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Music

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The solitude of Big Sur is most often associated with the sound of waves on the beach and birds singing in the redwoods. Emanating from the bohemian lawn of the Henry Miller Library this weekend, however, will be a hum of experimental music as the 2nd annual Big Sur Experimental Music Festival gets underway.

The worldwide casting call sent out by local musician/DJ Ernesto Diaz-Infante last fall has resulted in a diverse lineup of musicians ranging from Tokyo to Los Angeles.

Experimental music, purely by its name, is difficult to describe. There are as many definitions as there are admirers and musicians. Most of the sounds are basically impossible to duplicate due to their improvisational nature and unconventional creation. Performers at this year''s festival claim to be influenced by styles ranging from free jazz to industrial "noise."

To the average listener, experimental music might sound like nothing more than chaos. Generally, there is no pretty melody to hum along with or steady beat to clap your hands to. Most performers in Big Sur this weekend depend on more of a spontaneous mood to lead their live improvs, although many are trained in music theory and play traditional instruments.

"It''s interesting that most of my improvising seems to happen on instruments that I do not have much classical training on, or for which no classical training exists," says Cheryl Leonard, who performs with a quartet on Saturday. She plays various glass jars and shards that create a crisp, icy sound and sparkling visual effect, reminiscent of a glacial landscape. "Topos" is a chamber work for four players with acoustic and electronic sounds added.

"For me live music and recorded music require a different way of approaching time," she adds. "You must embrace the unexpected and unwanted and find a way to integrate it into your music."

"In a live situation," Leonard says, "you''ve got to take the presence of a live audience into account in some way. This doesn''t mean you must cater to their every whim, but I don''t think it''s acceptable to ignore them completely either, boring them to death by twiddling knobs as if you were alone in your room."

For Bill Horist, a guitarist who plays gritty experimental noise using effects pedals, and plastic and metal objects under and attached to strings, performing live versus recording is as simple as a "certain drive I get from having people reacting to what I''m doing immediately. That is an integral part of improvisation ...Basically, I like to try to provide an en-vironment that beckons with some vague string of familiarity, starting somewhere, changing several times, and finally ending somewhere completely different."

But where do these free spirits, armed with handmade futuristic-looking keyboards and playing guitars with metal rulers under the strings, find their muses?

Pamela Winfrey, singer in the Bay Area-based Mobius Operandi, says "We are inspired tremendously by each other. We also all love to playfully play. There are times when the music absolutely sails."

Mobius Operandi consists of four mu-sicians playing one-of-a-kind instruments made by Grammy nominee Oliver DiCicco. The instruments have names such as Abdul (tall and harp-like), the Kalimba (a metal drum-type instrument), the Drone Drum (a metal drum with strings and pickups) and Duo Capi (a cylinder with two saxophone mouthpieces).

The main performance concern to Surrealestate''s drummer David Martinelli is that music is "interesting, that it does something new, outlandish, incredible, passionate. Not the same old clichés over and over again." Surrealestate, from L.A., uses drums, sax, percussion, guitar and more to explore "the nature of sonic experience."

Not only is the sound of this experimental music intriguing, but the process is fascinating to watch. The chance to observe musicians creating spontaneously is thrilling.

Playing the BSXMF in a duo with contrabassist Hugh Livingston is Philip Gelb, who has studied the Japanese shakuhachi flute since he was 9. "Without traditional background, there is no way to create new music." Gelb emphasizes. "Otherwise you will not have control of your instrument. The communication between performer and listener adds to the intensity of the moment."

"Timbre and tone is an inspiration," says Diaz-Infante, who is also performing as part of the BSXMF Ensemble, a collective of past and present festival musicians including Andre Custodio, Pat Harman, Jeff Kaiser and Jim Ryan. "The way something sounds--from a note plucked from a guitar to the sound of a bus passing by--it''s all music."

Composer and sound designer Thomas Dimuzio, who creates music from bicycles, water pipes, trumpets, short-wave radios and electronic samplers, sees the process of musical creation a little differently. "Overdubbing, processing/reprocessing, editing, mixing, and other techniques of the modern day studio allow an initially improvised idea to spawn an intricately composed work. I love the spatialness of sound in open air--from the top of a high building in the city, or a cliff near the ocean, this quality is something that cannot be captured by a stereo recording."

Saturday''s lineup is rounded out by Marcelo Radulovich and Marcos Fernandes, who play guitar and randomly sampled ambient loops fed into the Whisper Chipper, recordings of a chipper/shredder machine combined with guitar; the Jeff Kaiser Trio of trumpet, guitar, bass; Blaise Siwula, a New York sax player whose improvised notions and early music sounds like Thelonius Monk; and Matt Ingalls who has compiled a recorded "electro-acoustic" tape for the end of the evening.

On Sunday listeners will be greeted by Spandana, an eclectic group returning from last year; the Electro-Acoustic Quintet of Oakland, made up of flute, electronically processed sax, keyboards, double bass, percussion and cello; and Yasuhiro Otani, a Japanese artist who rigs up guitar sounds through a Mac Powerbook for some unique sounds, free music and folk.

The electronic musicians are unruffled by the rustic outdoor nature of the stage at the Henry Miller Library.

"Everything is subject to on-the-spot modification but nothing will be changed beforehand other than the fact that maybe I''ll have a plausible excuse to wear sunglasses during a performance. Who said experimental music can''t be cool?" says Bill Horist.

Saturday and Sunday, 1-8pm, at the Henry Miller Library, Highway 1 near Nepenthe Restaurant. $10/day, $15/both days. Call 667-2574 for tickets and more information. >