Free Improvisation Presentation
 

Today I'm giving a presentation in our composer's forum about free improvisation and how it unites musical genres. Classical, jazz, rock, electronic, etc...

I'm giving the presentation to a bunch of undergrad composers - I'm trying to broaden their horizons...A lot of them have tunnel-vision, but their a talented group.

Any suggestions?

I've got it pretty covered, I'm going to play some musical examples and whatnot. I'll post the handout that I'm going to give them in a minute when I finish it. So you guys can critique, if anybody wants to.

If you can stand them, I read an article saying that all the string parts on Sigur Ros's "( )" were improvised, but the songs are still structured, so I don't know if that will help you.

There was one album, it's Ornette Coleman and some one else, I forget who, but it was amazing and a free improvisation studio album.

Talk about improvising soundtracks to plays or films. Bring up SYR6 and Sigur Ros's ep "Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do" which was them and some members of Radiohead improvising the soundtrack to a ballet performance.

Hope I've helped you.

improv?
Live jazz has a lot of improv.:
peter brotzmann
john zorn
derek bailey
[some] anthony braxton

theres a lot with ranaldo and hooker

haha, I'm already including all of those. I'm presenting it from 3 perspectives: Classical, Jazz, and Rock.

I'll post the handouts in a minute. There is a cool diagram.

Some artist i find interesting in free improv: AMM, Le Quan Ninh, Evan Parker, John Butcher, Toshimaru Nakamura, Keith Rowe, Eddie Prevost, Alvin Curran, MEV, Alterations, Muller Gunter.

AMM is defiinitely in there and I'm considering playing some of John Butcher's album Secret Measures...maybe.

handout 1:

Musical Intersections:
Free Improvisation

I. Classical Music

A. Factors Leading to Free Improvisation
i. Aleatoric Music
ii. Re-emergence of Improvisation in Composed music During the 1960s
iii. Virtuosic Performers (Extended Techniques/Noise)
iv. Political Concerns
B. Examples
i. Franco Evangelisti - 'Nuova Consonanza'
ii. Cornelius Cardew and Christian Wolff - AMM
iii. Vinko Globokar
iv. Stockhausen - Aus den sieben Tagen
v. Frances-Marie-Uittti
II. Jazz

A. Factors Leading to Free Improvisation
i. Free Jazz
ii. Non-idiomatic Improvisation
iii. Virtuosic Performers (Extended Techniques/Noise)
iv. Interaction with the Classical Avant-Garde
B. Examples
i. Spontaneous Music Ensemble/AMM
ii. Peter Brotzmann - Machine Gun
iii. Derek Bailey
iv. Anthony Braxton
v. William Winant
III. Rock/Electronic

A. Factors Leading to Free Improvisation
i. Improvisatory Rock Music
ii. Virtuosic Performers (Extended Techniques)
iii. Noise Rock
iv. Interaction with the Classical Avant-Garde
v. Improvisatory Electronic Music
B. Examples
i. The Grateful Dead/Neil Young/Lou Reed
ii. Sonic Youth
iii. Japanese Noise(Keiji Haino, Merzbow)

handout 2 can't be put on here

it is a diagram linking everything together with albums, kind of a Kevin Bacon thing

Interesting. Have you/ are you mentioning how the aesthetic changes over the years? I'm thinking of the way that the Jazz-ist likes of Derek Bailey influence the more rockist types of Masauki Takayanagi/ Kauru Abe which in turn leads to the lower-case stuff like Bernhard Gunter or Nmperign. It all bleeds into each other, but changes its predicates over the course of the 20th Century.

Probably worth mentioning the current 'trend' of superminimal EAI type stuff that has been touched on. Sachiko M, Yoshihide, Nakamura and all those people.

Also, I was going to say something about Borbetomagus but I can't recall quite what point I wanted to make. Probably nothing.

somebody like ikue mori might be worth mentioning as she has played with people from allsorts of fields (e.g. kaffe matthews, kim gordon, pauline oliveros, zeena parkins) zeena parkins is an interesting one too bearing in mind she plays harp for bjork. and then there was that time last year when norah jones got onstage with nels cline at tonic, because one of her backing musicians was playing with cline. i think it's rhodri davies who plays harp for charlotte church too, and he's quite a key figure in the london improv scene with people like mark wastell.

dude, play em some dead and show them how improv isn't just for old jazz buffs. it can be made more "mainstream" in sound and fuse with more radical styles, (such as Improv meets reggae on fire on the mountain and estimated prophet)