jonathan crean
© jonathan crean

Journal 2022


Extracts from my Artistic Research project on free improvisation and musical collaboration with nature for Higher Diploma in Arts – Music (2021-22) at University College Cork

Praying for rain – Part 2


On the 20th of April at roughly 6:00pm I was dropped off at the location where I was to perform. The location was a 15 minute drive outside the town of Ballina at Pontoon lake. The exact location was a couple of yard from the water. Here there was an abandoned boathouse which provided an ideal spot for the recording equipment. The area was completely free of any human activity. When I arrived, one thing I noted was how I felt in the environment. I felt like I arrived with assertiveness and an energy which was focused and urgent. I felt othered in a space that seemed to be operating at a much slower pace. As I began rushing to set up the various equipment (so as to make it in time before it started to rain) this feeling only became more pronounced. After roughly 30 minutes I had set up all of the equipment and had barely taken a chance to look around me and take my surrounding. At this point it had started to lightly rain. Knowing this may be my only chance, I quickly took my position and began to play and do some test recording. It was in this moment when this feeling of otherness really became pronounced.


As I read my instructions and tried to tune into the natural environment I realised how the stress of the situation acted as a barrier. Wanting desperately to achieve the goal of a successful performance, my attempts at tuning into the sound of the rain and the feel of the wind were intermittently interrupted by a critical voice in my head: “Is it raining enough?”, “That cymbal isn’t making any sound at all”, “I think the amp needs to be louder”, “The wind just isn’t there at all now so should I stop?”.

Praying for rain – Part 1


The week of Monday 18th April 2022, I ventured back to my hometown of Ballina, Co. Mayo with the sole purpose of performing a 15 minute free improvisation with nature. I packed all my equipment including my guitar, amp, audio and video recording equipment, and made the 6 hour pilgrimage by train.


Upon arriving, I immediately organised everything – this included, charging various devices, packing extra batteries, freeing up space on memory cards and so forth. I organised transport and I finalised the location. I made it so that I was ready to go as soon as the right weather conditions rolled in. I had a week before I had to return to Cork. I thought surely I would get rain in this space of time, after all I live in Ireland! The next morning out of curiosity I searched the weather for the next week. To my worry the weather was looking good – which was bad in my case.


I saw only one chance for ideal conditions – on the 20th – the forecast stated there would be a 68% chance of precipitation in the evening. I set that as my target to complete my performance.

Over the next couple of days I chatted casually with friends and family about the project. I explained to them that I needed the weather to be “bad”. I was met with different reactions. My mother was conflicted, as she wanted good weather so she could do some gardening. People would be amused when they’d say “I hope it rains” to me, as they’d never usually say that. I noticed that all of these people suddenly became hyperaware of the weather conditions. Again and again people would comment on the forecast, or the “look” of the clouds in the sky. Accidently, I had drawn others into my pursuit to connect with nature. Instead of the weather being a source of near meaningless small talk (as it does be for most Irish people), it suddenly became a vital and collective focus. There were moments too where I could almost feel this collective focus.

Verbal and Graphic Scores


With this performance, the score is highly important. It allows a bridge between the theory and practice. It also creates parameters, within which knowledge can be constructed. I recently acquired a wonderful book called Word Events: Perspectives on Verbal Notation by John Lely and James Saunders. I’ve included some scores below which I feel could inspire some aspects of my own score.

The roots in our roots


While this project is focused very much on the present – engaging with a living and vibrant environment as experienced in the now – it is also interesting to consider the histories of natural and non-human things and how these histories coalesce with our own. In a piece for the Irish Times, Manchán Magan speaks of the illusive oceanic temperate rainforest which, while still found in pockets, is mostly a thing of the past in Ireland. Magan however, makes a number of interesting points:


Beyond their ecological importance, which is almost unquantifiable in its breadth and extent, there is also a sociological and psychological importance to them for us as a society. The key is in our name, Gael. The term Irish is modern and English. It doesn’t really represent who we were. We were Gaels. We still are. At one time we all spoke Gaeilge, language of the Gaels. And Gael means “forest people” or “wild men”. We come from the bush, from these wet, dank thickets of woodlands that once covered three-quarters of the island.


