"Analytical-philosophical thoughts on a new way of improvising."

 

There are several reasons why we differentiate one style from another. One may be characterised by its specific, idiosyncratic rhythms, another by its use of pentatonic scales; in one, complex structures might underwrite a style – as with serialism, or radical simplicity – as with minimalism but, whatever leads us to identify a style, one thing remains common to them all: they comprise a ‘language’ - a collection of idiosyncrasies that make them unique.

We know how to differentiate French from English, Italian from Spanish or Chinese from Japanese and, similarly, in music we can distinguish punk from rap, rock from jazz, serialism from minimalism or hip hop from Musique Concrete - because they are all identified as different languages.

 

In the late 1960s, a music appeared that claimed to be free of any kind of language. This was called total improvisation, or free improvisation, and what - supposedly - defined it was the impossibility of relating it to any recognizable musical style. To name and characterize this, the guitarist and improviser Derek Bailey wrote in his book, Improvisation, that this new form of improvisation was ‘non-idiomatic’. Even if this statement were ‘true’, it has to be noted that, as soon as the style had been characterised as "non-idiomatic, it became a style - whose language was non-idiomatic: a non-idiomatic language, but still a language.

 

But - helas! - what Derek Bailey wrote in his book was not ‘true’ -

there were at least two musical styles that underwrote and inspired total improvisation: what was called contemporary music – the current extrapolation from Western classical music – and what was called free jazz – the current extrapolation from a particular strand of American popular music. To take two of the most paradigmatic groups in this new musical category: A.M.M. and M.E.V., we find a mixture of contemporary composers: Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum and Fredrick Rezewski (in MEV); Cornelius Cardew and Christopher Hobbs (in AMM) - alongside jazz musicians such as Eddie Prevóst, Keith Rowe and Lou Gare. Of the new generation of solo improvisers too some, like Michel Portal, Heinz Holliger and Vinko Globokar were composers, while others, like Alex von Schlippenbach, Evan Parker or Derek Bailey were jazz musicians. In fact what all these musicians rediscovered was to compose in ‘real time.’

 

These musicians all explored extended techniques  - unusual ways of treating conventional instruments: preparing pianos or guitars, rediscovering folk or peripheral instrumental techniques, such as circular breathing for wind instruments, or, over-blowing, or singing while playing; or in the strings - using the bow on the wood, exaggerating the pressure of the bow on the strings, accentuating the harmonics – and so on; in fact, these experimental approaches became standard for all instruments, mirroring exactly developments in the world of contemporary composition. At the same time, the intensity, volume, speed, energy - and ‘expressive’ virtuosity of free jazz became a commonplace in the language of total improvisation.

 

So Total Improvisation was not, in fact, non-idiomatic - and 50 years later, you only have to listen to it for a few seconds to immediately recognize it; it’s a style, like blues or reggae - and if we recognize it that way, it’s because it’s a language.

 

Once I understood that there was no such thing as non-idiomatic improvisation, I decided to look for a different way to improvise, and arrived at a new style of music-making that I called ‘Meta-improvisation’ - which is to say, improvisation performed in variegated musical styles structured both horizontally and vertically into compositions - which I call compositions on meta-idiomatic improvisations. In fact, this idea came naturally to me out of my musical past: in the course of my life I have worked in a wide variety of musical styles, from blues to folk, punk to rock, concrete and jazz to minimalism.

 

The process I employed was to record improvisations (in specific musical styles) creating meta-stylistic layers - to which I subsequently applied compositional attention. The results of this work (my research stretched over more than ten years) was finally accomplished through many hours of recording, mixing and mastering, over a further two years.

 

During this time, I created a triptych - in the form of three double CDs: Do androids dream of electric guitars? Infinite pancakes and Turtles on a sea of roses - in which I explored my new way of composing. On CD 1, the songs are performed only on the guitar; on CD 2 the same themes are played by an ensemble consisting of drums, bass, piano, guitar, clarinet and trumpet.

 

At the end of this cycle, I decided to use this same compositional method to write 12 concerts for saxophone and orchestra. These will be recorded and performed by saxophonist Daniel Kientzy and Maestro Christian Brancusi and the National Orchestra of Romania.

 

Composing over meta-idiomatic improvisations its something that I want to see developed in several media: from simple instrumental solo to opera!