Creating open form scores for improvising musicians

Cynthie van Eijden

Abstract This research aims to explore and develop an updated approach to "open form" in music. "Open form" is traditionally referred to as "aleatoric music": a score is provided but the composer has left some choices open. The term "aleatoric" music implies that chance determines how to fill the open spaces. The renewed approach in this research however aims to provide a score in which a performer as an improviser or co-composer is invited to shape the music according to his own opinion. The score provides a plan and context for improvised content and, in doing so, invites the performer to co-create the piece. The research developed in three phases. In the first phase, improvisation was used as a learning tool in music theory classes. Different approaches to improvisation were studied and practiced. In the second phase, one group of musicians evolved from an improvisation course and went on a tour of five concerts. For them an open form score was created in order to provide context to the improvisations of the musicians. This composition is called View from a high mountain, a composition in six parts that allows improvisation at several moments. In the third phase, findings from the outcome and performance of View from a high mountain caused a renewal of the approach in the classroom. Through this renewal the boundary between education and musical production became a thinner line that allowed several cross-overs. Instead of a handbook containing a method or exercises or a new open form score The Improvisation Tree was created. The Improvisation Tree is a model that can be used as a help for creating, analyzing, categorizing and comparing open form scores.

Chapter 4

The Improvisation Tree (third phase of the research)

Ex. 4.1 The Improvisation Tree in words:

Meter

There is

1. a regular meter
2. a shared pulse
3. no regular meter or pulse

Approach

The score provides

1. instruction in words only
2. determined musical materials and instructions
3. an instruction to create musical materials before improvising

Change (or end)

On the time to change or end the improvisation is decided

1. after a fulfilled process
2. upon a free decision
3. through a signal

Material

Musical material is organized through

1. color (timbre)
2. pitch as melody
3. pitch as harmony
4. rhythm
5. phrasing

4.1 Introduction

The Improvisation Tree represents a chain of choices through which various types of improvisation models can be created. In four categories a choice is required: Meter, Approach, Change, Material. These choices effect nor style, nor musical characteristic of the piece. It just sets parameters for the way of working.

Overlooking all possible choices evokes the image of a tree: one starts at the trunk and has a choice out of three branches; the second choice is once again out of three; the third again out of three and the fourth, out of five. This adds up to 135 models, referred to as for instance 2.3.1.5., expressing the choices being made.

The scheme does not pretend to cover all possibilities. It is just a way of categorizing open forms and improvisation models, analyzing them or help generating new ones by guiding through the choices and drawing attention to the ones still not realized.

What is generated from this, is nothing more than a principle. No style or musical material is determined by it. A creative musician or composer could still add material to it. The principle asks for a certain kind of musical material however, since it determines its conditions by telling how it should be used. Once musical material is created, this material is of course not the only possible realization. Each leaf of the tree can be recreated an infinite amount of times.

The third phase of the research consisted of the invention and application of The Improvisation Tree.

4.2 Intermezzo on style

As found in the conclusion after the second phase, we cannot continue unless we find an updated vision on style. This is hard to grasp, since all improvised pieces differ from each-other. Nevertheless, something can be said about it.

Generally, in improvisation groups getting stuck in atonality will be experienced as limited. On the other hand, restrictions effecting the use of pitch are experienced as theoretical, especially when the restrictions prescribe for instance when exactly to move to a next harmony. This blocks the free flow and would be only of interest when the aim is a stylistic copy of a historical style.

In the third phase of the research the choice was made to use more or less consonant sound fields as basis. This means that pitch material is defined and restricted, but can be used at any time in the improvisation. In the next audio example I have shown in a piano improvisation how this idea can be handled: several layers of defined material (such as a D flat triad, a tetrachord on A in a high register, reacting tetrachords in lower registers) are in use. They build a “field” through which the improvisation can freely move.

Audio ex. 5

In group improvisations the field can also be a diatonic or pentatonic scale, a triad or a mode. Interesting results can be achieved with conflicting modes causing false relations in different registers.

In fact, this way of working can be reduced to the most “primitive”: the improvisation on a pedal tone, because there is one field and no harmony changes. Only, the pedal does not need to be sounding all the time and can evoke different scales above it. Using this principle the problem of pitch material is solved and the improvisation can be constructed using all other aspects like creating stories or evoking images. Also, after having chosen one particular leaf of The Improvisation Tree, it can be performed within a consonant sound field like the ones mentioned above.

