In John Butcher's solo, I deeply felt his ability to create variables. The performance of variables on the timeline of improvisation is a transformation from one sound to another, but there is no essential difference from the initial sound. The so-called lack of essential difference is because the variable operation is executed, and the difference is erased. The key to creating a large number of differences and erasing them fundamentally is to maintain certain elements in all sounds. These elements can be constant or can be switched during the production process, such as a duration, a texture, or a frequency. Different textures can be produced within a certain duration, or similar textures can be produced in different durations, and then different frequencies can be produced from similar textures. Skillful players can make these transitions traceable, faintly discernible, or even suddenly reveal themselves at a certain moment and then hide again quickly. They can even create a hierarchical structure for these elements, and this creative process sometimes unconsciously progresses during production.
We can call the maintenance of certain elements a rule. The meaning usually emerges slowly through adherence to the rules. Noise is the absence of rules, even if it contains implicit rules. However, noise can become part of the rules in the creation of variables. Many works appear in the form of noise, but the active rules that exist within them contradict the meaningless nature of noise. Even if the volume is loud and difficult to listen to, it is still non-noise and pursues meaning.
Conversely, in the creation of noise, the connection between variables can be lost. This is more interesting and more difficult to achieve than directly reproducing noise. Because in the flow of time, improvisers need to have a god-like perspective to consciously separate patterns from history, break them apart in the present moment, and guard against the formation of new patterns in the process of breaking apart. And this constant observation, thinking, and perseverance inevitably form meaning on some level.
Where are the loopholes to decipher such meaning?