It was wrong to ever label us as bog men. We are, in fact, much closer to bushmen. It was in wet, mulchy woodlands such as these temperate rainforests that our ancestors first settled. They are our natural habitat and over millennia we gradually developed our lives, minds, culture and society in them, around them and through them. They are the environment that shaped and honed us as people, moulded our psyche and imaginations.


In this vein, the human story is not something that can be isolated. Mangan points out our place in nature – something that was perhaps much more pronounced in the past, but still exists in some form today. This view is an important one when it comes to challenging anthropocentrism, connecting with the natural world, and in the context of this project – as it seeks to actively engage the non-human.


Rather than beginning at ground zero, my collaboration with nature and non-human things, in ways, began long before the formation of this project. Just as I have affected the many spaces, places, animals and objects I have come across, so too have they affected me.







A set of performance techniques


This week I began making music with natural objects that I collected while out looking for an appropriate place to perform.


With my initial approach, I set up the electric guitar on a tabletop surface resting face up. This workflow came natural when I first began performing experimental guitar a number of years ago. However, subsequent research into the field of free improvisation has revealed to me the many experimental electric guitar players such as Keith Rowe and Sandy Ewen who also perform this way.


Secondly, I ran my electric guitar through a compressor plugin in Ableton before amplifying it using my studio monitors. I had hoped using a compressor would bring out details and subtleties in the performance.


Finally, I began experimenting with the various objects, letting their form, texture and weight influence how I interacted with them.


Overall, I found certain techniques to be more sonically interesting. I also found certain techniques showcased the qualities of the natural objects moreso. One particular technique I found interesting was the use of a thin piece of stone inserted in-between strings. When plucked and tapped with other objects, this created a wonderful resonance that occurred in the interaction between the stone and the strings.


I was curious if other stringed instruments would give me similar sonic results. I experimented further with a 12-string acoustic guitar, using similar techniques to see if they could translate. While the body of the acoustic guitar brought it’s own interesting sound potential, I feel the lack of pickups and amplification meant a lot of detail was lost. I felt that the connection between the instrument and the objects was not as intimate or co-constructive. This lead me to refine my score to specify the use of electric guitar over any stringed instrument. In the future, I would however, like to explore the potential of other instruments, possibly using different objects and performance techniques.


Drawing on these experiments, I created a diagram which includes a number performance techniques. I feel these could be used and interpreted in future performances. I will include this diagram in my score. I feel, through using these techniques as a foundation for the performance, I can then focus more intently on my main aim – listening, responding and collaborating with and through nature.

Reasons for engaging nature through art


"If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world-not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both," (Cronon, 1996, p25).


As Cronon points out in his paper The Trouble with Wilderness, the dualism at the heart of the concept of wilderness does not allow us to engage with and explore the relations between us and the nonhuman. With this viewpoint, any attempts at engaging with nature erodes its naturalness. Cronon reminds us that we are part of nature. He urges us to rekindle the wild that is in our communities, our gardens, our homes, and within us.


Reflecting on my project, by working with non-cultural natural properties of nature objects and processes through free improvised performance, in ways my work offers a space within culture for the wild to exist. Furthermore, it demonstrates ways in which human and non-human interact.


Cronon, W. (1996) ‘The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature’, Environmental History, 1(1), 7–28, available: https://doi.org/10.2307/3985059.

Hearing what the body feels


One aspect of my performance I feel will be most challenging is the practice of listening. Given that the score will require me to listen to the wind, the rain, and also the sounds I am making, I feel it is essential that I deepen my understanding of listening before my performance. The other day, my partner shared with me a talk by Evelyn Glennie. In the 30 minute lecture, the deaf percussionist charts her musical journey and explains how listening to music involves, for her, much more than simply letting sound waves hit your eardrums. At numerous points she explains how she experiences sound through her hands and other body parts.


