PART I - Common Practices and Traditions

Part I - Chapter 1 

Introduction and overview

Transcript:

Part I - Chapter 1

Introduction to Common Practices and Traditions

The multi-disciplinary approach

The metaphorical sturcture

Defining improvisation

The chapters of Part I 

Part I - Chapter 2 

Non-European musics

In this chapter we will have a very brief look on how creative processes that suggest Improvisational practices are present in Non-Europeans musics.

Improvisation in non-European musics

Part I - Chapter 3 
Western Art Music

Transcript:

Part I - Chapter 3

Improvisation in Western Art Music

As we have already realised in the previous chapter on improvisation in Non-European musics, the departure point of western art music presents us with various challenges in regard with our subject. We shall see here that these challenges go beyond the bare de-coding of terminology. With its rich diversity of developments and styles, western art music is the result and in many ways a reflection of the complex and extremely dynamic history of the European continent and its philosophical, political, social and economic developments - and the conflicts that have arisen from them. 

In our search for traces of the element of improvisation, we would be well advised to take the previously mentioned enthno-musicological perspective and to critically question dogmatic positions and potential prejudices that are still prevalent today and have in part become entrenched in academic truths. Thus, we will briefly sketch where and when in European music history the practice of improvisation was cultivated, looking in more detail at developments in the 20th century. At the same time, we want to try to understand how and why improvisation repeatedly threatened to be repressed and forgotten. Fortunately the latter did not happen and we are currently experiencing a new revival of interest in improvisation. Our task remains to better understand improvisation as an artistic method and to free it from old ballast - and obvious under- but also overestimations.

CLASSICAL MUSIC AND IMPROVISATION

In fact, improvisation played a not insignificant role in European Art Music, especially in its earlier history. Derek Bailey summarizes this in his book Improvisation - It's nature and practice in music as follows:

The working out and early practice of Gregorian chant and of polyphony was in both cases largely through improvisation; the 17th century school of organ music was mainly developed through performers' extemporisations, and throughout the 17th and 18th centuries accompaniment both in opera and in concerted chamber music was generally left to be improvised over a figured bass which itself grew out of improvised counterpoint. At the beginning of the baroque period improvised ornamentation extended equally to secular and sacred forms, to the arias of opera and oratorio, to cantatas and 'sacred concertos', to songs and solo vocal pieces of all sorts and it appeared also in the newly rising forms of instrumental music, especially sonatas and concertos. (…) Even much later than the baroque period Paganini could write: “My duties require me to play in two concerts each week and I always improvise with piano accompaniment. I write this accompaniment in advance and work out my theme in the course of the improvisation.”

(Derek Bailey: Improvisation - Its Nature and Practice in Music; Da Capo Press, 1992)

In organ music this tradition of the importance and appreciation of improvisation has continued to the present day, especially in the French organ school.

COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, SOLOIST, ORCHESTRA

A decisive development that has contributed to the decline of improvisational practice is perhaps to be found in the emergence and growth of orchestral music. On one hand, improvising in large orchestral ensembles seems difficult and impractical for various reasons. And on the other hand, the orchestra itself manifests a strict division of tasks and a strict hierarchy: the composer as the ingenious creator, the conductor as his extended arm and the orchestra musicians as the performing 'craftsmen'. 

The extent to which this hierarchy reflects not only the artistic division of labor, but also common notions of creativity and prevailing social power relations is unmistakable. Social communication and creative self-expression, exploration and collective authorship - all characteristics of improvisation - seem to fall by the wayside. As a result of such artistic dis-empowerment of the orchestral musician, the composer and his (yes, composers were mostly highly ranked men in a patriarchal world) written works were downright exaggerated, a process that was to continue beyond the Romantic period and well into the New Music of the twentieth century. During this period, the practice of improvisation was certainly far from being an essential element of European art music - it was simply not existant. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that it experienced a short but very intense renaissance. 

THE SECOND VIENESE SCHOOL AND THE EXPLORATION OF SOUND

But before this was to happen, a decisive aesthetic reorganization of European art music was to take place starting with the classical modernism of the early 20th century, which is not without significance in our context. The turning away from the musical ideals of romanticism - thus away from the exuberant affective expression of the individual - and the movement towards the depersonalized clarity of pure sound and form - gave rise to completely new questions about improvisation - as in many cases improvisation was considered - if nothing else than a method of subjective expression. Did this mean that improvisation was completely finished and obsolete? Of course not - but it required a completely new discourse to understand this apparent contradiction. 

