We got the recordings back from the session we (The Exploits of Elaine) did at the ICA for the Calling Out of Context festival, and it’s got me thinking a little about the nature of “free” improvisation. Here’s a clip I cut out, the full thing will appear in some form once we’ve had a chance to play around with it.
The Exploits of Elaine – ICA clip, rough mix
We received the individual files as well as a mix, so I was able to hear each person’s input in isolation from one another. It struck me how, when divorced from their surroundings, each retains a consistency of its own, independent from (though guided by and contributing to) the development of the piece as a whole. Rather than, as is often perceived by detractors, a gaggle of incoherent voices playing “randomly”, you actually see coherent lines of conversation between independent voices collectively encompassed in – though in no way subservient to – the musical whole.
Listen to a recording of a busy street or public place and on the surface it will sound random, but each sound that contributes to it exists as a consistent flow of events: a person walks down the street, footsteps grow louder then quieter; another hails a taxi, opens the door, drives off; nothing is random, even if unexpected. And they don’t exist independently from one another, each is a reaction to another: customers interacting with shopkeepers, having phone conversations, avoiding other pedestrians, vehicles weaving in and out, PA announcements issuing directions, etc.
I assure you the looks of distraction are pre-recording.
Likewise in the improvisation every occurrence in every line is formed from an aggregate of previously experienced and anticipated events, both from the short and long term. Harmonic, rhythmic, dynamic, textural, and structural elements are obviously significant, but equally so are issues of previous musical experiences and influences, conscious and unconscious musical and personal aims, the “atmosphere” in the room (its size, shape, materials, temperature, resonance, and the number, distribution and outward response of other people), the physical realities of performance (fatigue, slip-ups, imposed time limits, immobility, division of performance and audience space, etc) and your personal relationships with the other performers and people in the audience. All of these, drawn by the individual from both their own line and the surrounding lines, coalesce to inform that particular creative moment, which in turn is immediately re-appropriated to influence their own and the others’ future reactions, ad infinitum.
What we have then is a piece that, in terms of the interrelations of parts, is actually no more frivolous than in much strictly composed music. Arguably it retains much more of its structural integrity when broken down (or at least, that structure is more flexible) in comparison to music where, when individual elements are removed from context, they are stripped of their musical significance. There’s an inversion of the compositional hierarchy: where commonly the multiple elements are subservient to the Oneness of the composition, here what is seen as the “piece” is merely the result of communication between its constituent parts.
We’re now entering the next phase – one where we systematically work through the recording, mixing and editing it, to produce something we might wish to release. The implications of this, for ease-of-digestion purposes, are probably best suited to discussion in a later post.
