Free Improvisation

This thesis tries to elucidate and exemplify possible intersections between experimental rock of the late 60s and early 70s and the field of electroacoustic music, focusing mostly on production/compositional techniques and aesthetic approaches. A historical overview of the context which experimental rock emerged from is attempted, exploring why and how certain production techniques were used at that period in rock music and investigating into whether the aesthetic outcome of these techniques relates to experiments in the field of electroacoustic music. Musical examples from the field of classical, jazz and rock styles (including artists like Glenn Gould, Lennie Tristano, Miles Davis, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Fred Frith (Henry Cow) and Frank Zappa) are addressed for the sake of exploring different experimental studio practices. Moreover, a part of this research deals with the creative exploration of the production techniques discussed in order to develop my personal compositional work and eventually to create a framework where a discussion about composing electroacoustic music from the perspective of rock production (and vice-versa!) could emerge.

This paper describes an approach for teaching marketing skills to tertiary students through improvisational theatre experiences. These skills of communication, creativity, ambiguitytolerance,
team building and problem-solving have been identified by researchers to be crucial in the marketing field and often missing in marketing education. While some researchers have already established a link between marketing and theatre, this paper builds upon that literature to suggest an improvisational model that aligns marketing education and employers’ expectations. This improvisational model was implemented in one graduate and one undergraduate marketing class and data was collected. A preliminary analysis of the data indicates that students see this model as an effective method for learning marketing skills.

This research studies the concept of musical experimentalism in the manifestos of musical avant-garde. It theorises the concept of musical experimentalism, clarifies the confusion between the concepts of avant-garde and modernism in music research, and locates the most important manifestos in reference to the idea of musical experimentalism. The main finding of the study is that musical experimentalism is a radical ethos concerning the making of music: aside from working as a musical technique, it can also serve as a way to be in the world and a way to change society. The research examines, among other things, contemporary classical music, electronic music, sound art, noise and free improvisation. The salient material of the study comprises manifestos written by well-known avant-garde and experimental composers such as Edgard Varèse (1883–1965), John Cage (1912–1992) and Pauline Oliveros (1932–). The material also consists of writings by R. Murray Schafer (1933–) and Hildegard Westerkamp (1946–), both representing the field of acoustic ecology. Few previous studies have explored some of the manifestos underlying the idea of musical experimentalism in this study such as the writings of composers Frederik Rzewski (1938–) and Cornelius Cardew (1936–1981). The material also includes manifestos by artists from different domains of art, such as texts by the Italian futurist painter Luigi Russolo (1883–1947), the Russian futurist auteur Dziga Vertov (1896–1954) and the American beat writer William S. Burroughs (1914–1997). This research is based on avant-garde theory (e.g. Bürger 2006 [1974], Ziarek 2001, Calinescu 1987; Huyssen 1986; Poggioli 1968 [1962]) and experimental music studies (e.g. Demers 2010; Saunders 2009; Hegarty 2007; Attali 2006 [1977]; Nyman 1999 [1974]; Mauceri 1997). The research builds the theory of musical experimentalism from the viewpoint of Martin Heidegger’s (e.g. 2010 [1929]; 2007 [1962/1988]; 2000 [1927]; 1998 [1935/1936]) and Herbert Marcuse’s (2011 [1977]; 1969) philosophies using Heidegger’s concepts of ‘being-in-the-world’, ‘uncanny’ and ‘nothingness’, and Marcuse’s concepts of ‘aesthetic ethos’ and ‘counter-societal experience’. The study also considers the idea of experimentalism from the viewpoint of etymology, phenomenological philosophy, transcendentalism and anarchism. The research presents an interpretation of the ethos of musical experimentalism as a mode of musical and cultural subversion. It argues that musical experimentalism does not operate within conventional musical laws, theories, preconditions or definitions, but is based on the idea that music can happen anywhere at anytime. The ethos of musical experimentalism requires openness to the world and acceptance of the indeterminate essence of reality. Musical experimentalism depends on the instability of being and aims to radicalise experience through seeing, hearing and understanding reality in a new way. Musical experimentalism questions the accepted reality and replaces it with a new, artistically formulated reality. In this way, musical experimentalism is also radically political in that it aims not just to subvert musical experience, but also the experience of reality. In other words, musical experimentalism aims to change the world by changing individuals; not only the laws of music, but also cultural values are to be questioned.

