pure improvisation

[faster]

does that make it a bit clearer?

Not really. That's pretty much how all improvisers work (except maybe the distrust of conscious thought, but I'm not altogether sure why--or even if--you feel so strongly about that). Again, I don't know anyone who "deliberately" sticks to an idiom (or even thinks about things that way at all). Really. Maybe that giant is really a windmill?

[Charon]

[ That's pretty much how all improvisers work

well that's what I might have thought originally, but most of the comments in this thread seem to suggest otherwise. The main point is, I suppose, that I personally focus on improvising for the sake of improvising, rather than for the sake of making 'music' or 'art' or whatever. If you feel that most other improvisors also do that, then that's completely fine by me, but it seems a lot of the other comments in this thread don't bear that out. Whether you take the discussion in this thread as representative of the wider world of improvisors is another matter, of course.

[bryan]

improvising for the sake of improvising

My objection to this is that it's only for a club of improvisors. If it is to be appreciated as music then it has to be thought of in relation to an audience. An aspect of improv that I like is the democratic nature of it, and if saying that something is improvisation corrals it into a little niche then I'm not interested.

What are you saying, that communicating to a listener (or non-improvisor) is of no concern? Anyhow, improvising is not so special it is just a creative act. It should be normal. It is composing on a small scale. Composing is improv on a large scale, etc..

Well, here are some quotes from Bailey's Improvisation book that I think highlight why improvisation (small 'i') is rewarding (for both player and audience).

This is one of the immediate and direct effects of improvisation. It secures the total involvement of the performer. Better than any other means it provides the possibility for the player to completely identify with the music.

A lot of improvisors find improvisation worthwhile, I think, because of the possibilities. Things that can happen but perhaps rarely do. One of those things is that you are 'taken out of yourself'.

(Improvisation) exists because it meets the creative appetite that is a natural part of being a performing musician and because it invites complete involvement, to a degree otherwise unobtainable, in the act of music-making.

[jkudler]

there's a famous cage quote that goes something like this: "composing music, playing music, and listening to music are three totally separate things; what could they possibly have to do with each other?", and one thing that i like about improvisation is that it's all three, happening together.

-j.

[bryan]

there's a famous cage quote that goes something like this: "composing music, playing music, and listening to music are three totally separate things; what could they possibly have to do with each other?", and one thing that i like about improvisation is that it's all three, happening together.

Nice. I can picture composing, playing, and listening as points on a triangle... and improvising as falling in the triangle, being made up of different proportions (changing with the situation, the player, the style of improv) of the three aspects. Damn... that makes it seem so elegant. I like it!

EDIT: the science geek comes out... ternary phase diagrams anyone? haha

[nhennies]

there's a famous cage quote that goes something like this: "composing music, playing music, and listening to music are three totally separate things; what could they possibly have to do with each other?", and one thing that i like about improvisation is that it's all three, happening together.

I don't really want to open the "what is improvisation?" can of worms even further than it has been already, but I see improvisation and composition as separate, distinct types of activity.

Also, I find that I can't listen with the same type of concentration while playing as I can while sitting in the audience because I'm engaged in a physical activity. I remember a story I read somewhere when Greg Kelley saw Sean Meehan play and asked Sean something like, "Were you thinking the same thing I was during that?" and Sean said, "What? My hand hurts?"

It's something I've struggled with especially with quieter music, because I'm involved in the mechanics of performing and I'm in control of the events it means I can't listen the way I would if I weren't playing.

[jkudler]

I don't really want to open the "what is improvisation?" can of worms even further than it has been already, but I see improvisation and composition as separate, distinct types of activity.

i didn't meant to imply otherwise. but the cage quote, at least de-contextualized like that, does seem to have an absolute quality to it, and my point is simply that improvisation works best when these three activities are done in tandem, complementarily. for someone with an improvising background, that quote seems faintly ridiculous.

Also, I find that I can't listen with the same type of concentration while playing as I can while sitting in the audience because I'm engaged in a physical activity. I remember a story I read somewhere when Greg Kelley saw Sean Meehan play and asked Sean something like, "Were you thinking the same thing I was during that?" and Sean said, "What? My hand hurts?"

