It's astonishing. There's a section (many sections) of Bedouin Hornbook which writes the internal sense of improvising in music better than anything I've read. Nobody does music in language like Mackey!

Last summer I was working on the top floor of a cultural centre in London. Heard horns and drums from the street below, and familiar/beloved melody drifting up. Orchestra of children and teenagers marching through the street playing this piece.
As beautiful as it gets, and so needed.

Stunned at how bad as both music and performance this was. Constant mugging to the audience. People pretend-meditating on stage while he pounded out the melody as fast as he could. Cheap macho tasteless shit, made from a piece I love.

The lighting and the big mirror looked alright.

I love the sounds of bodies in performance, the way the space shapes and is shaped by activity, and everybody in attendance tacitly (or not) contributing to the presence of the moment.
Often close to silent, but luminous.

Hopefully not