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The Indiana Daily Student

arts performances

The Bishop to showcase Chicago-based musical project, local improvisational drummer

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Improvisational musical performances are not common, but those in attendance at the Bishop on Monday night will have the opportunity to experience this distinct style. Drummer Tyler Damon will perform with solo project V.V. Lightbody and Chicago-based pop-rock musical project Homme.

While Homme’s performance will be more structured, Damon said his show will be completely improvised. Although the genre is not hugely popular, he said he likes it because of the freedom it allows him to have as a musician.

“I just think, for me personally, it is kind of a natural practice,” he said. “I like it because it’s open-ended and I don’t always know where it’s going. It sort of has its own 
language.”

As a drummer, he said initially it felt strange to play solo, but he grew accustomed to it. He said he found ways to incorporate re-purposed instruments like bells and pot lids in his performances and will be using some of these during the show.

“I guess I found it liberating in a sense to be able to find a solo voice for drumming and playing percussion,” he said. “There’s a whole world of that stuff, and people stretch the boundaries of instruments and performance.”

While he said musicians should try to use different performance structures, Damon added that he is not overly concerned with the performance aspect of music.

“I want it to be more about the sound that happens because of those actions and less about the spectacle of it all,” he said. “I don’t want it to be like sports or athletics or something like that. I want it to be a satisfying listening experience more than a performance.”

While Homme’s show is not improvisational, creators Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham said there will be some aspects of improvisation during the show. They said they are heavily influenced by improvised music.

“How we come up with arrangements of the songs tends to be from improvising,” Stewart said.

Cunningham said they will play both songs from their self-titled album and new material Monday night.

She said the set list has one cover, a song called “Memory Lame” by Jim O’Rourke.

“We really love playing that song,” Cunningham said. “It’s such a cool and poignant and angry song.”

Cunningham said he can’t help but feel the song is very appropriate because of some of the political happenings in the country.

Although Cunningham and Stewart have played in Bloomington before, this is their first performance at the Bishop.

Cunningham said the project played a previous show with Damon in Bloomington, which led to the town becoming a destination for their current tour.

“Bloomington has been a city that I have been wanting to frequent,” Cunningham said. “Obviously we know there’s a pretty lively musical scene there with the record labels, and it’s nice getting to explore it and get to know really great musicians and presenters and people who help organize these shows in these cities.”

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