­pro­vis­ers to choose pieces of music that are im­por­tant to them and their prac­tice.

First up is Richard Scott. Scott is a UK-born, Berlin-based com­poser and free im­pro­vis­ing mu­si­cian work­ing with ana­logue mod­u­lar syn­the­sis­ers and al­ter­na­tive con­trollers, in­clud­ing pi­o­neer­ing work with the Light­ning con­troller built by Don Buchla.

For our first in­stal­ment, Scott se­lected works by Cabaret Voltaire, Miles Davis, and the Spon­ta­neous Music En­sem­ble.

Cabaret Voltaire, ‘Eddie’s Out’ (1981)

Miles Davis, ‘Pharaoh’s Dance’ (1970)

Spon­ta­neous Music En­sem­ble, ‘Ten Min­utes’ (1974)

Thanks so much to Richard for pro­vid­ing these in­sights into his lis­ten­ing world. Below is an ex­am­ple of his own live per­for­mances, or you can browse record­ings on his Band­camp page. Stay tuned for the next in­stal­ment!

Next: Vijay Iyer, Ute Wasser­mann