This paper will go through an analysis of Derek Bailey’s and Lars von Trier’s works within Free Improvisation music and Dogma 95. To do that, the different historical context will be presented and analysed together with a comparison of the aesthetics of their work to have a final evaluation about the necessity of rules and spontaneity in the avant-garde art.

A term applied to avant-garde jazz of the 1960s and more generally to experimental performance approaches that preceded and followed that decade. Free jazz is sometimes defined negatively, in terms of the conventional jazz features from which it may depart, including a reliance on tonal harmony, metrical rhythmic structure, sectional form and standard jazz instrumentation, instrument timbres, techniques and ensemble roles. This approach, however, glosses over the very different ways in which individual musicians altered, extended or broke down conventions, and it offers little insight into the music's underlying organization. Other definitions of free jazz situate the music within a tradition that has always valued experimentation, collaboration, improvisation and frequently a spiritual dimension to music. Far from operating without constraints, free jazz requires skill and communication to select appropriate constraints while developing both the content and the form of the music in the course of performance.

This paper recounts and analyzes a performance of John Zorn's Cobra––a 'game' piece for improvisers––from a first person perspective. I examine the process of rehearsal and performance making reference to relevant literature in music psychology; and I offer some tentative possibilities for how we might understand musical communication in the context of free improvisation. To conclude I consider the pedagogical applications of the piece. While the account offered here is largely anecdotal, it is my hope that this paper may offer some useful insights into the nature of musical improvisation and perhaps inspire more sustained and rigorous inquiries into this fascinating and under-researched area of musical practice.

The solo has been a crucial element of jazz throughout this tradition’s development. Unaccompanied solo works by single-line instruments, however, have a more recent lineage. Saxophonist/composer Anthony Braxton’s 1968 "For Alto" was the first full-length album of unaccompanied solos. The 1970s brought a plethora of solo recordings from an ever-increasing number of artists, many in the vanguard stream of the music.This aesthetic development brought with it a number of issues to consider. In the absence of a score or standardized repertoire, as is often the case in this genre, what gives a composition its identity? What are the ontological implications of music that deviates from cyclical harmonic structures and the theme-and-variations format? This article examines aspects of these issues through a close look at both the unique compositional processes of trumpeter and composer Bill Dixon, and his unaccompanied solo trumpet piece, “Webern.” Based on extensive interviews with Dixon, I explore three performances of Dixon’s composition, none of which sonically resemble one another. If the sounding result of a composition is not its central identity, how does one examine or define such a work? The problems in locating an essence or “center” of non-notated music, and how to analyze and represent it, are not specific to Dixon’s work, they are major issues that have limited the amount of scholarship that has focused on this approach to music-making.

Attraverso un esperimento svolto nel 2011, riprendendo la teoria di Turner sui fenomeni liminoidi in relazione ai drammi sociali, sono andata alla ricerca del dramma sociale rappresentato attraverso le performance di improvvisazione in danza. L’esperimento ha quindi coinvolto 6 performer in un workshop dando vita a un ciclo di 12 performance all’aperto nel centro storico di Firenze, durante le quali è stato intervistato il pubblico di passaggio sulle impressioni e parole chiave che le performance suscitavano in loro. Dalla ricorrenza di alcuni termini è stato evidente il collegamento con il concetto postmoderno di libertà. Secondo Bauman viviamo in una società in cui è stato guadagnato in libertà individuale perdendo però quella sicurezza che teneva insieme la società moderna.
Nel mondo postmoderno vige la frammentazione e la mancanza di un quadro, sembrano mancare gli strumenti concettuali per esaminare la situazione in modo coerente e integrato. La vita individuale è concepita più che altro come un opera o come un’impresa, come qualcosa che va sviluppata, perfezionata e rielaborata fino a raggiungere il massimo potenziale. Al giorno d’oggi sembra che anche semplici scelte, come quale detersivo comprare, ci mettano di fronte a una crescente incapacità di scegliere. Nel gioco di specchi dell’improvvisazione come fenomeno liminoide possiamo quindi vedere chiaramente quali sono i nessi tra questa pratica performativa e la società postmoderna: il performer, improvvisando, si definisce nel presente della performance, compiendo le sue scelte passo dopo passo sulla scena. Si pone in una situazione di “precarietà creativa”, di “crisi volontaria”, come se avesse riprodotto una “scenografia postmoderna”.
Sembra che l’arte abbia proposto uno spazio protetto in cui potersi liberare
dall’ansia della scelta, in cui le parole chiave sono accettazione, ascolto e
mancanza di giudizio. Sembra inoltre aver riportato l’attenzione su un nodo
cruciale: la scelta non è quasi mai razionale, è intuitiva e sociale.

Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians (354 p., 566 games) was published by GIA (giamusic.com) in 2008. Vol. II (372 p., 642 new games) published April 14, 2016 by GIA. This is the table of contents of Vol. II. There are fewer categories than Vol. I, but more content per category and several new categories.

Ce travail est né du désir d’explorer les dialogues entre l’improvisation et l’écriture musicale à partir de la création de pièces ouvertes et propositions d’improvisation guidées. Dans mes créations qui seront ici présentées, l'intérêt d’utiliser les pièces ouvertes est de pouvoir offrir à l'interprète de la pièce une grande liberté de création, de sorte que leurs choix influencent directement le résultat final de l'œuvre. Plus qu’une liberté, c’est aussi une responsabilité, car dans mon écriture, j’incite les interprètes à être aussi des créateurs de la pièce, et non pas seulement les réalisateurs. Je m’intéresse par conséquent au type d’engagement que l’interprète construit face à cette opportunité, et surtout aux rapports que cette façon de réorganiser la pratique musicale (avec la dissolution des figures séparées d’interprètes et de créateurs) peuvent avoir avec notre organisation en société.

"This practice-led research investigates a design framework within an artistic context for the
implementation of Whole Body Interactive (WBI) performance systems that employ real-time motion
capture technology. Following an Interaction Design perspective I engage in exploring the
requirements for composers, dancers, musicians and performers and their expectations, within
a series of transdisciplinary collaborative artistic projects. Integral to this investigation is a comprehensive
review and analysis of the progression of interactivity in fine art, music, dance and
performance practices, presented in this thesis. As I am particularly concerned with the seamless
transfer of the tacit skills and the implicit knowledge of non-digital artists and practitioners to a
WBI performance setting, my practical explorations emerged in the contexts of music improvisation
- Untitled#1, contemporary dance - Untitled#2, contemporary music composition - Hiroshima,
and traditional dance - Duende. Adopting a Holistic Design approach, the experience and knowledge
gained from my first practical explorations led to the design and implementation of a WBI
prototyping software environment called EnActor, used in tandem with the Orient wireless inertial
motion capture system, developed by the Research Consortium in Speckled Computing,
at the University of Edinburgh. EnActor provides a simple and effective solution to the problem
of linking physical actions to rich digital media responses and can serve as a blueprint for
the development of other WBI design software, since it has operated successfully as a prototype,
addressing a wide range of WBI design briefs in various contexts. In this thesis I introduce the
role of the WBI designer as a specialist interaction designer able to conceptualise WBI scenarios
and implement complete systems that operate within various levels of body sensing and control.
I also propose the development of WBI systems that are autonomous and unsupervised,
and I explore various compositional concepts and mappings that are implemented as automatic,
semi-automatic or manual modules and ultimately arranged into layers and to series of blocks
that represent complete compositions. Following the understanding of interactivity as a property
between systems, I identify the design of three basic types of WBI performance systems that differ
in how a user engages with them: methodical, empirical and dialectic. Overall this research
aims to facilitate designers and artists interested in the use of real-time motion capture systems in
dance, music, theatre and performance art applications."