This insight was very inspiring. It also directly related to the practice of Deep Listening, which I have researched and use to inform my work on this project. Glennie’s thoughts reminded me of the many indirect ways sound interacts with our bodies. We often forget that the auditory system is only one way of experiencing sound. The ability of the skin to contribute has been scientifically proven. Our organs may also sense vibratory pressure. Furthermore, this also made me think of sounds that exists beyond our hearing range. These sounds may not be experienced through hearing but perhaps we experience them through these other channels?


Taking these thoughts and applying them to my performance, the act of listening does not have to rely solely on what I hear through my ears. I will remember to engage these other methods of perceiving sound. I feel that this create a more meaningful engagement with the sounds I hear in the performance. I feel this also goes to the root of what I am trying to achieve – deeper connections to the nonhuman world.

The rain beat down


One day, a couple of weeks before I started my major study project, I was leaving the shed back home in Co. Mayo. It was raining pretty heavily and as I stepped out into it I heard the sound of drumming. I had forgotten that I had discarded some toms from an old drum kit behind the shed in order to make space. I walked around and listened. I was struck by how musical the sound was as the rain beat the drum head. This experience stuck with me and would later be a stimulus for this research project that I’ve undertaken. I now see in this experience what Bennett (2015, 2010) describes as “lively and essentially interactive materials”, the “vibrant matter”.

v i b r a n t

m a

t t e r

Location searching – Out of sight, not of sound


As it is reading week, I took the opportunity to travel back to my home town of Ballina in Co. Mayo. I’ve had it in my head that I wanted to do my performance on home ground – in a location that has some personal meaning. I had two places in mind, both of which I discovered are actually of historical significance, something I learnt by using https://maps.archaeology.ie/historicenvironment/. The first location is a hill overlooking my home, somewhere I used to play as a child and continued to visit as the years went on. The other, I stumbled across on a walk in my early 20's, this to my surprise is the remanence of a ringfort. I set out late morning to assess the viability of both locations for my project. What I came to note while spending time in both locations and using the technique of Deep Listening (something I picked up through my research) was that while both locations were physically separate from any human structures – havens of nature – the sound of vehicles travelling on nearby roads was glaringly obvious. This struck me as I’ve been to these locations before and thought of them as outside of or an escape from the human world. This was not the case when it came to sound. While all around me there were natural scenes, my ears found a different narrative. I captured some quick audio recordings and photos. At present I am unsure if either of these locations are now suitable as I feel that during my performance the human interference may distract me from listening and collaborating with natural sounds in both of these environments.








The nonhuman in music


Today I was looking though old photos on my phone and found this image I took in an abandoned house last summer. The image reminded me of a section from a text I’ve been reading The Nonhuman Turn. In it Erin Manning states:


“How to categorize as human or nonhuman the exuberance of an effect of light, the way the air moves through a space, or the way one artwork catches another in its movement of thought. This is surely the force of curation: its choreographic capacity to bring to life the lingering nonhuman tendencies that bridge fields activated by distinct artistic processes. Artfulness is always more than human.” (p72)


This makes me reflect on the idea of an artwork or a song. A song is not a static work, it is dynamic and everchanging. It is entangled in and with the world. It has no start-point and no end-point. A song is connected to a speaker that plays it. A song is connected to English homework written while it was playing. A song is connected to a guitar that was once used in an attempt to play the hook. As for nature, a song (and music in general) can be shaped in ways that are without human intervention. A video of musician Neil Young comes to mind. While recording his 1972 album Harvest on his ranch he was said to have played back takes through huge speaker arrays set up in the barn and his house. In the video Young lays on the grass on a hillside a distance away, listening and commenting on the “natural echo” of the music as it is shaped by the natural landscape.