“Composed Improvisations” For Piano Solo: A Closer Look Into Different Contemporary Improvisational Approaches

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of Music MUS 702 Master’s Special Problems, Directed Study And Examination

“Composed Improvisations” For Piano Solo: A Closer Look Into Different Contemporary Improvisational Approaches

Submitted by Alberto Ferro April 17, 2015

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Music

© Copyright by ALBERTO FERRO, 2015 All Rights Reserved

ACKOWLEDGMENTS

This thesis could have not been written without the irreplaceable help and support of my Faculty Committee, Dr. Berthiaume, Dr. Hare and Professor Ward, who have given me invaluable motivation and challenged me to the best outcome since the very beginning of my studies at Washington State University. I am also very grateful to Dr. Shannon Scott and the Director of the School of Music, Dr. Greg Yasinitsky for their confidence in my capabilities and their constant assistance and patience during my Master’s years. A very special thanks to my friend Caroline Berry for her insightful and invaluable help in the writing process.

“COMPOSED IMPROVISATIONS” FOR PIANO SOLO: A CLOSER LOOK INTO DIFFERENT CONTEMPORARY IMPROVISATIONAL APPROACHES Abstract

by Alberto Ferro, MA. Washington State University April 17, 2015

Chair: Gerald Berthiaume

The intention of this thesis is to analyze and discuss musical improvisation as a means of contemporary artistic expression, related or unrelated to a particular style or genre of music. This subject is particularly difficult to address today if considered untied from musical genres, since improvisation is an artistic activity most likely to be found only in specific music fields. The necessity to address the importance of it (as a creative, learning and teaching opportunity) is even more important today since the lines between genres are more blurred than in the past, and the physical connection with a musical instrument tends to give way to a rational and more detached performing attitude. Several different theoretical approaches originate within the activity of improvisation and are discussed here: through an aesthetical perspective of this phenomenon each kind of improvisation might suggest and guide both the creativity of the performer and the ears of the listener. A more thorough analysis of two recordings by renowned artists will iv

introduce the reader to the consideration of five improvisations of mine, recently recorded, which exhibit how a selected approach and technique could be used in order to shape the improvisative act into an expressive activity. The recordings are an integral part of the thesis, since only through them is it possible to comprehend the analytical perspective adopted.

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To my father, who never really knew what he was getting himself into, when he let me study the piano.

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[…]but when the actual music itself is happening [in an improvisation], even when it’s incredibly intense and fast, it’s more passive than someone might think. […]there’s a big difference between jazz and written music. One kind of music, jazz, says, “I have to be able to let it happen.” The other kind says, “I have to make it happen.” Keith Jarrett

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………...………………………..……………………...iii ABSTRACT……………………………………..……………………………………………iv - v LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES……………….……………………………………………...ix CHAPTERS 1.

IMPROVISATION: WHAT, HOW, AND WHY? ……………………………………..1

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THE PERFORMANCE OF IMPROVISATION………………………………………10

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BRIEF DISCUSSIONS OF SELECTED IMPROVISED MUSIC Musical Example 1. Stefano Battaglia, “Singularities”. ................................................ 17 Musical Example 2. Keith Jarrett Trio, “On Green Dolphin Street/Joy Ride”…………19

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COMPOSED IMPROVISATIONS 1. “Introduction and Fantasia sopra Bach’s Partita in C Minor BWV 826”……...24 2. “Winter, January 20th 2015”…………………………………………………....29 3. “Improvisation for piano and live electronics 1”................................................30 4. “Hemiola Etude on ‘All the Things you Are’”…………………………………31 5. “Monodia”……………………………………………………………………...34

CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………………………36 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………….38

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LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES EXAMPLE 1. From Stefano Battaglia, Singularities …………………………………………...17 EXAMPLE 2. From J. S. Bach, Corrente BWV 826…...………………………………………..26 EXAMPLE 3. From A. Ferro, Fantasia sopra Bach, Corrente BWV 826……...………………..27 EXAMPLE 4. A. Ferro, Hemiola Etude…………………………………………………….32 - 33 EXAMPLE 5. A. Ferro, Monodia…………………………………….………………………….35

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1. IMPROVISATION: WHAT, HOW, AND WHY?

The three questions in the title might sound rhetorical, especially to the experienced musician, but I believe that the notion and performance practice of musical improvisation are topics that have never received much attention either in music history books or actual instrument lessons. In academia and musical venues today the ability to improvise is considered necessary only to perform certain genres of music (jazz or folk in particular), or it is seen as a fun pastime by music lovers but does not seem to have a great importance for composers anymore. However, throughout the history of music the improviser was often seen not only as an impressive performer, but also as someone who had a special, perhaps privileged access to music, given his ability to render it in no time at all (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the first who comes to mind, but also Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin, or Art Tatum). It does not seem crucial today to experience on our own, through our own fingers and ears, the complex task of making our own music. While we give capital importance to instrumental skills and to deep technical and theoretic understanding of how music is built, we don’t merge these into a unified creative activity. From a musicological, philosophical, aesthetical, and even practical point of view the activity of improvisation has been widely investigated, but it seems hard to find a common idea on what it is and how to do it.1 Further, could improvisation be considered a form of art? Creating music must involve personal ideas, so the process must be very personal as well. This process is hard to understand or describe for anyone, often for the creative artist as well. In the realm of musical composition, even in its early stages, as well in the realm of jazz, where it

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The bibliography contains books and articles that discuss thoroughly the definitions of improvisation from a theoretical point of view.

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seems that most of the notes you hear are “improvised,” it appears to be extremely hard to focus and put the spotlight on the actual process of originating one idea into another, connecting them in a natural, original, interesting, personal, and in the end “musical” way. In both worlds (the composition-making and the jazz improvisation) it is possible to plan this process beforehand, or in other words, to practice towards increasing and enriching the vocabulary of musical ideas that would result in a wider range of choices available to the artist during the creative process.2 In general, while we assume that the ultimate goal of musical creativity is art, we cannot fully agree with the idea that creativity as itself can be taught. Today schools focus (or should focus) only on recognising, understanding, appreciating and eventually instructing how to use those tools and devices which are helpful for developing the inner creativity of their students. But it depends only on someone’s personal talent and motivation to use and develop those tools for his or her own creativity. In fact, if we look at the past, histories of all art forms report works and artists who have pushed and redefined the borders of what today is called ‘art’, sometimes turning upside down the concept itself of a work of art (in its many subjective definitions), other times playing with it: in other words, while we must learn what art has been up to today, we cannot ultimately teach it. We cannot, for example, teach a solution for a composition in progress, because an artistic choice is a personal act of creativity and no one should interfere with it. On the other hand we can show all the creative opportunities available at a certain stage, which would enhance the sensitivity, the taste, the potential and the musical

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I believe that the performance of classical/contemporary music is involved as well in this process, since any musical passage (for example a crescendo, or a grace note) is a musical idea but also a technical issue, which if mastered during practice will enrich the expressive possibilities available for the performer during the actual performance.