HEAR THE PEOPLE’S VOICES - IMPROVISATION AND POLITICS

In the second half of the 20th century numerous new approaches in regard to the organization of musical material and the performance of music were developed: aleatoric, indeterminacy, graphic scores, electroacoustic composition, live electronic music. All these new concepts also had an impact on the status of the interpreter, as they allowed or even explicitly asked for a higher degree of involvement from the performer.

And in the 1960s, with its explosive political and social discourses, debates and actions, contemporary music also witnessed new developments and ideas that reflected these emancipatory ideals and desires. Accordingly, it is not surprising that improvisation, as an artistic method that both grants the individual autonomy and enables social interaction within a group, suddenly came into the focus of both composers and ensembles longing for egalitarian democratic principles.

In a certain sense it seems, that this development led to a process of splitting: established composers - take Cage or Stockhausen for example - flirted with improvisation for a while, but soon rejected it again. One could argue not least because it ultimately called into question the composer's authorship and thus also his status. At the same time, other individuals and ensembles - like Cornelius Cardrew and Scratch Orchestra - were formed - which, while rooted in the tradition of New Music, began to explore and establish improvisation as their preferred method of music making. This movement was one of the inflows that led to the development of a completely new musical genre: Improvised Music - we will hear more about this in chapter five.

A NEW WAY TO LOOK AT THINGS

As the very limited time frame of this overview does not allow us to outline these developments in more detail, I will pick up our ongoing discussion of the term improvisation. Here it want to point out more recent theoretical approaches that question the common dichotomy of composition and improvisation even within the framework of European art music - a not insignificant aspect in the context of our discussion. Bruce Ellis Benson writes in his book The improvisation of musical dialogue - A Phenomenology of Music:

The problem with improvisation is that it does not fit very neatly into the schema that we normally use to think about music making – that is, the binary opposition of composition and performance.

On the one hand, improvisation seems at least to be a kind of extemporaneous composition in that it does not seem to be an ‘interpretation’ of something that already exists. In this sense, it differs from performance, which we normally take to be a kind of re-presentation – the presentation of something that has already been present and is made present once again. (…)

It is precisely this characteristic of being between composition and performance that makes improvisation particularly well suited to thinking about both, as well as their relation to one another. On my view, both composition and performance are improvisatory in nature, albeit in different ways and to differing degrees. Composers never create ex nihilo, but instead ‘improvise’: sometimes on tunes that already exist, but more frequently and importantly on the tradition in which they work.

(Bruce Ellis Benson: The improvisation of musical dialogue - A Phenomenology of Music; Cambridge University Press,2003)

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 3

I think we can clearly hear how Benson’s points resonate with the observations and considerations we have made in our discussion of Non-European musics. Let us leave the discussion of composition versus improvisation for the moment and focus on a new field of improvisation practices.

In the next chapter I want to discuss Jazz music - an art form that, like no other, is almost synonymous with the concept of improvisation.

Please do not forget to listen to the audio podcast to this chapter.

Thank you and see you later!

Part I - Chapter 4 
Jazz Music

Part I - Chapter 5 
Improvised Music

Transcript:

Part I - Chapter 5 
Improvised Music

We have discussed in the previous chapters that improvisation as an artistic method was by no means an invention of the 20th century. But it was also more than just a re-discovery or re-evaluation, as for some musicians the experience of improvisation led to a paradigmatic shift in their artistic practice: improvisation became their main focus and method of music-making. In this chapter, I will try to trace this development and discuss some of the preconditions.

POST-WWII MUSICS
The developments we are going to discuss here evolved mostly during the three post-Word-War-II decades - the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. I am mentioning WWII here not only as a time reference but also as a moment of the tragic failure of human culture and a point in history that raised many fundamental questions regarding the future of the planet and the values of human life, resulting in a political, philosophical and aesthetic discourse that was by many experienced as truly existential. The world required a new and better order - and this also applied to or was reflected in the arts.

So far I have talked about Non-European Musics, Western Art Music and Jazz. The two last-mentioned traditions together with growing awareness for music cultures of the world, the development of new technologies and the appearance of Rock and Pop music were going to become the main resources and inflows for the music of the second half of the 20th century.

THE ‘NEW THING’ IN JAZZ
I have already pointed out the significance of improvisation in Jazz music. Regarding the development of Jazz during the post-WWII years, we can recognise one important shift: the gradual or in some cases decisive emancipation from the realms of commercialised entertainment towards a self-conception as a  serious contemporary art form. Corresponding acceptance and change of status were most evident in Europe, where Jazz music was greatly perceived as the artistic expression of a seemingly omnipresent desire for political change, individual freedom and social tolerance.

In the previous chapter on Jazz music I talked about the Chicago-based AACM - the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians - a self-organised collective of musicians, that started to develop a new vision of African-American music, that was going to build on the Jazz tradition but also incorporate other resources - such as the exploration of African musical traditions and the integration of contemporary Western Art Music positions and practices. 

