Here I move - An artistic research on composition, improvisation, tools and spaces to grow in  by Corrado Cerutti

Here I move, is an artistic research project focused on composition and improvisation. The aim is to explore and develop flexible compositional tools that can adapt to a wide range of creative contexts — from symphonic orchestras to conceptual performance, from music to dance, and towards any interdisciplinary field I find artistically engaging. Improvisation is the main method of investigation: by performing solo, recording sessions, selecting specific fragments, and analyzing them, I generate new material that is then proposed to ensembles and commissioned projects. This cyclical process feeds a continuous reflection and contributes to the development of compositional strategies tested in diverse performance environments. The research revolves around three central questions: – How can I create compositional tools that remain adaptable to increasingly diverse contexts? – How does this system influence my own performance practice and interaction with other musicians? – How flexible is it within interdisciplinary settings? This project is part of the Jazz Composition course at the Jazzcampus in Basel, under the supervision of Stian Westerhus, with the support of Stephan Meidell, Tineke Postma, and Guillermo Klein.

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Building the Repository of Sounds and Analysis

At this point in the research, we have discussed the initial impulse, the motivation, the methodology, and the use of the first tools. Now we will turn to the process of listening and selecting fragments, which forms the core of this work.

Selecting the Fragments

The act of selecting fragments during this research emerged as one of the most critical and revealing phases of the entire compositional process. This was not merely a question of aesthetic judgment—what sounds good and what doesn’t—but rather a deeper act of listening through the improvisation, of identifying what resists my urge to discard everything immediately.

Fragments were not chosen because they felt complete, but because they insisted on being interesting. This kind of practice resonates with György Ligeti’s concept of musical microstructure. In pieces like Atmosphères or Continuum, Ligeti avoids narrative progression in favor of textures and internal transformation. As he wrote:

“My goal was to obtain musical expression not as a succession of events, but as a single sound image in transformation.”
— Ligeti, György. Ligeti in Conversation. Edited by Péter Várnai, translated by Gabor J. Schabert and Barna Imre, London: Eulenburg Books, 1983.

Ligeti’s vision helped frame my own process: I was not seeking musical ideas in the traditional sense, but rather microstructural nuclei—short loops, gestures, or textures that could act as containers of sensibility. These were not meant to be complete in themselves, but open-ended, able to grow depending on the context in which they were placed.

It is important to emphasize that this reflection emerged after the research. The beginning of the process was intentionally approached without a defined compositional intent, precisely to preserve that sense of “let’s see what happens” without immediately locking it into a compositional framework. Ligeti’s approach, therefore, serves as an inspiring pre-constituted model that could, for example, be applied in the second iteration of the cycle.

Crucially then, selection is not a passive activity. As we said, it is itself a compositional gesture. Each act of choosing a fragment involved a latent curatorial and authorial decision, shaped by the emotional, aesthetic, and performative logic of the work. Occasionally, I encountered fragments that felt whole—self-contained, miniature forms with their own internal coherence. You can hear this in the fragment called Textures + Breathing ideas (shown later in this document), in which a natural form and a smooth transition happened almost miraculously. These rare moments echoed Morton Feldman’s belief that sometimes a short idea is enough:

“Sometimes a short piece is enough. I never had the need to say something longer than it is.”
— Feldman, Morton. Essays. Edited by Walter Zimmermann, Cologne: Beginner Press, 1985.

Such moments reminded me that completeness in music is not always a function of duration or development, but of density and focus. Even a few seconds of sound can encapsulate a world. In conclusion, fragment selection was not just a method of organizing improvisation, but a way of thinking musically through listening. Each chosen moment became a tool, a lens through which new pieces could emerge—provisional, partial, but charged with possibility.

Here you can listen to all the fragments selected. Each one of them has a symbolic name that displays the first thoughts I had when I selected them.

What Does It Mean to Do Musical Analysis?

“Analysis is itself a kind of performance, a way of engaging with music that generates meaning through interpretation.”
— Lawrence Kramer, Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge (University of California Press, 1995), p. 16.