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imagination of the young artist. In the end any true artistic creative activity relates more to imagination than to the actual writing, playing or performing, and imagination is personal. By today, many words have also been spent on the arguable concept of “creating” music, debating whether it is possible or not to actually create a phrase out of nowhere or to reassemble it (compose) using preexistant material: without further exploring this interesting topic it must be pointed out that the aspects of originality and personality that take part in the creative process would not lose any importance if we switch from creative to compositional, because the subjectivity involved while retaining musical material from the past (conscious or unconscious) and the subsequent activity of reassembling it through different perspectives could now be seen as the creative process, personal and original. In the process of putting together material (for example choosing notes, harmonies, or even timbres) every creative musician already has a certain knowledge of that material and feels the need of to make it his or her own, changing variables until that same choice will connect with his inner sensitivity. It is ultimately through an act of improvisation that the artist finds and chooses one idea over another, and I believe that this process of selection probably takes the biggest share of the whole creative process.3 It is through the same act of improvisation, or several attempts of it, that an artist will refine taste, discover pleasures, push sensitivity and determine limits: in other words he or she will become more aware and present during the process of creation and composition. So, what are the differences between composed and improvised music?4 The relationship with time appears to be the main source of the differences between the two approaches; at the

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Bruce E. Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Language: A Phenomenology of Music (Cambridge: University Press, 2003). 4 Philip Alperson, “A Topography of Improvisation,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68 no. 3 (Summer 2010).

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end of a compositional process (made of attempts, choices, drafts and corrections throughout time) we can assume that the final work represents the closest result to the essence of the composer’s artistic idea, while the act of improvisation itself leaves little or no time at all for any attempt or draft, and of course no corrections. This aspect alone raises the most important question here: how can the same definition of music embrace both approaches, if one generates from a great deal of planning, writing, deleting and correcting, and the other from none of the above? When we choose to listen to a particular kind of music we assume that we will experience, enjoy and understand a musical content which must have been already chosen and somehow planned, organized into the performance by composers and performers. Instead, an improvised performance leaves us only with the opportunity to believe that a musical event will take place, that the content will be pleasurable or interesting for us, and the artistic message will touch our sensitivity. From here we can start considering the other time-related aspects that diverge between composing and improvising, first of all on the idea of form: can an improvisation have no form? Can it have a form (therefore be planned, at least partially) and still be considered freshly improvised?5 Also, the instrumental possibilities available to the performer while improvising ought to be much fewer than in a prepared performance, for the obvious reason that preparing a performance would allow anyone to solve technical/musical difficulties beforehand; how does this aspect affect the artistic message? Could it somehow be enhanced or only weakened by that? It is quite difficult to believe that the depth of an improvised piece, however beautiful or meaningful it could be, would compare with the depth of a piece that took weeks, months or

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Considering that an ipothetically improvised piece, if following an ABA structure, will have the A material repeated, not ‘invented’ ex nihilo.

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years to be written, as a result of thousands and thousands of attempts.6 The history of music is full of examples of compositions made initially upon improvisations, and later carved into more defined and accurate works, as a result of a more thoughtful and slow creative process. In the attempt to answer all these questions we should wonder what the ultimate purpose of music is, or more generally, art. I believe that comparing one performance to another, looking for the most meaningful one, or a certain approach to another, does not take me anywhere. It does not change anything in me like I would wish. While listening, a Mozart minuet is not necessarily more important or interesting than a Count Basie improvisation, even if regardless of style and performance practice considerations the former might emanate perfection just by looking at the score while the latter reaches it through a more ambiguous path: they both share a common will, and it is just by the act of listening, truly and without prejudices, that one can access and participate in what both are meant to mean.7 The difficulties required to perform a piece, technical, musical or just structural, do not enhance by themselves the meaning of a composition, even if it might take years to perform the piece accurately. Regarding the form, it is interesting how the greatest composers in history shaped the form of their compositions having in mind an ideal concept of a natural flow of events. The most important forms of music history, the sonata form or the rondo for example, could be considered as the result of several attempts to make a certain musical material flow better, and their resilience and resistance through centuries proves how close they are, as principles, to the human psychological stream of events (the repetition with variations of the opening section, as

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See Alperson, “On Musical Improvisation”. While Mozart could be identified as a model of balance and style in the history of western music, Basie’s music must be considered in the context of his genre, which not only has very different aesthetic ideals but also relates to a particular audience and culture in a specific moment in history of American society. It might be more difficult (not impossible) for a listener to bypass these aspects as well as Basie’s peculiar stylistic traits, and find a principle of perfection similar to Mozart. 7

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seen in the Da Capo Aria, is the most common example of how a musical principle travels through ages and reaches our time with almost no change at all, since the structure A B A1 informs a great deal of today’s western pop music). This helps one to understand that from a particular point of view choosing a form for a piece (and everything related to its form) involves being sensitive to this psychological flow: the music works better when, regardless of its structure, origin, style, instrumentation, stated or not stated purposes, it connects to us through our ears, driving us into its flow of expected or unexpected events. The most successful composition is the one that does not sound like it has been composed, but rather pours out of the instruments like they were always meant to play exactly that: we sometimes feel that a particular composition has no time and place, it not only belongs to us but it always has, and the composer’s ability was ‘just’ to put it on a score. It is possible that composers consciously attempt to relate to this stream of events, and many have clearly been attracted by the idea of playing with it, but if one of the purposes of music is to connect people through that, why shouldn’t a performance use that stream deliberately as a starting point? Should an improvised composition, whose aim is exactly to decrypt someone’s timeline of ideas while they are happening in the truest possible way, not be as well an expressive opportunity, a path towards communication between human beings? This is important to underline because within the technical limits or style constraints that a performer might find him or herself in, I believe there will always be enough room to express appropriately a true stream of musical ideas. The artistic content of improvisations shares the same nature of any other composed art. It also impresses me, as a pianist, how composers for the keyboard like Ludwig van Beethoven, Claude Debussy or Bach were so much influenced in their style by their constant

