Sonic Dojo: Crescendo — TR7’s Baton

In this reflection, TR7 traces the lineage of Sonic Dojo: Crescendo, linking the sacred description of humankind as pottery in the Qur’an with the sound worlds of Milford Graves and Butch Morris. From the Icebox Project Space to The Pottery Gym, this essay follows how conduction, vibration, and breath form a continuum of practice — a relay of legacy carried forward through ensemble improvisation.

Another Field Trip, Another Staged Production

In the sacred Qur’an Allah (SWT) has described us as pottery:

Sura 55 Ar-Rahman, Ayah 14Khalaqal insaana min salsaalin kalfakhkhaarخَلَقَ الْإِنْسَانَ مِنْ صَلْصَالٍ كَالْفَخَّارِ“He created man from sounding clay like unto pottery.”

Crescendo.The Sonic Dojo exercise in Yara, first staged in 2024 at The Pottery Gym in honor of Milford Graves, returns now with an expanded dimension: a new staging that brings Lawrence “Butch” Morris’s Sonic Conduction into dialogue with Graves’s BaBi. Two of the great conductor-producers of the 20th century — Graves with his system of breath and vibration, and Morris with his language of conduction — converge through a symphony of 16 musicians led by TR7 under the banner of The Other Sounds of Philadelphia / Sonic Sculpture Ensemble.

This staged production is in part informed by the name Pottery Gym. As an artist, pottery or clay is not a material I typically use — yet in a metaphysical sense, I always have. The Qur’an reminds us that humankind itself is fashioned from sounding clay. To mold vibration, to resonate like pottery struck, is to embody this divine description. It is here that I ground my approach.

Sonic Dojo: Crescendo — Milford Graves VS Butch Morris (Ode to Graves & Morris)

Conducted by TR7

“A baton is not just a tool for keeping time; it is a vessel for carrying lineages forward.” — TR7

In 2017, I conceived TR7’s Baton in honor of Terry R. Adkins and Lawrence D. Butch Morris. That seed has now manifested as Sonic Dojo: Crescendo at The Pottery Gym, an ensemble activation that explores uncharted sonic terrain through expanded concepts of breath, vibration, and conduction.

2017 — Amplified Repertoire / Baton at Icebox

At Icebox Project Space, I was invited by curators Tim Belknap and Kevin McCarthy into a new threshold. The Icebox, a 5,000 sq ft & 20 ft volume ceiling white cube, required me to amplify my repertoire across all its dimensions: sculpture, video, sound, and oration. The residency Amplified Repertoire/Baton became both a test of scale and a declaration of legacy.

Adkins — friend, mentor, and artist I represented at Taji Modern Gallery — embodied the baton as a relay of lineage. Morris transformed conduction into a language for improvisers. Together, their examples created a vocabulary that shaped my path forward.

It was also during this residency that I engaged in a virtual conversation with George Lewis (MacArthur Fellow) as part of my convening of the concept The Oversight Committee. In that exchange, George and I connected around what he called reclamation projects — efforts to retrieve and reframe histories through sound and thought. Part of that discussion centered on Butch Morris, whom George had himself been directed by. Through George, I was able to hear first-hand stories of Morris’s presence, his approach, and his shaping of ensemble improvisation. This layered my own connection to Morris with direct testimony from someone deeply within his circle.

2024 — Pottery Gym, Training Day, and Graves

"In 2024, through friend & collaborator Mark Dilks, I encountered Ben Peterson of The Pottery Gym. Its very name resonated: practice, shaping, discipline. Unlike the Icebox, it called for the body’s training and motion. Here, I presented the Training Day video series in full, exploring martial and physical forms.

In 2021 I learned of Milford Graves through his ICA Philadelphia exhibition. His system BaBi (breath, circularity, vibration) and martial discipline Yara revealed a synthesis of improvisation, body, and science that directly resonated with my practice".

The First Sonic Dojo (2024)

From these convergences, the first Sonic Dojo emerged at The Pottery Gym. With Joey Cobin on drums who had studied Graves & Ann Adachi-Tasch as interpreter, I juxtaposed Graves’s words in Japanese and English, drawn from an interview he gave in Kyoto. Skeleton charts and actual bones became oratorical prompts, binding sound to physiology.

This early Sonic Dojo marked the fusion of martial discipline and improvisational sound into an embodied, collective experiment.

2025 — Crescendo at Pottery Gym

When I returned to The Pottery Gym in 2025, I expected a small circle of collaborators. Instead, more than a dozen musicians and artists committed. Among them, three drummers — echoing Graves’s percussive philosophy — transformed the ensemble into a 16-piece orchestra of improvisers.

Here, the idea of Crescendo resurfaced — long dormant since Icebox 2017. Like a relay race of sound, the ensemble built forces layer by layer until the collective pulse exceeded the individual. The framework became Graves’s BaBi vs. Morris’s Conduction — not track-for-track, but concept-for-concept.

This chapter also echoes forward into Legacy & Lineage. The baton metaphor embodies not only the orchestral gesture but also the passage of artistic lineages — from Adkins to Morris, from Graves to TR7, and from TR7 to the new ensemble.

Alhamdulillah. The baton continues, amplified by breath, sound, and collective imagination.