Oliveros’s quantum improvisation is the result of listening deeply to the ethical co-emergence of improvising humans and intelligent machines. Pauline Oliveros’s Triple Point (with Doug van Nort and Jonas Braasch) consists of three human musicians performing live with a listening and improvising computer agent. Van Nort’s FILTER (Freely Improvising, Learning, and Transforming Evolutionary Recombination system) selectively listens and simultaneously plays with the musicians. This dissertation explores improvisation and contributes a cross-field definition of of this highly contested term: improvisation is the performance agency. The first of three movements provides a cross-field review of improvisation; the second movement employs autoethnography to study the sonic and social improvisations of Triple Point; the third movement explores quantum improvisation by employing writing as a performative tool to discover Oliveros’s ethical machine and human improvisation. The three interconnected types of improvisation are theorized as constraining and provoking improvisation: personal combinatory, social evolutionary, and ethical transcendent. This dissertation concludes with the claim that Oliveros’s quantum improvisation contributes to a theory of creativity that reverberates with socio-ethical connection and discovery.

As a performer of firstly acoustic and latterly electronic and electro-instrumental music, I constantly seek to improve my mode of interaction with the digital realm: that is, to achieve a high level of sensitivity and expression. This thesis illustrates reasons why making use of haptic interfaces—which offer physical feedback and resistance to the performer—may be viewed as an important approach in addressing the shortcomings of some the standard systems used to mediate the performer’s engagement with various sorts of digital musical information. By examining the links between sound and touch, and the performer-instrument relationship, various new compositional and performance strategies start to emerge. I explore these through a portfolio of original musical works, which span the continuum of composition and improvisation, largely based around performance paradigms for piano and live electronics. I implement new haptic technologies, using vibrotactile feedback and resistant interfaces, as well as exploring more metaphorical connections between sound and touch. I demonstrate the impact that the research brings to the creative musical outcomes, along with the implications that these techniques have on the wider field of live electronic musical performance.

ó 16.95 As a musician I am interested in the sensual nature of sound, its power of release and change. In my performances throughout the world I try to transmit to the audience the way I am experiencing sound as I hear it and play it in a style that I call deep listening. Deep listening is listening in every possible way to every thing possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, of oneís own thoughts as well as musical sounds. Deep listening is my life practice. In this article I attempt to relate my experiences as a performer and composer to my current interest in acoustics and technology. I have been involved with the use of technology for live performance since the late 1950s. I will review several of my pieces as they relate to the development of the Expanded Instrument System (EIS) described below which I use in composing my solo performances and ensemble performances with the Deep Listening Band. I will discuss my interest in acoustic and virtual space. Virtual acoustics-a perceptual phenomenon-is created with electronic processing within an actual physical space. Simulated walls or reflective surfaces may cause a listener to perceive differences in room size and the tone quality of a musical instrument. Early in my student career as a performer I noticed that I liked playing in some rooms or concert halls much better than others. When I played my French horn in a dry hall (a room with little or no reverberation) the sound felt stuffy and it seemed harder to play. I would wonder why my tone quality seemed to sound poor or very thin in such rooms. More reverberant rooms always felt better especially rooms with wooden floors and walls as the reflective surfaces. My tone was fuller, richer and rounder and it was easier to play. I was learning about resonance, reflections, reverberation and how to play the room through these experiences. Analogously the situation was similar when as a composer I worked with electronic sound. When I used dry sounds (sounds recorded directly from the source without a sense of room space) reverberation of some kind was needed to make the sounds seem more musical. In my first attempts at tape music in the late 50's I recorded sounds using the reflective surfaces of a bathtub as an approach to help solve this problem. Music as I understand it is played in acoustic spaces. The concert hall, theaters, cathedrals etc. all act as mechanical amplifiers which by their architectural design capture the sounds of voices and instruments and impose resonances, reflections and absorption which colors the sounds. Instrumental and vocal sounds are enhanced or distorted by these mechanical amplifiers depending on the nature of the sound and the purpose of the design. The resonance, reflection and absorption is determined by the relationships and materials of the enclosure as well as environmental factors such as air temperature, and humidity.

This monograph aims to investigate improvisation and free improvisation as a pedagogical tool in the process of teaching-learning. In their practice, the rhythm was the aspect observed and developed in an action research carried out with students between the age group of 11 and 12 years old, in a school unit located in Mogi das Cruzes (São Paulo). The study is based on the creative practices of pedagogues that stand out in the musical education, notably Chefa Alonso and Hans Joachim Koellreutter.



Key-words: improvisation; free improvisation; rhythm; musical education.