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creative approach as performers and therefore improvisers. In front of a Bach fugue we wonder how it could be possible to write in such a rich and complicated texture but still so essential and light. I realize that the only possible way to conceive such a balanced writing style is to actually be able to play it first, then write it! One of the most famous examples we find in history is Bach’s Musical Offering, a composition originally improvised in front of the author of the theme (Frederick The Great, King of Prussia), and only later on, after Bach’s humble admission of not having performed as well as he could, he developed the material into an actual composition. However, scholars tend to agree that important portions of the work, at least the two Ricercare for harpsichord (three and six parts) are most likely a faithful transcription of the initial improvisation. As absurd as it might sound for us today, it is much easier to believe given the well known abilities of Bach as an improviser, the technical challenges that all of his music shows (not only the keyboard repertoire), and the impressive amount of works he produced in his lifetime. A theme in Beethoven, or a motif, is not just its notes, dynamics, articulations and any other musical aspect we are able to find in it, but it is an event, an energy, a sort of imaginative vibration underneath the actual sound that drives the composer (and the listener) towards its complete exploitation throughout the piece. We can discuss Beethoven’s creativity in thematically treating a motif in hundreds of ways, but we shouldn’t forget that through those notes, dynamics, articulations, beats and rhythms we are participating in the ‘becoming’ of an event, a sound-event, which in our imagination (maybe in the composer’s too) could represent gestures, ideas or shapes that are linear or three-dimensional, geometrical or chaotic, abstract or transcendent. The variety of thematic treatments that often appears in Beethoven’s music is of course a result of the great creativity of the composer, but could also be seen as the deepest

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‘need’ of this vibrant energy to take on different forms for the only purpose to exist! I believe that from this perspective, creativity is more important than instinct, because through creativity a composer can find a million variations, but through instinct Beethoven chooses the only necessary one. Instinct is what improvisors and composers ultimately use to make choices. Therefore, it is an essential component of the act of listening (considered here as an experience involving, consciously or not, our whole self), for listeners as well as for composers and performers during their activity. That flow of sound that naturally ‘happens’ in the mind of a musician must be carefully heard by a performer in order to evaluate, by comparison, his own performances, and by a composer to determine the best way to put it on a score. Broadly speaking, one of the most common pleasures of listening to music (any music) is that the better it is the easier it is for us to connect to it: in other words we connect more intuitively with some music and we have to make various levels of efforts for other music. In this process we tend to overestimate one approach to the detriment of the other: for example there are listeners who will avoid ‘complicated’ music while others will search for it because it is complicated. Both attitudes show that it is possible to enjoy music doing something specific (searching for a sound, a pattern, an interpretation or just an explanation of the music), or not doing anything at all (and letting the mind have a trip to a beautiful beach or listing items to buy at the grocery store). Whichever activity we do engage in while listening, we must instinctively enjoy the experience or we will consider ourselves just exposed to a noisy and distracting sound, like the sound of traffic or of a washing machine. The pleasure that we get from listening to music is, to me, comparable to the pleasure of eating or breathing, at least statistically, since I never met anyone who does not like eating, breathing, or listening to music. And it is our instinct that first

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tells us if we like what we’re eating, inhaling, or listening to. The connection that at a given time we instinctively create with music is, I believe, a good enough reason to suppose that there must be one specific music for anyone who at a given moment is willing to listen; therefore, there should be no better way (following this logic to paradox) than to create it at any time, always different if necessary, always representing in the best possible way the true stream of becoming that happens in ourselves. The hope is that other listeners will connect to it and will be able to find their personal ‘becoming’, showing in the end that however beautiful, passionate, controlled, structured, chaotic, sweet, ugly or noisy the music is, the ultimate reason for expressing the inner self is to communicate deeply with other human beings.

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2. THE PERFORMANCE OF IMPROVISATION

While an improvisative technical approach can be described as distinct and unique, it might not be the only way to understand what a certain performance is based on: most of the repertoire actually shows that different perspectives coexist without excluding each other. If we think of a composed piece of music as an example, we see how a work from the Classical period is affected by tonality, thematism and periodical structure: all these compositional approaches shape the entire piece from its basic elements to its general form in a non-exclusive way, but also (and more importantly) ‘feed’ each other with creative possibilities. The presence or absence of periodical structure in a tonal, thematic work gives a composer a new set of creative opportunities, as well as the presence or absence of tonality or themes. In a similar way an improvisation grows on the technical choices made by the performer (or performers), related to small details as much as structural considerations: for example, general choices could be made about rhythmic, tonal or phrasal invention, or about the degree of freedom in elaborating a theme. Especially in our epoch, an improvisation has room to explore a wider range of combinations of techniques than in the past. It might start off using a theme and develop it further in a non-thematic way, or it might employ a strictly tonal theme but in a non-tonal language, or present events that are connected only through their phonic characteristics, without any tonal, phrasal, rhythmic, thematic or motivic relationship. At this point a technical dicussion is necessary in order to comprehend the basic, intrinsic elements and approaches of an improvised performance: by formalizing a certain number of techniques specific to improvisation, a further step would be made towards a greater awareness in teaching

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improvisation and the development of creativity in general, which is one of the areas of focus in this thesis. It is however rather ambitious to draw a comprehensive picture of the many different kinds of improvisation, since the stylistic and historical factors (therefore the variables) to consider are too various and not homogeneous enough from performer to performer, and sometimes from one performance to another. It would be more useful instead to create a few categories through which a certain way of improvising could be interpreted and maybe better understood, considering its unique nature. Nevertheless, each category analyses a technical or aesthetical approach, not a musical language (like improvisation in jazz or in early classical style, on a waltz or in 9/8). Four artistic perspectives will be described which often coexist in the same improvised piece but are also easy to recognize generally in music. In chapters 3 and 4, a few examples will be given on how some or all of these approaches might cooperate in shaping an improvisation. This list does not mean to be exhaustive, but it attempts to explicate aspects of the music-making that might get lost in the complexities of interpretation.