In its most traditional sense, musical analysis seeks to reveal the structure of a piece: its harmonic organization, formal architecture, rhythmic systems, and thematic development. From this perspective, analysis is a tool that enables us to understand how a work functions, identifying the mechanisms that give it coherence or expressive power. However, I am fascinated by the idea of analysis as something that leaves a trace of creativity far from being a neutral or purely objective act. Analyzing music always implies a position: a point of view shaped by aesthetic preferences, cultural frameworks, historical knowledge, and personal experience.

This creative dimension becomes especially evident when the music under scrutiny resists easy categorization—such as in improvised, experimental, or electronically mediated works. In these contexts, analysis becomes less about revealing a hidden code and more about constructing a narrative of understanding. For composers like Pierre Boulez, analysis was intimately linked to composition itself—an act of reverse-engineering sound to uncover formal possibilities:

“Analysis is creation in reverse.”
— Pierre Boulez, in Orientations (1986)

This is how analysis becomes another tool—this time dedicated to attention and detail, a way of connecting not only to structure but to sound itself. After all, how useful would an analysis be if reduced to chord symbols and the identification of motives or rules? Creative stagnation is always a human choice, not a property of the material, which wants to speak to us as a witness of the same sensations experienced by the composer.

Within the framework of my own research, analysis does not aim to produce definitive knowledge, but rather to articulate why certain sounds feel necessary—why they “stick,” resist erasure, or invite transformation and how can I describe them in the most honest and open way.
Analysis, here, is both reflective and projective: it reflects on what has already happened (in improvisation) while at the same time proposing new trajectories for what these fragments could become. Thus, to do analysis is not simply to answer the question “how does this work?”, but to ask:
“What can this sound become if I listen to it again, differently?”

Deriving Concepts, not Presets

The goal of this analysis was to create something flexible—something that could grow on me and with me. However, the desire to exert control over the material led me toward a rigid approach, where the underlying aim became: "I want to compose with pedals knowing exactly what will happen"—in other words, I wanted to press a button and have everything already in place. This method proved to be extremely sterile and counterproductive, driven more by a fear of letting go than by genuine creative impulse. It forced me to draw a sharp distinction between a preset and a concept.

Presets—whether in the form of digital effect settings, formal templates, genre conventions, or habitual gestures—provide immediate access to results. They can be useful, but they often bypass the process of listening and decision-making that lies at the heart of musical creation. As Brian Eno put it:

“Presets are the musical equivalent of clichés. They relieve you of the responsibility of having to listen to what you’re doing.”
— Brian Eno, A Year with Swollen Appendices (1996)

To adopt presets uncritically is to bypass the opportunity to ask: Why this sound? Why now? What is it doing here?Deriving a concept, instead, means that the music is not merely expressing itself—it is reflecting on its own emergence. It becomes both sound and commentary on sound. Again, it is up to us how we choose to use these “presets.” Being immediate, recognizable, and rooted in memory, they often function as musical lubricants—tools that can steer us out of situations where excess creativity causes confusion or unease. Sometimes, even in music, not listening to oneself too much can be beneficial. If presets are essentially shortcuts that bypass a slower, more reflective process, then a concept emerges from the work itself—from repetition, experimentation, failure, and focused attention. A concept is not a sound or form per se, but a framework for generating them. It can start with a question: What happens if I restrict myself to only three words? What if I play two hours using only the same notes? What if I build a narrative entirely from non-linear loops? These are concepts—but isolated, they lack the full weight of the reflections and context that generated them. This is where the strength of this analysis lies: these are not generic musical ideas pulled from a shared canon, but personally connected inquiries rooted in my human experience. In fact, I have become a tool myself.

This recalls Schaeffer’s statement: "Any device that enables the production of a varied collection of sound objects, while maintaining a perceptible causal relationship with the source, can be considered a musical tool." This project has made me such a device—one that produces a variety of sonic materials while maintaining a meaningful connection to its own origin: me. In this lies the value of the phrase “make it yours.” But here the process is reversed: not from the object to the subject, but from the beginning—from the subject (me, the composer-performer) to the object.