2015
Link to the Dissertation: https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/24888
Scholars in many fields of study have examined confidence. Within music education, confidence is often studied through the lens of Bandura’s social cognitive theory, and for music improvisation, much confidence work has been accomplished through survey design and examined confidence to teach improvisation or gender differences. Though Bandura’s self-efficacy model provides a useful framework to study confidence as part of music (especially in understanding why people’s behavior may differ markedly in improvising), confidence may be important to improvising distinct from self- efficacy theory, and deserves inductive and explorative treatment; I completed three qualitative research studies on confident music improvising (CMI). These three studies are shared in this dissertation, a phenomenological study of CMI from the perspective of improvising performers (Chapter 2), a case study of teachers at the jazz portion of a summer music camp (Chapter 3), and most recently (Chapter 4), I explored CMI within the parameters of improvisation teachers helping students build a personal, subjective sense of confidence, which is needed to improvise musically. In the first study, interviews and observations were conducted with three self-described confident music improvisers: a bluegrass fiddler, a jazz bassist, and a baroque violinist. Participants described their learning experiences with CMI. The following essential themes emerged from that analysis – listening, criticism- free environment, sequential experiences, passion for a style, and openness to learning. The first three of these themes were considered pedagogical and the final two themes dispositional. In the second study, case study design was employed to test the essential pedagogical themes—listening, criticism-free environment, and sequential experiences—against situational reality of the jazz portion of a one-week summer music camp. The focus of this second study was on teaching CMI. Interviews, observations, and documents were used to triangulate data. Teaching through questions emerged as a theme of teaching CMI. In the third study, an emergent, responsive interviewing research design was used to explore the experiences of expert improvisation teachers’ teaching praxes for improving student confidence to improvise music. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand praxes of teaching CMI, that is, how expert improvisation teachers conceive the techniques they use to increase student confidence to improvise music. There were two research questions. What teaching praxes do participants use to help unconfident students become confident music improvisers? How does student gender affect teaching praxes?

"The concept of improvisation has become increasingly popular in the discourse of organizational theory. This paper explores the several aspects of improvisation, in the context of musical, organizational, and everyday activities, in order to address some of the philosophical issues relevant to this emerging interest. It addresses, for instance, the way the term improvisation has fallen into disrepute, referring to something that is, ultimately, a pale and messy copy of the ‘correct’ way. It argues that in western music, this can be traced to the modernist valorization of the order provided by a written musical score, perfectly representing the composer’s wishes, and the concomitant devalorization of the spontaneity and creativity of musicians who, before approximately 1800, improvised a substantial amount of their performances. Connections are made between the modernist concept of organization and postmodern or complexity-based approaches that stress creativity as an emergent property of the relationship between order and disorder. It concludes by suggesting that the study of improvisation demands a profound immersion into (inter-)subjectivity, emotions, time, aesthetics, performance, and social creativity, none of which have traditionally been the focus of organization and management studies, or the social sciences in general."

The better quality pdf is downloadible from here: "http://www.leoalmanac.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/LEAVol19No3-Mailman.pdf
Through recent artistic practices and technology of interactive systems for music, composition and improvisation have more and more blended and interconnected with each other – a sui generis situation now called comprovisation. The concept of comprovisation applies equally well to the spontaneous generation and manipulation of computer graphics, especially as such graphics are systematically coordinated audio-visually, while being subject to spontaneous manipulation by a performer.
This is explained in terms of the Fluxations and FluxNoisations Human Body Interfaces, interactive dance systems that generate music and graphics spontaneously in response to hand and body movement. They enable spontaneous expressive shaping of coherent complexity and variety. Thus a multi-layered multimodal experience arises. The aesthetic experience of this multimedia spectacle relates to experiences of various prior music and visual art of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, as well as to hypothetical physical realities. Thus a kind of cybernetic phenomenology of art is pursued and enacted through an embodied cybersynthesis of art with simulated alternate reality. Call it a pragmatic speculative realism, an adventurous technoetic ‘what if.’ As compared to more traditional forms of improvisation, the opportunities for risk-taking and aesthetic exploration rise to a new level of uncertainty, as the reactions of the improviser simultaneously draw from and target both visual and aural modalities, such that the intentions toward each fuse together."