(Music example 1: 
Art Ensemble of ChicagoA.A.C.M., Great Black Music - A Jackson In Your House; Reording: Paris,1969; BYG Records)

I am using the AACM here as an example and a model for a development that was in a similar way shared by many contemporary or Avantgarde Jazz musicians of the time.
Due to the increasing racial and social tensions and the sparse performance opportunities in the US, Europe - with a growing interest in New Jazz that was reflected in numerous festivals, radio programs, etc. - became an attractive place for American musicians. As a result, leading figures of Jazz in general and of the New Thing movement, in particular, were performing in Europe regularly - or even made European cities like Paris their new home-base. And the influence of these musicians on the European scene - musicians and audiences alike - was going to become quite significant for the development of the European improvised musical practice which followed.

(Music example 2: 
Gittin’ to Know Y'All - Baden-Baden Free Jazz Orchestra conducted by Lester Bowie; Recording: SWR New Jazz Meeting Baden Baden, 1969; MPS Records)

‘NEW MUSIC’
As discussed in the chapter on Western Art Music we find the European contemporary music scene of the 1950’s and 60’s also ‘underway’ looking for new directions - both regarding aesthetics and creative procedures and the exploration of new technologies. As in the mentioned sense all things of the past were being re-considered - also the ‘human factor’ in music was put in question. Here the still prevailing romantic notion of the artist as the main source of creation through intellectual and affective self-expression became a rather dubious and undesirable one. To simplify the point: if human nature is capable of creating the horrors of WWII - why should it be trusted in the field of the arts?
So instead of putting the affected human subject in the center of musical creation, the sound itself became the object of interest. And the sound and its new possibilities needed to be experimentally researched and at some point also organised by the instance of a sober and detached supervisor - the new kind of composer.

(Music example 3: 
John Cage - from the documentary film “Écoute” by Miroslav Sebestik and Anne Grange; France;1992)

In some cases Improvisational practices became part of this research. But as Improvisation by nature seemed to contain a big portion of subjectivity, it was complicated to comprehend and in that sense more difficult to handle compared to for example chance operations, tape machines or synthesisers. And let us not forget that most musicians at the time did not have any or just very little experience with improvisation and therefore a lack of competence as improvisors. As a result for a majority of composers the exploration of improvisational processes was a very short episode or liaison, soon to be abandoned.

(Music example 4: 
From the Seven Days (1968) by Karlheinz Stockhausen; Recording: Darmstadt; 1969; www.stockhausencds.com)

But at the same time a new generation of musicians that was trained in the western tradition but also participating in the more recent developments of New Music came to discover Improvisation as a truly new way to approach music making. We can recognise numerous aspects that attracted them and promoted this development. First of all, finding new sounds on the traditional instruments - a major focus of New Music aesthetics - required a process of creative exploration and the decision to break traditional rules. As the individual performer’s ability and competence to find and produce new sounds was paramount in the new aesthetic, the status of this new kind of virtuosi, that were in fact breaking traditional boundaries and expanding instrumental standards, was quite high. So while the superior role of the composer remained unquestioned, the status of these performers was rising. Many compositions were especially written for certain individuals and their skills. One can see this also as a new kind of co-authorship between composer and performer - but also as a call for emancipation and autonomy for the performing musician.

(Music example 5: 
Sequenza VII, per Oboe; By Luciano Berio (1969) - dedicated to Heinz Holliger; Heinz Holliger: oboe; Recording: Lugano, 1976;)

But as Improvisation slowly became more acceptable for some, the figure of the composer - or at least the notion of a compositional framework - still seemed necessary for most. For some improvisers the solution to this problem seemed quite simple: Improvisation was considered to be composition in real time - and therefore even referred to as ‘Instant Composition’. There are obvious advantages in this concept: it frees Improvisation from the accusation of being just spontaneous and random uttering and at the same time raises it to the status of composition - a complex structural process of aesthetic consideration. The downside so to speak is, that the term Instant Composition does not promote a better understanding of Improvisation - it might even do the opposite by locking us  into traditional western categories.

But nevertheless, we can acknowledge a movement of musicians coming from the western art music background that were founding ensembles that would focus and dedicate their practice on Improvisation. As mentioned before - social and political ideals of equality in social life, artistic collaboration and creation, freedom of expression etc. played a role in many of these cases.

