Something You Would Never Play

by Sam Pettigrew and Diego Chamy

Watch the video / Download in HD

This performance was billed as a solo by Sam Pettigrew, to be followed by a duo between Sam Pettigrew and myself. After Sam finished playing, I informed the audience that what they had just heard was not Sam's solo, but the duo. The duo consisted of Sam's playing followed by my announcing that Sam had been instructed to play something he would never play. After this duo, Sam performed his planned solo. When he finished, I asked him why he would never play what he played in the first piece, then opened a conversation with the audience.

Some ideas

This performance was quite contextual in that it was Sam's first solo concert in Berlin and the audience didn't know his solo work. They thus had no preconceptions and accepted what he played as his planned solo. I find it interesting how an audience might judge a piece differently depending on the information it has been given. In this case, not knowing the intentions of the musician ended up being quite confusing, especially once the audience realized that what Sam played was something he would never play. Not only were Sam's intentions different from what the audience might have expected, they were quite the opposite. This effect introduced a number of questions such as, "Did I like the piece regardless?", "Was this still his music?", "If not, who was I clapping for?", etc.

There are many possible ways a musician might execute the instruction, "Play something you would never play" (or by extension, "Do something you would never do"). In this case, Sam decided to play something he would never play in a solo situation, but that he would play with other musicians in an improvised music context. This decision surprised me, as I expected Sam to play something he would never play, period. However, I can't say he didn't follow the instructions.

Interestingly, what Sam chose to play created yet another unexpected situation. Two other duos played immediately after us (Burkhard Beins/Bertrand Denzler and Gunnar Lettow/Gary Rouzer), and the way these duos played was quite similar to Sam's first solo. This might have made some people in the audience think our performance was a critique of improvised music's ordinary musical language, and the musicians might have felt we were making fun of them. But this was not our intention, and I take this opportunity to apologize if anyone interpreted our performance in this way.

Performed at Quiet Cue, Berlin, May 20, 2012.