Treatise (1963–1967) by Cornelius Cardew (1936–1981) is perhaps the largest-scale piece of graphic notation ever written. Cardew created Treatise, influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, as a combination of graphic elements that could be read symbolically—as language, a code, or notation. However, Cardew published Treatise with no performance instructions, thereby allowing it to be read as graphic art as well. Treatise has inspired questions on the philosophy and aesthetics of notation, and even to the nature of composition and of performance itself. Solutions for the performance of Treatise have been suggested both before its publication—through excerpts from Cardew's diaries—and after, through post-publication performance accounts.

O presente trabalho tem a intenção de, primeiramente, estudar a guitarra elétrica como
interface de composição e improvisação através da utilização de novas tecnologias digitais na
música experimental; em um segundo momento, propõe uma composição musical utilizando
alguns aparatos tecnológicos acoplados à guitarra. Essas ferramentas foram escolhidas após
um extensivo mapeamento individual e através de experimentações de suas potencialidades
do processamento sonoro quando abordadas com o instrumento. O material composicional foi
posteriormente construído a partir de observações e reflexões do autor sobre o uso do
instrumento enquanto interface no diálogo com as novas tecnologias digitais presentes na
computação móvel. O trabalho traz também o registro autoetnográfico do período de pesquisa
de algumas das ferramentas digitais selecionadas quando em uso com a guitarra elétrica e o
processo de composição e registro da peça proposta, além de sua posterior análise. Em sua
conclusão, são apresentadas, portanto, as observações e reflexões desta interação do
instrumento e suas novas formas de instrumenticidade quando acoplado ao computador.

Esta investigación consistió en programar una serie de herramientas computacionales capaces de generar modelos descriptivos que dan cuenta de las formas arquetípicas en que algunos improvisadores libres nos acercamos a dicha práctica. Esto sucede a través de una aproximación basada en la escucha y el aprendizaje automático, y que devino en resultados analíticos dirigidos hacia la densidad, la tímbrica y la amplitud sonora. Cabe señalar, que la metodología planteada presenta un fuerte carácter heurístico, basado en la comprobación de las clasificaciones de materiales que hacen los modelos de aprendizaje automático a partir de mi escucha atenta. Además, se aborda de manera técnica el funcionamiento de algunas aproximaciones de la la escucha de máquina y el aprendizaje supervisado y sin supervisión que hicieron posible la clasificación espectromorfológica de improvisaciones libres. Paralelamente se hizo una revisión de proyectos que parten del paradigma del aprendizaje de máquina aplicado a la creación musical destacando las aproximaciones metodológicas que fueron útiles para conocer el estado del arte en términos de la experimentación creativa dentro de sistemas interactivos aplicados a la improvisación. Asimismo, se propuso pensar a estas máquinas como instrumentos erráticos y limitados, capaces de producir en los ámbitos estéticos desviaciones que evoquen experiencias ligadas a la cultura del glitch en contraposición de la idea prometéica del progreso que acompaña la eficiencia tecno-científica. Esta aproximación para generar modelos descriptivos de improvisaciones libres, además de las discusiones y menciones sobre proyectos similares, dio cuenta de cómo las herramientas del aprendizaje y la escucha de máquinas, más allá de sus fines y aplicaciones originarias, pueden ser encaminadas hacia la generación de proyectos artísticos capaces de fomentar el surgimiento de otros imaginarios posibles. Se aborda la idea de que la tecnología no necesariamente debe tener un funcionamiento óptimo/validado para producir resultados estéticos, sino que es posible emplear estas precariedades, errores u omisiones para intentar transformar la misma práctica artística así como las utilidades finales de estas herramientas, y, de este modo, ampliar el panorama de acción entre el cruce del arte, ciencia y tecnología.

When musicians improvise together, they tend to agree beforehand on a common structure (e.g., a jazz standard) which helps them coordinate. However, in the particular case of collective free improvisation (CFI), musicians deliberately avoid having such referent. How, then, can they coordinate? We propose that CFI musicians who have experience playing together come to share higher-level knowledge, which is not piece-specific but rather task-specific, i.e., an implicit mental model of what it is to improvise freely. We tested this hypothesis on a group of 19 expert improvisers from the Parisian CFI community, who had various degrees of experience playing with one another. Drawing from the methodology of team cognition, we used a card-sorting procedure on a set of 25 short improvised sound sequences to elicit and represent each participant’s mental model of the CFI task. We then evaluated the similarity between the participants’ models, and used the measure in a nearest neighbor classification algorithm to retrieve clusters of participants who were known to play together. As hypothesized, we found that the degree of similarity in participants’ mental models predicted their degree of
musical familiarity with better-than-random accuracy: musicians who played together tended to “think” about improvised music in the same way.

