Questionnaire: Lee Kwang Goh (2007)

1. Have you got any formal musical training, and what do you draw from it now?

I did not have any musical or sound-engineering background.

2. What kind of equipment/instrument do you use, and what is you relationship towards it? What do you think lies behind your choice of the equipment/instrument?

I’ve played a stereo dj mixer, without any additional sound source, no effects and processing, and completely improvised. I chose the instrument because it is cheap and easy to work with.

3. What is it that attracts you towards musical experimentation?

Experimental music is something always new, fresh, and always looking forward. To me it is something fun, interesting, and challenging as well.

4. Why are you involved in improvisation, and how do you perceive it?

I’m interested in trying things out, searching for new possibilities
of sound and changing ideas on the spot (in live situations); that
turned out to be improvisation.

5. How do you perceive the relation between planning and spontaneity in improvisation?

I have never planned an improvisation before. So it is hard for me to tell.

6. Do you “practise” for an improvisation, and what are your general thoughts on the idea of “practising” for improvisation?
When you improvise, do you use sounds that you’ve already “tried out”, and how much room is there for actual sound experimentation?

I don’t practise, I just make sure my mixer can still make sounds a day before I have a gig.

7. How do you evaluate an improvisation? What is it, according to you, that makes one improvisation better than another?

Personally I think it is just – you like it or not. There might be 10 000 reasons behind it but we can simply break it down to the basic: like it or not.

8. When you are recording for a release, does the awareness of being recorded influence your playing, and in what way?

No. I m too busy to care about the faders.