1. ‘Improvisation in the style of’: This category embraces all the performances that are related to a broad concept of style, whether it is a result of historical/social/anthropological circumstances or a conscious/unconscious adherence to a specific set of rules of behavior. Obviously this category describes an enormous amount of music that is extremely diverse in genre, artistic influences, techniques, aesthetics, and style. Nonetheless, this is a unique approach, which sees the performer engaged in a conscious development of ideas through one or more stylstic codes, previously chosen. It is that same code, with its rules by which certain

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choices are preferable to others by virtue of their adherence to one or more styles, that governs and directs the choices of the improvisers. Although this approach might seem extremely strict, the activity itself of learning the rules of a specific style (through improvisatory attempts) frees the creativity rather than constraining it. Every style (ancient or modern, popular or intellectual) to be imitated requires a deep understanding of its structural levels as well as its surface mechanisms, and any performer would have to make their previous improvising concepts more flexible in order to adjust to a new code. Players who unconsciously adhere to their own style, apparently without any strict code of behaviour, are nonetheless engaged in a stylistic operation, since their personal taste works as the code. The case of a performer who tries to escape from a particular style ultimately belongs to this category, since the relationship with style, however considered, is shaping the performance. For example we can put in this category broadly all the improvisations made in Europe before the twentieth century, those which later became a composition and those which did not, since before then the adhesion to a socially accepted style was considered crucial to musical creation. A great part of the jazz tradition, especially the swing until the fifties, required the players to be able to render that style on any instrument, on any song. The history of jazz recalls those who pushed the style’s rules to their limits and beyond, redefining them each time, in order to be more adherent to their present times.

2. ‘Improvisation on a theme’: Even if it would seem obvious to consider thematic improvisation as strongly connected to a style (and therefore more in accordance with the first category), this approach is more dependant on the personal imagination of the performer, and does not nevessarily have to be a result of stylistic considerations. The thematic approach 12

differs substantially from the stylistic one: even if both happen within a historical/social/anthropological context, a theme exists only when considered by a specific interpreter, who might select to interpret it within that context or not. For example, whereas Franz Joseph Haydn or Mozart tended to exploit all the thematic (harmonic, rhythmic or melodic) possibilities of a theme while shaping, enriching, fixing but nonetheless following the style of their epoque, Beethoven would push the potential of a theme until a new set of stylistic rules were created, contradicting the previously fixed ones and eventually opening the way to a romantic concept of style. Some of Debussy’s Preludes develop upon certain sound qualities of an articulation, a chord, or a dynamic, rather than a melody or harmony; everything sounds thematically connected only if we accept the idea that here everything could be a theme, depending on the point of view of the performer/composer. Most of mainstream past and modern jazz music develops on the idea of improvising on the rhythmic and harmonic features of a song (or a style), very seldom on the melodic aspects of the theme: still, the improvisation originates within a thematic frame, broadly considered. Certain performers (like Cecil Taylor or Keith Jarrett) might choose to begin their improvisations on a few particular gestural articulations, and then develop from there, disregarding any specific rhythmic or harmonic connection. These as well could be seen as examples of thematic improvisations.

3. ‘Aleatory improvisation’: If we abrogate any concept of style or theme, as well as any idea of planned consistancy throughout a piece, we might encounter the principle of indeterminacy in music, considered from the performer’s point of view as an open approach towards all the possible choices available at any moment during a performance. Indeterminacy is relevant in this discussion because, depending on the performer’s attitude (and on the other principles/rules 13

that he would, or would not, commit to) we will participate in a completely different musical event. A few composers have explored different levels of indeterminacy: sometimes the score dictates just a percentage of what should be played (to the extreme extent where the score does not use any musical sign and everything must be interpreted freely by the performer); sometimes the conductor/performer has to choose during the performance what section out of a few will be played next (Bruno Maderna, Quadrivium); other times the performance is the result of a series of random choices previously made (choices that could relate to structural aspects of a composition as well as single sounds). Within this large category we are able to see two different approaches concerning improvisation: a) Improvisation after a particular set of rules, like following an actual score and/or a conductor, or just following a certain instrumental behaviour. This approach differs from even the broadest concepts of style or theme because whereas in the previous categories style and theme are reference points for an actual musical outcome, in the aleatory category there is no reference point; rules and scores are mostly set to instruct the performers on their instrumental activity, rather than directing the music in specific directions, which is more the responsibility of the performer. b) Introduction of a random factor into the performance; the conscious decision of leaving a percentage of the performance to chance turns the role of the performer upside down, since he is therefore not responsible anymore for the musical outcome. By losing his responsibility towards the musical content, he becomes merely a medium, an opportunity for the audience (where he initially belongs himself) to experience the music.This percentage left to chance can be little or big (in 4.33 by John Cage it is 100%), and can be applied to the score-creating, to the set of rules governing the performance, to the instrumental behaviour of the performer, or to 14

all of these factors at once. Depending on the percentage of chance adopted the music ranges from very to completely unpredictable.

4. ‘Invention’: I deliberately left this category for last because it tends to be confused with the most common idea of improvisation, mostly among non-improvisers, where it seems that music comes out of a constant flow of invention, or creation. Invention here presents an alternative to the thematic or stylistic approaches, but it cannot stand for long completely on its own without falling into one of the previous categories. When a performer opens an improvisation with an idea that has no stylistic reference or thematic identity (unless it is a random result of a consciously adopted instrumental activity, causing it to belong to the third category), it may be called invention. Nevertheless, certain conditions must apply: the ‘invented’ idea can not be filtered by stylistic or thematic procedures, in order to make it more appealing; in other words it must literally pour out of the hands of the musician, before any superimposed alterations would eventually turn it into a stylistic procedure. It is now easier to understand how any following idea will necessarily turn out to be dependant (stylistically or thematically) by the initial invention. It also cannot be too clear and defined to the performer himself, therefore more subject to rational, even musical alterations, at least in its very first form.8 The last condition for an invention to take place is rather personal, dependant on the personal motivation of the performer himself and his artistic freedom: by that I mean the fully committed wish, as an 8

Historically, Expressionism first recognised and promoted a similar attitude towards art, where artists believe that altering the instinctual creativity through logical, graceful, and socially accepted stylistic rules and paths ultimately alters the truth of human expression and of Art works. This approach however just describes one stage of the creative process that is common to all Art works, even before the early twentieth century. Expressionists decided to focus on it: through an interest in the unconscious world they developed ways to underline its importance for the sake of creativity itself, but we might suppose that every musical idea ever conceived has had, in its very first, instinctual, unshaped form, a similar origin. The history of music describes mostly how the taste of a period filtered these ideas through style, dressing and shaping them until a meaningful form was reached.