The article begins with some historical context and reflection on improvising with technology and then turns to questions of distributed agency, explicating various levels of agency for technical objects and human beings as they relate to improvised performance. Next the article addresses the “extended mind” thesis in cognitive science as a means of exploring the ways in which human beings are correlated with culturally and technologically catalyzed interactional possibilities. Finally it ends with some speculation about how these theories could potentially shift our engagement with the study and practice of improvised music.

Although free improvised music (FIM) originated in Europe and the United States in the 1960s, it has come to possess meanings and roles unique to its individual contexts of production in today‘s transnational scene. By focusing on the Lebanese free improvised music scene which emerged in Beirut in 2000, my study aims to address the gap in scholarship on Lebanese expressive culture, particularly music, as a tool to negotiate identity. My thesis addresses the way FIM in Lebanon allows four musicians of the 'war generation' (Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui, Bechir Saade, and Raed Yassin) to express their individual identities as well as their complex relationship with conflict. I propose that, in a society still coming to terms with the atrocities of civil war and constant political instability, the practice of FIM may have a role in reflecting conflict, facilitating inter-cultural dialogue, as well as breaking aesthetic, socio-economic, and sectarian barriers.

"En esta sesión  el compositor argentino Adolfo Reisin, acompañado del fagotista John Falcone y el musicólogo Daniel Moro abordarán algunos de los presupuestos estéticos propios de la práctica de la libre improvisación, tanto en el contexto nacional como internacional, a partir de la década de los sesenta. Para ello se trazarán en primer lugar las relaciones entre la improvisación colectiva y la práctica compositiva tradicional, junto con las diferentes formas de organización sonora de corrientes como el serialismo integral, la música electrónica, la aleatoriedad y la indeterminación. Durante este recorrido se hará hincapié en figuras clave de la música del siglo XX como Bruno Maderna, Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Frederic Rzewski o Franco Evangelisti. El papel de asociaciones como el Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, Scratch Orchestra o Musica Elettronica Viva ha sido igualmente importante en el establecimiento de la libre improvisación. Finalmente, se abordará la práctica compositiva como parte del amplio concepto de Arte Sonoro.
Asimismo, en la segunda parte de la charla se procederá a la audición y el comentario conjunto de la obra de Adolfo Reisin Cadencias y Enigmas, para establecer a través del ejemplo y la voz de la experiencia del compositor un debate en torno a las músicas improvisadas. Algunas de las cuestiones que se pretenden plantear con esta actividad son en qué contexto se pueden enmarcar este tipo de músicas, dentro de qué tipo se han de englobar (académico/popular) y cuál es su consideración frente a otras prácticas menos extendidas y, si procede, cuál debería ser y por qué.
"

En Morelia, capital del estado de Michoacán, México, se presentaron en un periodo del 2017 al 2019, algunas prácticas de la música contemporánea académica en múltiples foros multiculturales y
restaurantes. El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar y comprender las implicaciones que estas actividades tuvieron en la localidad, en particular, los programas que incluyeron improvisación libre y live coding.
Para ello, se parte del concepto de semiósfera planteado por Iuri Lotman, para analizar el mecanismo semiótico de la improvisación libre en Morelia. A través de un análisis detallado, es posible delimitar el mecanismo de la improvisación libre como semiósfera, con múltiples textos determinados por el metalenguaje del sistema. Además, consecuente a la autoconciencia semiótica, se delimitan las fronteras y los significados de los textos dentro del mecanismo simbólico.

La méthode analytique a pour but d’arriver à saisir le système complexe de représentations dans l’appareil psychique, ainsi que donner libre cours aux frayages que les pensées inconscientes parcourent. La libre association du côté de l’analysant et l’attention librement flottante du côté de l’analyste, facilitent cette technique. Pour y arriver, il faut un entraînement dans l’improvisation. Car le concept d’improvisation définit très bien la technique de l’association libre : la capacité de « composer et de s’exprimer simultanément » comme dans la poésie sonore où il n’y a pas de différence entre signifiant et signifié, et l’art de l’improvisation musicale comme un savoir-faire avec la libre association. Nous proposons d’apprendre cette méthode pour la séance analytique : c’est-à-dire de parler et penser en même temps.

