Full Description
Over several years, Bertrand Denzler and Jean-Luc Guionnet have interviewed approximately 50 musicians from various backgrounds about their practice of musical improvisation. Musicians include both the very experienced such as Sophie Agnel, Burkhard Beins, John Butcher, Rhodri Davies, Bill Dixon, Phil Durrant, Axel Dörner, Annette Krebs, Daunik Lazro, Mattin, Seijiro Murayama, Andrea Neumann, Jérôme Noetinger, Evan Parker, Eddie Prévost and Taku Unami, as well as those newer to the field. Asked questions on topics such as the mental processes behind a collective improvisation, the importance of the human factor in improvisation, the strategies used and the way musical decisions are made, the interviewees highlight the habits and customs of a practice, as experienced by those who invent it on a daily basis. The interviews were carefully edited in order to produce a sort of grand discussion that draws an incomplete map of the blurred territory of contemporary improvised music.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1 Starting an Improvisation
2 The Mental State During an Improvisation
3 Listening to the Other Musicians, the Human Factor, the Strategies
4 Memory and Form
5 Process versus Aesthetic Result, Improvisation as a Tool to Make Music versus Music as a Tool to Improvise, Improvisation versus Composition
6 Talking about Improvisation and Music in General
7 Non-idiomatic Improvisation, Experimental Music, Genre Labels
8 Silence and Dynamics
9 Sounds as Material
10 Instrument and Technique
11 Solo Improvisation
12 The Concert Situation, the Audience, the Published Recordings
13 Some Political Issues
14 How I Came to Play This Music
15 How I Listen to Music, the Music I Listen to, Some Hidden Gardens
16 Miscellaneous
List of the Musicians Interviewed
An Ear for Discord: Improvise, They Say
Diagrams