(Music example 6: 
Cornelius Cardrew & The Scratch Orchestra:“The Great Learning”; Recording: London, 1971; Deutsche Grammophon Records)

EUROPEAN (POST-)JAZZ
At the same time there was also a growing number of European musicians that have been identifying with the Jazz tradition and its protagonists. These musicians, while in most cases also being initially trained in a traditional western way, have studied Jazz music mostly through imitation, practice and informal studies. And as the above mentioned new conceptions of Jazz - the New Thing - were coming out of the African-American community, these new developments were perceived both as impulses for emancipation and models for change by European musicians. As many of the european Jazz musicians felt a persistent stigmatisation for imitating and copying an African-American art form, the new perspective to integrate elements from their own cultural traditions seemed a compelling necessity. The resulting variations and forms in which these new conceptions of European Jazz were formulated reflected both individual and national preferences. And the extent to which original elements of the Jazz idiom remained in the music or were eliminated, replaced or transformed varied very much from case to case.

(Music example 7: 
Globe Unity Orchestra; Directed by Alexander von Schlippenbach; Recording: live at Berliner Jazztage 1970; German Television)

IMPROVISED MUSIC - IMPROVISATION AS PRINCIPLE
Coming out of the just mentioned New Music and New Jazz scenes,  a new musical genre was created: the so-called Improvised Music. A new musical direction that had only one main principle and credo: that it is created through improvisation.

Once established, this seemingly radical approach to music-making quickly gained popularity and inspired professional musicians and amateurs alike to experiment with this practice and eventually join the movement. We can see many liberating aspects of the new practice: musicians could join regardless of their musical backgrounds or preferred idioms. Even the level of instrumental skills - or the lack thereof when viewed from a traditional perspective - seemed not to be a limiting factor, as long as the improvisational interactions and expressions made sense to the performers and the audiences. This opened up the possibility of musical expression to many people that did not undergo the more traditional training and education paths - but also created criticism and sometimes even the accusation of dilettantism.

In any case the community of free improvisors was very heterogeneous and one can hear in the recordings and documents of the time that the sole fact that the music was created by improvisation and without any preconceptions did not produce unified musical material nor result in a specific musical style. Since the protagonists came from very different musical backgrounds the aesthetic question of how the music was supposed to sound would become an entirely different process, investigation and discourse.

Derek Bailey for instance, a leading figure in the European Improvised Music scene and author of the already mentioned book ‘Improvisation - Its nature and practice in music’, postulated the creation of a ’NON-IDIOMATIC’ music - a music that would free itself from all idiomatic and thus traditional ballast. This idea resonates with the ideals of the ‘New Music’ and its emphasis on finding new sounds.

(Music example 8: 
Derek Bailey “Solo Guitar”; Recording: London, 1971; Incus records)

In contrast to such an ideal of historic unrootedness the African-American conceptions mostly incorporated a strong notion of cultural heritage and tradition in their visions of a new avantgarde.

(Music example 9: 
Muhal Richard Abrams “Levels and degrees of light”; Recording: Chicago, 1967; Delmark Records)

Perhaps one could say in an over-simplified way that the first generation of European improvisors starting in the 1960s - people like Evan Parker, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Peter Brötzmann, Gunter Hampel, Misha Mengelberg, Irene Schweizer - was influenced by both the Jazz tradition and the New Music tradition as departure points for the new developments.

(Music example 10: 
Spontaneous Music Ensemble “Karyōbin”; Recorded: London, 1968; Chronoscope Records)

For a second generation of improvisors, most prominently represented by the so called ‘New York Downtown Scene’ of the 1980s - people like Fred Frith, John Zorn, Zeena Parkins, Elliot Sharp, Arto Lindsay - these traditions would not be the central reference points any more. Their post-modern and de-constructivist approaches towards numerous musical genres and traditions, with a focus on genres of popular music, created not only new sounds but also an approachability for a new generation of listeners and followers that were more accustomed to popular music styles.

(Music example 11: 
John Zorn “COBRA”; Recording: New York, 1987; Hat ART Records)

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 5
The Improvised Music scene is today a global phenomenon and a community of very dedicated musicians that create music based on the principle of Improvisation. Despite the declared principle of freedom, one should mention that the Improvised Music scene has occasionally developed a rigid aesthetic codex. But of course it would be quite simplistic to expect that a certain art form or genre could by definition guarantee a constant state of freedom. What it might be able to do - philosophically speaking, is to keep exploring possibilities and visions of a better world. And that is a task that is indeed inscribed in its tradition.

In the next chapter, we will be looking at Improvisation in Music Therapy and in what way it differs or resembles Improvisation in artistic creation. Thank you and see you there!

Part I - Chapter 6 
Music Therapy

Part I - Chapter 7 
Other fields of artistic practice

coming soon...

Part I - Chapter 8 
Summary of Part I

coming soon...