No presente trabalho apresentamos os aspectos que consideramos comuns à improvisação livre e ao anarquismo, evidenciando suas facetas pedagógicas e procurando trazê-los para o contexto da educação musical. Realizado este levantamento, analisamos de que forma estes aspectos se relacionam com as práticas do grupo de improvisação livre Coletivo Consenso Centralizado.

This research investigates the creative and communicational processes used by improvisers in free improvised performance and the ideologies behind those processes. Two studies were conducted: In Study 1 quantitative data was extracted from a recorded performance with Music Information Retrieval (M.I.R) software with special focus on moments consensually considered by the musicians as “best”. Study 2 analysed qualitative data extracted from interviews with improvisers and retrospective verbal protocol regarding the whole performance with special focus on “best moments”. The results of Study 1 reveal the use of alterations of musical features such as energy, note density and spectral changes in order to create points of qualitative change in improvised music. Creative strategies revealed by Study 2 include reiteration, the use of error as a motor for generation of music materials, real-time use of processes of musical composition and automatic playing. Improved conditions of separation of recorded instruments are advised in future research on this subject.

2015
Link to the Article: http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Shevock14_2.pdf
Abstract
Paulo Freire was an important figure in adult education whose pedagogy has been used in music education. In this act of praxis (reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it), I share an autoethnography of my teaching of a university-level small ensemble jazz class. The purpose of this autoethnography was to examine my teaching praxis as I integrated Freirean pedagogy. There were two research questions. To what extent were the teachings of Paulo Freire applicable or useful for a university-level, improvisational, small ensemble class? How do students’ confidence and ability at improvisation improve during the class? Data sources included teacher reflections, video-recordings of each class, and conversations on a Facebook page. In the Jazz Combo Lab, students who were unable to successfully navigate the competitive audition process were empowered to develop as jazz musicians and become critically reflective. A narrative of my own evolving praxis is shared around the themes “Freirean Pedagogy as Increased Conversation,” “Empowering Students to Critique Their Worlds,” “Pedagogical Missteps,” and “A More Critical Praxis.”
Keywords: music education, Freire, jazz, pedagogy

The Instant Composers Pool and Improvisation Beyond Jazz contributes to the expansion and diversification of our understanding of the jazz tradition by describing the history and practice of one of the most important non-American jazz groups: The Instant Composers Pool, founded in Amsterdam in 1967.

The book describes the meaning of “instant composition” from both a historical and ethnographic perspective. Historically, it details instant composition’s emergence from the encounter between various overlapping transnational avant-gardes, including free jazz, serialism, experimental music, electronic music, and Fluxus. The author shows how the improvising musicians not only engaged with the cultural politics of ethnicity and race involved in the negotiation of the boundaries of jazz as a cultural practice, but transformed the meaning of music in society—particularly the nature of improvisation and performance. Ethnographically, The Instant Composers Pool encourages readers to reconsider the conceptual tools we use to describe music performance, improvisation, and creativity. It takes the practice of “instant composition” as an opportunity to reflect on music performance as a social practice, which is crucial not only for jazz studies, but also for general music scholarship.

This paper is a primarily ethnographic-based investigation, supplemented by cultural history and theoretical reflections, of the Montreal free improvisation scene, what in Québecois French is called "musique actuelle," i.e. "new music." Drawing from jazz but also avant-garde art music, this scene reflects its location within the bilingualism that uniquely characterizes Montreal within North America. I make use of Michel Foucault's reflections on the discursive power of "sexual repression" in order to illuminate how notions of freedom function to produce its musical and political relations. Rather than a struggle for freedom in opposition to ostensible repression, as modernist aesthetics insist, such supposed limitations on freedom are instead productive of the non-conventional musical practices by which it is defined. However, I also make use of critics of Foucault, in particular philosopher Charles Taylor, in order to point out the limitations of his too cynical, overly reductive, analyses.