4.3 Existing pieces analyzed according to The Improvisation Tree

Also open form scores can be analyzed as leaves of the tree. Let’s look at some examples:

In C by Terry Riley:
This piece uses the same steady pulse for all parts: this is “shared pulse”. The score provides notated music in combination with instructions. Musicians decide when to move on or end upon a free decision and the notated material gives melody. This fits in The Improvisation Tree as leaf 2.2.2.2.

Ein Hauch von Unzeit by Klaus Huber:
This piece is originally for flute solo, but any instrument can be added. Every added instrument has the same part as the flute but may choose its own tempo and is free to transpose the part. This adds up to leaf 3.2.2.2 of The Improvisation Tree.

Projection by Morton Feldman:
Several pieces by Morton Feldman have the title Projection. They are composed for different combinations of instruments. Notated are time boxes and the number of notes performed within each box. This box lasts one pulse, but since the notes do not need to be played at the beginning of the box, no pulse will be perceivable. In order to perform the piece the performers should nevertheless keep the same pulse. The score provides notated material that determines when notes are played, how many notes are played and in what register, on what instrument with which playing technique they should be performed. Since the whole timeline is notated, the piece ends when the timeline is fulfilled, so it changes or ends after a fulfilled process. The material contains a determination of rhythm (although flexible) and color (amount of notes, instrumentation, playing technique and register). This adds up to leaf 2.2.1.1/4.

„Ensemble“ by Samuel Vriezen
The following example contains the complete score of “Ensemble” by Samuel Vriezen:

At least 4 instruments. No more instruments than would permit every performer to hear every other performer clearly.

Three movements. In each movement a group of 4 pitches: I – C D F G; II – C# D# E F#; III – D Eb E F, positioned within the span of one fifth. (The piece may be transposed freely to other pitches and to every octave, as long as every pitch can be played by every instrument.)

Each movement starts and ends in silence. At any moment between those two silences 1, 2 or 3 of the pitches are heard. The second silence may only start when each of the 4 pitches has been heard by itself at least once, and when each instrument has played each pitch at least once (in mvt. I), twice (in mvt. II) or three times (in mvt. III).

Play single tones (no figures). Play such that everyone can be heard. Maximum dynamics is mf in mvt. I, p in mvt. II, pp in mvt. III.

Here, there clearly is no pulse or meter; there is notated material; this material is to be used melodically (tones played one after one other). Interesting is the game rule that determines when to proceed to the next movement or the end: certain circumstances have to have occurred accidentally before moving on. Players can manipulate this by starting to play a note that is already sounding, but it does not count when the other player would stop the note on exactly the same time. No-one controls this process alone, it mainly is a process of chance that controls itself. The score sets a rule on how far this process may proceed, through which chance becomes a factor in determining form. This adds up to leaf 3.2.1.2 of The Improvisation Tree.

4.4 Parts from View from a high mountain analyzed through The Improvisation Tree

Looking again at View from a high mountain it is quite clear why the tasks of improvisation were experienced as being limited. The different parts of View can be analyzed as follows:

Part 2: 3.2.1.3
Part 4: 3.2.1.3
Part 5: 2.2.3.2/3
Part 6: 3.2.1.2/3

Apart from part V, the improvisation tasks are quite similar to each other. This was caused by the wish to combine the improvisation with material from the Goldberg Variations. In some way in the creation of View there had been a kind of ghost from the past who guided the creation of the framework for improvisation within traditional settings that were unconsciously present, but in the end caused a contradiction between demanded freedom and classical habits through which the piece stood by itself and could not serve as a model for further creations. Through the creation of the Tree it has become clear that some leaves had remained undiscovered…

4.5 Creating new pieces with The Improvisation Tree

The following open form scores were created with awareness of their position in The Improvisation Tree:

Ex. 4.2 (Click to open)

What are those open form scores exactly? The letter A stands for the first piece through which this specific leaf is realized. The four numbers specify which leaf it is. The instruction is an open form score. Everything that is not determined by the scores will be determined by the performers.

Every performance can also have its own title. The following audio examples contain performances of these pieces. The three pieces for trumpet and piano had the titles: 1) What to tell; 2) Color game of two chameleons meeting; 3) Hidden nightmare. The two pieces for violin and piano became the title: Two moods.

The following audio examples contain performances of these pieces.

What to tell (Piece A-3.1.2.5 for trumpet and piano)

Audio ex. 6

Audio ex. 7

Color game of two chameleons meeting (Piece A-2.3.1.2 for trumpet and piano)

Audio ex. 8

Audio ex. 9

Hidden nightmare (Piece A-1.2.2.3 for trumpet and piano)

Audio ex. 10

Audio ex. 11

Two moods (Pieces A-3.2.1.2 and A-1.2.2.2 for violin and piano)

Audio ex. 12

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