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artist, to hear something that he has never heard before. However tied to a particular style or however interpretable as a theme, the creation obtains its truth only if the creator truly wishes and commits completely to it. Of course this aspect opens the discussion to a wide range of non-scientific subjects, where it would be hard to fix definitions, but I believe that especially because of subjectivity in art, we should not look for ultimate definitions but meaningful experiences. As a performer, artist and teacher my tendency is to reject the “Understand it” approach in favor of a more practical and personal “Try yourself” approach. Although very general and related to composed music as well, these categories apply specifically to improvisation, regardless of the instruments employed or the number of players. In the next chapter I will show how some artists have developed their improvisations around very personal and precise but nonetheless flexible performing approaches, which allows them to open up the range of creative opportunities towards an unrestricted expression of ideas.

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3: BRIEF DISCUSSIONS OF SELECTED IMPROVISED MUSIC

Musical Example 1. Stefano Battaglia, “Singularities” for piano solo, from Baptism. Splas(h) Records, 1994. Listening example no. 1. Stefano Battaglia is an Italian pianist who performs internationally as a soloist and in jazz and avant-garde-experimental music ensembles. With a strong classical background, Battaglia is today one of the most important jazz figures in Europe. His activity as an improviser in solo and ensemble contexts, particularly with percussionists, is very significant. The short piece Singularities shows a thematic improvisative approach conceived within a frame: while one hand establishes a perpetuum mobile in the beginning and never departs from it, the other hand freely develops a counterpart. The improvisation is ‘framed’ by the ostinato, a fast 2/4 motive that is shown in example 1:

Example 1. The motif is not itself a frame, but Battaglia works around it as if it would be; when the second hand enters it draw melodies that do not seem to originate from the ostinato. They share the tonal field and consistency of pulse (one hand is consistent on sixteenths, the other on eights), but not the meter. These phrases soon become part of a free dialogue between motifs of 17

different articulation, texture, and meter. The improvisation develops a rhythmic variety that is most of the time disconnected from the ostinato, which defines the pulse constantly with accented downbeats. If we generally categorize the piece into the “thematic category”, we would have to identify the theme and explain the role of other musical elements that would otherwise be considered stylistic traits. The theme in this case is not the 2/4 ostinato phrase, but the frame created by it: the improvisation around it constantly confirms and denies its role. The thematic relevance relies on its presence and repetition more than its notes, pulse, or harmony. Therefore the actual theme is the duality created at the beginning by the static part and the free one: Battaglia improvises on this duality. After the first minute we hear that the ostinato doubles: the improvisative counterpart imitates the 2/4 motive on different notes, giving the impression that it has been absorbed by it. Through rhythmic variations (which bring to mind Piano Phase, by Steve Reich) the counterpart restates its independency, and by the end of the second minute it starts once again improvising free motives. The thematic approach is confirmed even if the nature of improvisation changes throughout the piece. Nonetheless, other factors suggest a strong presence of a style, first of which is the tonality. For a great portion of the piece, the tonal field is a single major scale, however it would be inappropriate to consider the piece tonal, since no tonal function reaches the surface.9 Also, each entrance of the improvisative part adopts a rhythmic articulation, which in its specificity could easily refer to a style (some to Mediterranean folk, others to a modern bebop approach), but the contrasting relationship with the ostinato is too strong to relate these lines to any stylistic attitude. There is however a style 9

Tonality as a principle can affect the form and the style of a piece only if some (at least more than one) of its fundamental elements, the tonal functions, respect their role within the chosen tonal frame. One single chord or scale without a contrasting function is not enough to delineate a tonality so considered (like in this case). The minimum number of functions needed to create a tonality is two (II and V for example), since through their mutual functional confirmation they can establish a principle of tonal tension.

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that informs the improvisation as a whole: we could define the dialogic structure of the improvisative counterpart as a stylistic trait, foreign to the principle of duality already established by the theme and essential to the nature of motivic improvisation.

Musical Example 2. Keith Jarrett Trio, “On Green Dolphin Street/Joy Ride,” from Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note, Disc 5. ECM, 1995. Listening example no. 2. If the previous example exhibits two different approaches of improvising, the medley On Green Dolphin Street/Joy Ride, performed at the Blue Note by the Keith Jarrett Trio in 1994, is exemplary of how all four categories can coexist in the same performance. Jarrett has developed a personal attitude towards live performances, where planning is reduced to the minimum, if any at all. In this case the first song follows, as in most of his jazz interpretations, the traditional form of a jazz tune: first statement of the tune, instrumental solos, then second and last statement of the tune. The thematic approach is evident: the harmonic and rhythmic structure of the song sets the ground for the trio to improvise on. The original song, mostly through its general harmonic outline, serves as a grid for the players: its ‘theme’, the melody itself, is left as soon as the improvisation begins, after the first statement, and is only briefly cited during the improvisation. Still, broadly considered, the thematic approach shapes the structure of the performance as we see it, as in most mainstream jazz performances. Nonetheless, there are elements that suggest a more complex interpretation: the introduction is based on a pedal note that thematically has nothing to do with the song that we are going to hear. We could, by calling it an “Introduction,” consider this section as a path towards the actual song, but the impression is rather of a free improvisation which ends, among 19