It's something I've struggled with especially with quieter music, because I'm involved in the mechanics of performing and I'm in control of the events it means I can't listen the way I would if I weren't playing.[/quote]

love that story.

sure, i don't meant to imply that improvising represents the *pinnacle* of all three separate activities, at once, but simply that they all must be going on, in complementary fashion.

-jesse

[RFKorp]

there's a famous cage quote that goes something like this: "composing music, playing music, and listening to music are three totally separate things; what could they possibly have to do with each other?", and one thing that i like about improvisation is that it's all three, happening together.

I don't really want to open the "what is improvisation?" can of worms even further than it has been already, but I see improvisation and composition as separate, distinct types of activity.

Also, I find that I can't listen with the same type of concentration while playing as I can while sitting in the audience because I'm engaged in a physical activity. I remember a story I read somewhere when Greg Kelley saw Sean Meehan play and asked Sean something like, "Were you thinking the same thing I was during that?" and Sean said, "What? My hand hurts?"

It's something I've struggled with especially with quieter music, because I'm involved in the mechanics of performing and I'm in control of the events it means I can't listen the way I would if I weren't playing.

I don't think this actually conflicts with what is being discussed. Improvising music as a ratio of parts playing, composing, and listening. FOR YOU, the ratio tends to lean on playing. But I assume you are listening as well (just not in the more focused way you would when not doing other things). And you are likely thinking, to a certain extent, about the overall "compositional" structure of your playing. For someone else, in another situation, the ratio can shift.


edit: oh, jesse beat me to the punch....

[nhennies]

I don't really want to open the "what is improvisation?" can of worms even further than it has been already, but I see improvisation and composition as separate, distinct types of activity.

i didn't meant to imply otherwise. but the cage quote, at least de-contextualized like that, does seem to have an absolute quality to it, and my point is simply that improvisation works best when these three activities are done in tandem, complementarily. for someone with an improvising background, that quote seems faintly ridiculous.

Well, to be fair my background as far as what I consider formative aspects of my playing isn't in improvisation but it is something I've done a lot (but really not very much at all anymore).

I didn't mean to say that they're wholly separate things (even just choosing a catalog of sounds to work with is an act of composition), but I reject this idea that improvising is "spontaneous composition".

EDIT:

sure, i don't meant to imply that improvising represents the *pinnacle* of all three separate activities, at once, but simply that they all must be going on, in complementary fashion.

This is actually getting at part of the problem I continually have with most improvised music, that it seems like a compromise of several types of activity.

[RFKorp]

This is actually getting at part of the problem I continually have with most improvised music, that it seems like a compromise of several types of activity.

for me, this speaks first to a whole other set of social issues before even it gets to music. We are raised to believe that a mix of things is something somehow "impure" and no longer really truly any of the things that led to its creation in the first place. For example, a mixed-race child can have a hard time finding acceptance in either cultural group to which he/she knows he/she belongs. A friend of mine once related a story to me of the personal struggle it was at an early age to "give up her blackness" in order to hang out with her private school peers. It became her mother's racial/cultural heritage not hers. It took her many years of being taunted as an "Oreo" by other student of color before she learned how to engage herself honestly in the multiplicity of her race.

People are pressured to chose ONE feature of their makeup and devote themselves to presenting themselves as that thing and that thing alone. Even worse, it is often chosen for them. Why can't at least artistic forms break such a pattern?

I don't have (or want for that matter) to fully and exclusively act the part in order to be the "New York Jew" or the "Gay White Male" or whatever someone wants to think I'm supposed to be. I can embrace these various sociocultural existences to which I belong and internalize the things that serve me and my needs, the things I consider most essential to my mix of identity and its simultaneous alignment with all of its sources, in a fluidly shifting manner from one moment to another. And I do not believe I am watering any of them down.

So, I don't believe in engaging in this particular battle when making music either. Why can't one's work embrace the elements of composing, listening, playing (is there something else? maybe our polygon has even more than three points) that serve one's fundamental understanding of a situation without it being about giving up or watering down the rest?

