00:00 - 04:30 : electronic drone
04:30 - 07:00 : two wooden sticks in middle register
07:00 - 09:00 : birdie needles
09:00 - 11:30 : bass strings harmonics
11:30 - 15:00 : Morton Feldman chords
15:00 - 19:00 : Low Mikado
19:00 - 23:30 : Spoons and prepared chords (faster) + synth
23:30 - 27:30 : Fishing line
27:00 : The end
This was my score for my solo performance at Only Connect Festival in Stavanger on the 5th of April 2025. The descriptions would make little sense to anyone other than myself, although they may beome clearer to the reader after having visited the recodings section. This score though, is not intended for others; it is a score created by me, for me.
What is significant for the purposes of this essay ,however, are not the descriptions themselves, but the temporal indications they contain. Indeed this particular improvisational form -which I define here as time-states- is what is central to the discussion. The type of score shown above will be referred to throughout this text as time-states score with stopwatch.
I have worked extensively with the use of a stopwatch during my improvisations. I am not entirely sure what came first, using stopwatch in my improvisations or in my compositional pracrice. However, I believe it in composition, aht eht point when I began notating durations of events using stopwatch time instead of metronomic time.
The time-states practice itself is deeply rooted in improvisational practices. In particular, when improvising freely within an ensemble (without any pre decided times or stopwatch), it is a very common practice to collectively establish a state, which the ensemble then collectively explores or develops for a period of time before moving to the next state. For this form to emerge, it is crucial that the states remain discrete, and that each state possesses distinct characteristics that can be immediately identified by the musicians involved, in real-time, through their shared aesthetic framework. The transition from one state to the next must be clear to all participants and, ideally, negotiated instantaneously, rendering the transition time between states as brief as possible. Extended transitions between states tend to undermine cohesion and are therefore often considered undesirable within improvising ensembles.
Transitioning to a new state involves a clear and intentional statement from the improviser that initiates this change. Deciding when to change states is one of the most crucial decisions within this free improvisational form. Once the decision to move on has been made, however, by one of the improvisers, it must be conveyed unambiguously, through a improvisational statement that is clearly articulated, with a defined beginning and end, and a distinct envelope. This event must sufficiently differentiate itself from what precedes it, thereby establishing a new state. Establishing a state often involves a degree of repetition of this initial idea.
Transitioning between states requires attentive listening and detailed gestural and timbral articulation, but so does being within one state. Being in the state means that the improvisers work together to explore this state in all its details and all its dimensions, while still remaining in its confines. To be in a state is to be comfortably situated within it. Ideas can be repeated with a slight variation any number of times, radical change is unnecessary, and past and future begin to merge.
In this condition, the ear zooms in on each individual event, relating its timbral and textural micro-details to the ensemble sound as a whole. Each micro-gesture and each pause anticipates the next event in a way that is local rather than global, such that the properties of the system collapse into a single point in time. From my experience, a meaningful improvisation is one in which the momentary details are capturing one’s attention and imagination so fully that one could remain within the same, yet ever-changing state indefinitely. To describe this condition, musicians and listeners often use the term timelessness. My preferred term, however, is memorylessness. Memorylessness is the property of a system in which the elapsed time can provide no information about the remaining time (for further discussion on memorylessness see the dedicated essay). Memory returns as soon as an improviser gives the cue for transitioning into a new state.
For making the transitions between states as discrete as possible, I have previously used time-state scores with stopwatch as the one above. I have used these scores both in solo performances and in duo settings -specifically in my duo with the synthesist Egil Kalman and in my duo with the cellist Oda Dyrnes. Both duos were long-term projects in which this improvisational method of time-states scoring with stopwatch was explored extensively. At times, the scores were strict, at other times more tentative, leaving room for real-time modification of the state durations during the course of the performance. In my solo concerts, I allow myself the freedom to change not only the durations of the states but also their order.
Although the time-states listed above follow a chronological ordering of eight states, any ordering would be equally plausible. What matters here is not a narrative linearity that would arise from a hierarchical ordering of these states, but rather what occurs within each state at the micro-level of each individual gesture.