the possible melodic choices, on a well known jazz standard melody, On Green Dolphin Street (Bronislau Kaper, 1947). This is soon confirmed by the fact that the same pedal reappears in the middle of the first statement of the tune (head) and after the last head, at the very end of the song, giving the impression that the tune happened to fit particularly well within an improvisation already started. When the last statement of the tune ends, the trio keeps playing on a pedal, similar to the one that has started the performance: it seems reasonable to think that the second song, Joy Ride (by Jarrett) is an entirely improvised piece created on the same long pedal. In this case, whether the piece was composed earlier or improvised on the stage, the thematism develops from the improvisation over the pedal into a slightly more structured song: in other words, instead of improvising on a tune, a new tune results from an improvisation, blurring the line between the two. If we consider the jazz groove as the theme and the song as one of the outcomes of improvisation, we might be able to address in the same way the first song, “On Green Dolphin Street,” which appears on a groove already set in the opening. This case also forces us to define the line between style and theme more properly, since we know that Jazz is a style, so if a jazz trio performs a jazz standard in a jazz venue, the style would hardly be something different from jazz. Nevertheless, for the purpose of clarity within the context of improvisation, Jazz is a container for too many different kinds of styles, too diverse, and not necessarily all related to improvisation. Although this performance is with no doubt a jazz performance, Jarrett’s stylistic approach has little to do with jazz.10 Assuming that jazz gives to the Trio a shared set of rules of musical behavior, it would be a true but extremely limited statement. When the pianist begins to play, nothing has been decided or planned, so the drums and bass players have

10

Considering stylistic as an approach belonging to the first category in chapter 2.

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only the opportunity to interact with him appropriately, which means within the limits of a known musical world, jazz indeed. Rather than being the style in which the trio is playing, jazz is the border beyond which rules would be too flexible and the music not tight enough among the improvisers, at least in this case.11 The rhythmic ground set by Jarrett in the very beginning is therefore not only the theme but also the style of the entire performance: the trio improvises through and around it for more than twenty minutes. Looking more closely, we realize that all three players adopt the style as a guide for the improvisation, but the entire performance could be felt as a struggle to confirm and depart from it at the same time. The three players’ approaches move from very close to very far from it, without ever denying its structural importance. If we look even closer into the details of the improvisations, we might be able to see how sometimes the choices taken are not thematic or stylistic at all. In general, a standard jazz tune is for the performer a structure which offers many improvising opportunities. Some of its best features are that the song’s structure must be simple enough to remember and develop but original enough to sound new and interesting, and that the repetition of its harmonic and rhythmic structure must play with the listener’s range of expectations.12 The case of “On Green Dolphin Street” by the Jarrett Trio shows that the improvisation, especially in Jarrett’s nine choruses of piano solo, relates to the jazz tune only because the actual notes played match harmonically to the structure of the song (thematic approach): the melodic and rhythmic invention has no apparent connection to the tune or its structure. The motives and phrases often deny the harmonic functions of the composition; the sequences and motivic repetitions in the 11

In other performances the same Trio pushes beyond those borders, for example in “Straight, No Chaser,” from My Foolish Heart, Live in Montreaux. ECM, 2001. 12 It is not a coincidence that the 12 bar blues is the easiest but nevertheless one of the most common structures used in jazz, since the phrases are built on groups of 4 measures, and 3 phrases of 4 measures each are less symmetric than 2 or 4 phrases.

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improvised line often do not match the sequences in the tune, leaving the listener wondering if they are still playing the same song. It is not only hard, but almost impossible to hear On Green Dolphin Street under the improvisation; only an experienced jazz listener would be able to follow the structure, and probably just by counting measures. A feel of distance with the original melody is created, and a new form (over the AABA repeated fifteen times) is generated. Like every great jazz interpretation, it looks like the tune is a mere excuse for the players to experience the music together, where thanks to the tune they know what harmony follows and on what beat they are going to end. This new form, an improvised one, could fit the definition of improvisation as ‘style’ as well as ‘invention,’ the fourth category. Every phrase generates from a search into the previous one, into all the previous ones, driving the melody to a tension that cannot end: each phrase cannot afford to be closed, like a statement, but must be open enough to reach the next, like an opinion, and still solid enough to be followed through, like a new, deep, well-thought idea. The ‘open’ approach exhibited by the Trio also carries a principle of indeterminacy which is more difficult to identify because the principle of aleatoric behaviour clashes with the thematic or stylistic performing attitude. Indeterminacy on the other side does not necessarily apply only to which notes are to be played and how, but also to the form and structure of an entire performance. If the boundaries (rules) are set by the style and theme chosen, the Trio acts in a consistant open attitude towards the form: since the structure of the tune works just as a ground for a new form to take place, the actual sequence of events is linear until a certain point. Each instrument is one line, but each player moves from one line to another, without a determined target: what we witness is a constant exchange of ideas which becomes the form itself. The interaction between the three performers is the event, giving the listener the idea that there is

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not one line to follow but many. It is easy for the unexperienced jazz listener to lose attachment with this music, because the attention is always brought to a new surprising phrase that seems disconnected to what just happened. There is in this performance as well as in many others by the Keith Jarrett Trio the feeling that it could go on for hours and hours. The directionality of the structure seems to be without end, leaving the place for an ‘indetermined’ form. Nonetheless the ‘stream of becoming’ is represented in its simplicity and complexity all at once. Each of the players reacts to the sound he hears in that moment with an act of indetermined will and musicality, leading to another by the other players. Jarrett himself speaks of “faith” connected to this improvisative approach, leading the performer into a state of attentive unawareness and giving him the freedom he needs to improvise.13

13

Robert L. Doerschuk, 88: The Giants of Jazz Piano (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2001), 269.

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4. COMPOSED IMPROVISATIONS

In this chapter I will discuss the improvisative approaches adopted in a few of my recorded improvisations.

1. “Introduction and Fantasia sopra Bach’s Partita in C Minor BWV 826,” piano solo. Recorded live on January 20th 2015. My study of the Partita has brought to the surface a few questions related to the modern performance of Bach’s music. In particular, I focused my attention on one of the most striking aspects of his keyboard music: the consistency of texture. The overall aesthetical idea that pushed me to Bach’s music in the first place is the endless creativity comprised within a constant, almost motionless flow of melodies. During my performances of the Partita in C Minor I realized that the variety of timbres and phrasing chosen for each movement would have not been enough to render the deep balanced stream of flourishing ideas that I was seeing in the score. In a way, there have been performances when I felt the urge to stretch the time and let a section or a phrase resonate for a longer period of time: through experimentation I discovered that a good way to raise certain portions of the text to the desired relevance was to create contrasting musical grounds or juxtaposing extremely different textures against the original composition. The same flow of invention was leading me into the idea that this music has a specific strength, which is to access our musical sensibility through its consistency of texture more than with its themes or motives (in an almost hypnotic way), and I have chosen to maintain the flow without alteration (for example by blurring the divisions between movements) but at the same time to open the form in many more contrasting sections. The task 24