An example taken from my own research would be the fragment labeled *“Textures + Breathing Ideas”, upon repeated listening, a behavior emerged: a kind of elastic breathing rhythm created by the machine’s own limitations. This was not a “preset” I could recall—it was a concept I could then extract and develop in other contexts. It became a tool. This approach aligns with Iannis Xenakis's view of composition as a speculative and conceptual activity:

“To compose is to imagine, to project, to invent worlds of sound—not to repeat inherited ones.”
— Iannis Xenakis, Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (1971)

This is why it was never possible to imagine this work as a simple replication or transcription of what I had improvised—especially not when it involved additional tools like pedal sounds. What’s curious is that, in the very moment of playing, I was already imagining, projecting, and inventing—already slipping into the role of composer without knowing it, without being consciously aware of it.

Another example can be found in how I approached the use of the Chase Bliss Habit pedal. Rather than using its factory looping algorithms as fixed presets, I treated it as an interactive partner, allowing its behavior to inspire new phrasing, repetition patterns, and structural thinking. Over time, I began to recognize repeatable behaviors (e.g. when feedback loops overlapped in certain ways), which I then abstracted as compositional tools. In this sense, the pedal’s presets were not endpoints, but starting points—a way to discover a personal rule or idea, which is exactly how I see pedal interaction.

In this light, the goal is never to find the perfect setting, form, or tool—but to cultivate the ability to listen critically, to extract ideas from experience, and to build frameworks that remain adaptable. The difference is fundamental: presets answer questions you haven't asked; concepts provoke questions you didn't know how to ask.

Why Words and Visuals?

As a composer, my primary goal is always to strive for communicative clarity within the complexity of the work I propose. There is nothing more disheartening than seeing my work misunderstood when, to me, it feels entirely transparent. This led me to reflect deeply on the notation system I should adopt to convey this process of analysis—aware that it needed to be as simple, spontaneous, and action-oriented as possible. I considered three main approaches:

Traditional Notation: While precise, this method would have been too limiting. This type of work demands room for personal interpretation, and traditional systems often constrain that. I also considered more contemporary systems, as used by many modern composers, but these typically require lengthy explanations and an artistic framework to support them—diminishing immediacy and becoming overly cumbersome.
Verbal Notation: Words are clear, easily understood, and communicate almost instantly with performers. That’s why I chose words that were not only immediate but also rooted in a shared musical vocabulary, even accessible to a child just starting out. At the same time, the inherent vagueness of words like "volume" invites creative interpretation: the performer is free to explore what such a word means in relation to their own instrument and ideas. When combined with other terms, the potential permutations become endless—amplifying the creative space.
Visual Notation: However, when words are placed in sequence—one after the other—they often imply hierarchy or chronology, introducing unwanted friction between transitions. What I needed was another layer, a medium that could express both the free interaction of parameters and provide an immediate visual understanding. That led me to the use of simple graphic illustrations. These act as diagrams—conceptual containers where parameters like melody, counterpoint, and register can interact along fluid axes. These aren’t strict Cartesian systems (some drawings feature displaced or multiple axes), but serve as flexible spaces in which various musical elements coexist and influence one another.

Take the example of the first drawing below : the parameter "melody" describes a clear musical action. It can interact with "counterpoint" placed above (suggesting a higher register), or with "bass" below (implying a lower one). But this isn’t fixed: the melody may roam freely, conscious of the potential for interaction with other parameters. This logic applies to all variables, creating a labyrinth of creative potential.

As composer Cornelius Cardew notes in Treatise:

“Notation is a way of making people move. It is a way of setting people into motion in particular directions.”

These illustrations are not meant to be interpreted as graphic scores with predetermined sequences constructed by the composer. Rather, as Cardew suggests, they are tools to activate movement—of ideas, feelings, intuitions, and possibilities—in particular directions, though never a single one. Like musical fragments, these drawings are suggestive, incomplete, and open-ended. They function as visual translations of my conceptual vocabulary—articulating ideas such as flow, breath, emphasis, and hesitation that are difficult to capture with conventional notation.

Ultimately, they are not roadmaps, but landscapes of possibility—maps of curiosity rather than plans of execution.