[nhennies]

So, I don't believe in engaging in this particular battle when making music either. Why can't one's work embrace the elements of composing, listening, playing (is there something else? maybe our polygon has even more than three points) that serve one's fundamental understanding of a situation without it being about giving up or watering down the rest?

I didn't say nobody's work *could*, only that I find it do difficult to all those things simultaneously to a satisfactory degree. I hardly think it's fair to compare that idea to the oppression of people from mixed cultural backgrounds.

[RFKorp]

I didn't say nobody's work *could*, only that I find it difficult to all those things simultaneously to a satisfactory degree.

ok. your tone struck me as dismissive of the possibility rather than a frustration with an inability to reach that point thus far.

I hardly think it's fair to compare that idea to the oppression of people from mixed cultural backgrounds.

yeah, I agree. I felt bad about starting with that. I re-wrote the post a dozen times. part of why I made sure to tie it into non-racial but just as potentially all-consuming identities of my own.

[RFKorp]

also, in quick retrospect. my post might have served better on a personal blog than here. Your post was just the last in a series that formed a kind of knot in my stomach. And I think writing that out might have had more to do with releasing some internal pressure valve than it had to do with actually engaging in the trajectory of this thread. sorry.

[jkudler]

Well, to be fair my background as far as what I consider formative aspects of my playing isn't in improvisation but it is something I've done a lot (but really not very much at all anymore).

yes, but surely you have more of an improvising background than cage ("background" could even = listening, reading to/about improv).

I didn't mean to say that they're wholly separate things (even just choosing a catalog of sounds to work with is an act of composition), but I reject this idea that improvising is "spontaneous composition".

that's sort of a semantic argument, and i'm not sure i want to "go there [,girl]", but part of me wishes more improvisers thought hard about "spontaneous composition" rather than cool sound-cool sound-cool sound.

but if you mean that improv is best thought of as separate from the practice of "composition," and not as a subset of it, i think i agree with you.

EDIT:

sure, i don't meant to imply that improvising represents the *pinnacle* of all three separate activities, at once, but simply that they all must be going on, in complementary fashion.

This is actually getting at part of the problem I continually have with most improvised music, that it seems like a compromise of several types of activity.

well, richard took one tack on this. i agree with him for the most part. but i also think that composition can of course be thought of as a compromise. for one thing, the distance between score and performer makes it very hard to do certain things (namely, detailed manipulations of things besides pitch, rhythm, and rough dynamics) and often to have a sense of *investment* in those things. i also find the locus of abstraction often moves to the relationship between performer and score/composer, which is often not that interesting to me as an audience member.

but of course, maybe we are just saying "improvisation is good for some things, and composition is good for others."

-jesse

[RFKorp]

but of course, maybe we are just saying "improvisation is good for some things, and composition is good for others."

improvisation (with its often-inherent elements of composition) and composition (with its often-inherent elements of improvisation)

[nhennies]

but of course, maybe we are just saying "improvisation is good for some things, and composition is good for others."

improvisation (with its often-inherent elements of composition) and composition (with its often-inherent elements of improvisation)

Agreement!

[William Hutson]

Agreement!

hooray! does that mean the thread's over? or does charon have to agree too?

[Jesse]

hooray! does that mean the thread's over? or does charon have to agree too?

[RFKorp]

well, if he wants to chime in, he'd better do it quick. I think there's only room for one more post on this page of the thread

[bryan]

Also, I find that I can't listen with the same type of concentration while playing as I can while sitting in the audience because I'm engaged in a physical activity. I remember a story I read somewhere when Greg Kelley saw Sean Meehan play and asked Sean something like, "Were you thinking the same thing I was during that?" and Sean said, "What? My hand hurts?"

It's something I've struggled with especially with quieter music, because I'm involved in the mechanics of performing and I'm in control of the events it means I can't listen the way I would if I weren't playing.

What is interesting about the use of electronic instruments is that it can allow for more listening vs. playing because of the minimal physical movement necessary to make sound. And before anyone gets their pantalones in a bunch.. that is not to say that electronics are preferable, it just opens different ways of "playing".

PS Why does it matter if this thread dies or not? For more light reading, there's plenty over in the "now playing" thread. Just saying... it's easy enough to ignore if one likes.