could not have been fulfilled without altering the text: nevertheless I left most of the notes exactly where they are on the score, mostly taking advantage of the space between movements, sections or phrases to add improvised commentaries or to develop contrasting ideas. In general, the interpretation of the score reflects my own aesthetic idea of the piece as a whole, and the added music, although departing from Bach’s composition, attempts to respect the composer’s purpose as I acknowledge it. The recording of the Partita submitted with this project is the first one made with my personal improvisational commentary and development: it is the result of over one year of practice in which I focused on carefully choosing what to change and what to add in each section. Even though at the time of the performance the plan was very clear, only a relatively small portion of the added music was previously decided note by note: for the most part I only selected what rules, styles, themes or atmospheres I wanted to create. The example from the Partita that I am going to discuss explains the compromise between elaborating the text and little alteration to the written score. However this is not the only approach I adopted: different parts of the composition suggested rather opposite treatments. Important to notice is that once I established a particular approach for a section, I tried not to repeat the same one for a different section: the listener will probably notice how for example the variations on the Andante in the Sinfonia differ in every aspect from the variations on the Allemande or Sarabande. Instead of beginning the Courante in the way it is written, I previously planned to improvise on the pick-up note and downbeat of the Courante itself (shown in Example 2). The thematic aspects that I wanted to bring out were the repetition of the soprano note, the minor triadic structure of the following chord, and the resolute character of the short motive: all these aspects are in clear dramatic contrast with the previous dance, the Allemande. The thematic 25

aspects that I did not use for my introductory improvisation are the meter, the periodicity of phrases and the tonal continuity (the first chord is a G-Sharp Minor, and the following ones are all minor triads traveling through different tonalities). To my ears the melodic invention of the Courante could be heard as a commentary on a more dramatic introduction. (Listening example no. 01 (A) – Courante.)

Example 2. Since the Courante is in binary form I decided to connect the end of the first half with the beginning of the second through an improvised transition: two more transitions have been added in the middle of each section, in connection with the most important modulations (the first part has a modulation from C Minor to E-Flat Major after six measures, the second part modulates from F Minor to B-Flat Major at the sixth measure of the second part). The added transitions enlarged the form, therefore I decided to avoid repeats; every transition leads to a portion of text that has not been altered. Example 3 shows with numbers the location of the transitions:

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Example 3. 27

I maintained a two-part texture throughout all the transitions: however each one follows a different guideline, which I decided beforehand. Once I realized that the plan was good enough for my purpose, I practiced aiming at the balance between the written score and extemporaneous transitions: they had to be not too long and too short, they could not reach a dynamic climax too soon, they could not modulate too far, and so on. In particular, while transition A is a free invention in the key of E-Flat, transition B explores the key of G from different modal perspectives, and transition C is based on a B-Flat pedal that supports different harmonies above. The linear direction of all these new sections also varies, and it has been decided beforehand: the first travels through registers from top to bottom and connects with measure 7 in the central register; the second transition begins at the lowest register and after a series of ascending melodic vortexes reaches measure 13; the last one touches the pedal after some free improvisation and builds its tension mostly through dynamics and modulations. The approach described in this example could be considered mostly as stylistic: the restrictions that were adopted concern the two-part conduct, the relationship with the harmonic field (confirmed and denied), and the absence of meter. These musical choices have been selected over others because of their opportunities to be in contrast with Bach’s score. At the same time, through practice, I tried to achieve some material which would fluently connect the written portions in order to maintain the light, improvisative feel that I hear in the Courante in the first place. In this sense, the example shows that the light, flowing inventiveness could be considered as the theme of the Courante, and I started here in order to work out a thematic unity between the score and my improvisations (in this specific case).

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2. “Winter, January 20th 2015,” piano solo. Recorded live on January 20, 2015. For this piece I adopted broad concepts of both theme and style. The origin and nature of the improvisation are to be considered within the context of the two compositions that surround it. The performance of Winter, January 20th 2015 generates from the second Etude for Piano by Gyorgy Ligeti, Cordes Vides, and sets the ground for the eighth Prelude for Piano by Olivier Messiaen, En Reflet Dans le Vent. The material I chose did not belong to either of the two pieces: the stylistic approach that the improvisation exhibits could be described as an attempt to make a trip from the Etude to the Prelude going where neither of these two compositions actually goes. Instead of deciding what rules to follow, I decided what not to follow. Both the Etude and the Prelude are extremely diverse from many perspectives, however they share a few common general aspects: in particular I noticed that they both develop in a straight direction, carrying a constant energy throughout. Although the dense flow of invention in the Prelude is interrupted a few times by pauses or fermatas, the tension is never really lost: I consider this quality to be particularly appropriate for a final movement or section of a bigger piece of music. Neither of them in my opinion deals with any idea of emptiness, waiting, absence, indecision, or lack of bearing. From a technical perspective both of the compositions use an open tonal space, where it is not hard to hear tonal centers of gravity, but no center is held for a long period of time (especially in the Etude, where a different tonal field is constantly touched and left). Those general ideas gave me the stylistic terms in opposition to which I began developing my own material. There are sections in the improvisation where the directionality is lost, leaving room for an undecided search for musical material (beginning), sections with an extremely slow, almost broken lyricism (emptiness and absence), and sections where the tonal field is clearly stated, the rhythmic texture consistant, but no clear direction is followed. In

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order to follow specific stylistic rules (opposed to the aesthetics of the music surrounding the improvisation) the thematic material generated naturally: the themes that I have deliberately chosen are gestural or tonal, mostly depending on my reactions during the live performance. The performance as a whole was rehearsed, however no previous decision on the exact material or its development was made before the actual performance.

3. “Improvisation for piano and live electronics 1.” with Dr. Blasco, live electronics. Studio recording. In the context of indeterminacy, the opportunities offered by the interaction with a computer are infinite: the challenge as a pianist is to make musical sense and logic out of acoustic material that does not necessarily have an instrumental origin and therefore does not follow those elaborations that we would expect from an actual instrument. The production of sound from the computer generally originates from a digital tape that records and elaborates the surroundings in realtime. The elaboration focuses on timber, pitch, dynamics, and frequency (not only for a soundwave or a note, but also for an entire event/group of notes). This particular session begins with a looping sound in pp: considering it as thematic material I developed an opposite idea (the free atonal non-melodic invention in the high register). When the interaction of these two elements seems to be exhausted, the piano introduces a transition based on a looping event in the middle register: this acts as an obbligato on which for a period of time every other event sounds contrasting in nature. A similar sequence of different sections follows. The formal result as a whole is very generally a ‘waves’ structure ( transition transition etc.), where a few recognizable events interact until a certain point and then

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transition to another group of events: the tendency for me (in this perspective it would be a very stylistic treatment) is to elaborate certain material until its almost complete exhaustion, and introduce new material which arises from the previous by contrast or necessity. The development of an improvisation session with electronics follows a number of indeterminate factors (no center of gravity, tonal or rhythmic, no planning the structure in any way, no management of musical elements in any specific way, or following any shared pattern or path). But the lack of tonal or rhythmic center, or the absence of a plan, does not necessarily make the improvisation based on indeterminacy: the indeterminacy factor is very important and dominates the performance because of the choices that are made throughout the performance. Every passage of the interaction offers to both of the performers new suggestions on how to move further (making the development maybe thematic, certainly stylistic), but overall both of us have to react to what happens in the other instrument as a completely unexpected event –and therefore indeterminate – in order to decide what to do with our own.

4. “Hemiola Etude on ‘All the Things You Are’.” Piano solo. Studio recording. This piece has been stylisically elaborated as a free interpretation of the famous song by Jerome Kern. Although the theme of the song is never clearly stated, the form of the tune (36 measures, 8 + 8 + 8 + 12) and in particular its harmonic sequence remains constant and repeats itself, like in a jazz interpretation. However, the purpose of the performance (and the form that follows) is to stretch the idea of one single melodic/rhythmic timeline into two independent ones. In other words, through the simple mathematical idea of Hemiola (3 against 2 or viceversa) the piece starts off and develops further in a Theme and Variations structure, using

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mostly two- part counterpoint: both parts adopt a different but constant meter, with the harmonic function (or chord) being the only vertical relationship common to both parts. If we look more in detail, the time signature of the entire piece is 4/4, but depending on the variations over the Hemiola we will not always be able to hear four beats per measure (Example 4. Notice that from the third system on, the score provides only the rhythmic patterns for the two hands). The challenge (that is why I consider it an Etude) is to maintain a clear double timeline of events in the head while engaged in playing: on one side the attention focuses on the harmonic sequence and structure of the tune in 4/4, on the other at least one of the parts which is being played fights constantly against the meter, suggesting a slighly slower or faster one.

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Example 4. For improvisation purposes I believe this method shows an aspect which is extremely important during practice: it forces the performer to develop creative variations on an ‘easy’ song within a very severe and unstable rhythmical texture. As a performer and teacher I stress the idea that to reach a satisfying balance between what we would like to hear and what we are 33

actually hearing we need to never lose focus on both events (some describe this idea as the difference between the external and internal ear). The last chorus is more free and not related anymore to the hemiola principle. 5. “Monodia,” piano solo. Studio recording. The material of this improvisation is inspired by the effect of piano harmonics: by releasing specific dampers for the entire duration of the piece (through the use of the middle pedal) and by playing in the upper register, the strings are able to render a constant sound that acts as a tenor note. The particular sound that attracted me in the first place is a non-defined note or pitch that changes depending on the note played, and its steadiness and depth reminds one of the echo that a musical performance usually creates in certain churches, especially during Gregorian Chants. It also allows any played melody to interact with it as in the polyphony of the origins, where one voice moves over another (or underneath it), and the other holds its note. While improvising, the musical material that interested me the most was the blurred line between played notes and harmonics, and this relationship becomes striking while holding a dissonance (traditionally defined). The decision to improvise mostly on a single melodic line (Monodia) comes from the intention to creatively operate within the duality of two equal parts, related harmonically but with a similar weight. This melody splits at times into two different parts, creating a three part texture with the harmonics, but the principle of duality is still easily recognizable. The recurrence of motifs should not suggest the thematic approach: the harmonic field as itself could, however, be considered the theme. The melody does confirm it without stretching or elaborating it; the only harmonic function is minor tonic (Aeolian mode or Harmonic Minor mode) and the lack of a different function suggests the presence of a harmonic field without tonality (which, as explained above, needs a variety of functions to be 34

established). The improvisation follows certain stylistic rules: the line remains diatonic and mostly within a singable range; the duality does not develop into polyphonic texture; there is metric unity in each group of phrases, but they do not match with each other, and the time between phrases is not metered.

Example 5. What I find attractive in the polyphony of this kind of improvisation is that one originates the other. The melody on top generates the harmonics, which generate the polyphonic texture. The texture itself calls for variations and inventions. The stability of a single tonal field allows the attention of the listener (and the performer’s attention too) to focus on the little timbric changes that happen in the harmonic texture. In the act of improvising, the pianist is in control of the notes we hear as well as the sympathetic resonance created by them. 35

CONCLUSION As part of my personal activity at the instrument since childhood, improvisation has become more than an idea or a technique: it is a path towards pure creativity, and the first purpose of discussing it technically or aesthetically should be just to shape the naturally free imagination into creative work. Every good recorded improvisation is able to reflect that: it is unleashed imagination which takes form. The ability to transpose an idea into musical form is sometimes considered an act of mere description or depiction of something that is already happening in our mind and intentions, but it is only through attempts that our creativity has the opportunity to become readable form. My personal experience suggests that simply by making attempts and mistakes, by trying, repeating and thoroughly searching, ultimately we are conducting our imagination: we are shaping our ideas from chaotic to organized. We interact with what happens inside us instead of passively ‘transcribing’ it: we might reach a point where there is no distinction anymore between that creativity and us. Technique and imagination merge, playing and listening become the same action, the most poetic decisions are taken almost unconsciously, body and mind do not belong to different worlds anymore. Being the very first step of creativity, improvisation is therefore a very delicate one, since it could lead the young musician into unlimited curiosity or into fatal disappointment: a more confident knowledge of it as constructive activity in itself could support the beginner, guide the teacher and motivate the artist.

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