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The Secret Gardeners: An Ethnography of Improvised Music in Berlin (2012-13) Tom Arthurs PhD Music The University of Edinburgh 2015 Abstract This thesis addresses the aesthetics, ideologies and practicalities of contemporary European Improvised Music-making - this term referring to the tradition that emerged from 1960s American jazz and free jazz, and that remains, arguably, one of today's most misunderstood and under-represented musical genres. Using a multidisciplinary approach drawing on Grounded Theory, Ethnography and Social Network Analysis, and bounded by Berlin's cosmopolitan local scene of 2012-13, I define Improvised Music as a field of differing-yet-interconnected practices, and show how musicians and listeners conceived of and differentiated between these sub-styles, as well as how they discovered and learned to appreciate such a hidden, ‘difficult’ and idiosyncratic artform. Whilst on the surface Improvised Music might appear chaotic and beyond analysis in conventional terms, I show that, just like any other music, Improvised Music has its own genre-specific conventions, structures and expectations, and this research investigates its specific modes of performance, listening and appreciation - including the need to distinguish between `musical' and `processual' improvisatory outcomes, to differentiate between different `levels' of improvising, and to separate the group and personal levels of the improvisatory process. I define improvised practices within this field as variable combinations of `composed' (pre-planned) and `improvised' (real-time) elements, and examine the specific definitions of `risk', `honesty', `trust', and `good' and `bad' music-making which mediate these choices - these distinctions and evaluatory frameworks leading to a set of proposed conventions and distinctions for Improvised Music listening and production. This study looks at the representation of identity by improvising musicians, the use of social and political models as analogies for the improvisatory process (including the interplay between personal freedom of expression and the construction of coherent collective outcomes), and also examines the multiple functions of recording, in a music that was ostensibly only meant for the moment of its creation. All of this serves to address several popular misconceptions concerning Improvised Music, and does so directly from the point of view of a large sample of its most important practitioners and connoisseurs. Such findings provide key insights into the appreciation and understanding of Improvised Music itself (both for newcomers and those already adept in its ways), and this thesis offers important suggestions for scholars of Musicology, Ethnomusicology, Sociology of Music, Improvisation Studies, Performance Studies and Music/Cognitive Psychology, as well as for those concerned with improvisation and creativity in more general, non-musical, terms. Declaration I hereby declare: a. I have composed this thesis. b. The work is my own. c. The work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. Signed Contents Abstract3 Declaration5 Acknowledgements 11 Terminology 13 I 15 1 Introduction 17 2 Improvised Music: Musical, Social and Political Backgrounds 23 2.1 Beginnings: America and Free Jazz..................... 23 2.2 From American Free Jazz to European Improvised Music: 1960s Germany and European Identity............................ 31 2.3 Berlin, the 1990s, Echtzeitmusik and Reductionism............ 44 2.4 Questions and Conclusions.......................... 51 3 Theoretical Writing on Improvised Music and Improvisation 53 3.1 Distinctions in Improvised Music...................... 58 3.2 Social Models for Interaction........................ 64 3.3 Improvisation, Musicology, Performativity and The Work Concept... 68 3.4 Conclusions and The Need for this Study................. 76 4 Methodology 77 II 83 5 An Improvised Music Scene 85 5.1 Performers: Facts and Figures........................ 85 5.2 Venues..................................... 94 7 5.3 Audiences................................... 100 5.4 Economies and Ways of Life......................... 103 6 Aesthetic Distinctions and Musical Lives 109 6.1 Tastes and Distinctions: Sub-styles of Improvised Music......... 110 6.2 Musical Lives: Improvised Activities.................... 117 6.3 Musical Lives: Other Musical Activities.................. 125 7 Getting In: Routes into Improvised Music 131 7.1 First Contacts and the Attraction to Improvised Music.......... 131 7.2 Self-Taught Musicians and Auto-Didacts.................. 139 7.3 Formal Musical Education.......................... 146 8 Making Music and Defining Improvisation: Materials and Personal Work 153 8.1 What is Improvised Music? Individual Materials and Group Interactions 154 8.2 Individual Work: Use, Acquisition and Quality of Materials....... 158 8.3 Preparation and Practise.......................... 166 8.4 Exceptions.................................. 178 9 Playing Together: Four Levels of Improvisation and Two Axes of Appreciation 183 9.1 `Real' Improvising.............................. 184 9.2 Two Axes of Musical Appreciation..................... 193 9.3 Managing Risk and Prioritising the Musical: 3 Strategies of Conscious Intervention.................................. 199 10 Listening to Improvised Music 221 10.1 Two Stances on Listening: The `Emic' and the `Open' Work....... 221 10.2 Conventions of Listening, and Specific Cultural Competences...... 225 10.3 Social and Political Stances on Improvised Music............. 238 11 Recording Improvised Music 243 11.1 The Importance of Live and the Problem of Recording.......... 243 11.2 Three Forms of Recorded Improvised Music................ 246 11.3 Formats, Labels, Distribution and Economy................ 253 III 261 12 In Conclusion 263 Bibliography 277 Appendices 292 A SNA and Quantitative Methods: Further Methodology 293 B Diagrams from Social Network Analysis 297 C Political Work in Berlin 2012-13 301 D Echtzeit Composition: Scores from The International Nothing 305 E Alphabetical List of Groups and Bands, Berlin 2012-13 311 F Alphabetical List of Improvised Music Venues, Berlin 2012 317 G Alphabetical List of Performers, Berlin 2012 319 Acknowledgements My thanks go to: Professor Simon Frith Dr. Matt Brennan Dr. Michael Edwards University of Edinburgh's Principal's Career Development Award (which funded this research) Jane South Wei L¨u Chunjin Xiong Matthias M¨uller Maria Clara Zu~niga Alvarez Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen Rudi Fischerlehner Simon Vincent Sam Britton Maciej Obara Karolina Juzwa Lothar Ohlmeier Julie Sassoon Richard Fairhurst Klaus K¨urvers Sonja Maurer Adrian Lever Dr. Nikki Moran Chris, Jane and Claire Arthurs Eleni Karali Ina Hammesfahr Arthur Rother Zweigbibliothek Musikwissenschaft, Humboldt-Universit¨atzu Berlin All the musicians I play with. All the musicians I talked to. Everyone I have interviewed, referenced and quoted here. And everyone else who has helped along the way. A Note on Terminology and Translation I use several problematic and contested terms throughout this study to refer to classical music, Neue Musik, rock, pop, experimental electronic music and so on. These terms are used in an unapologetically loose sense (and in the sense that they were used in interviews and in the existing literature), however, in the case of terms relating directly to Improvised Music (and especially those defined during the course of this study), I have deliberately used capital letters and have endeavoured to clarify each term as I proceed. The term Neue Musik (used by most practitioners here, also often when speaking English) is used to reference what might otherwise be referred to as 20th-21st Century classical music or contemporary/avant-garde classical music (distinguishing it from `classical' music, which refers to Romantic and pre-Romantic classical music). I avoid the term `experimental music' as far as possible, acknowledging its vagueness as covering everything from classical music (Nyman's usage, for example) to abstract electronic music (originating in the dance music world). All translations from German are my own, except where otherwise stated. Part I Chapter 1 Introduction A small man in a red suit, seated in a former butchers' shop, blowing multicoloured air sounds into a slide trumpet, sink plunger held aloft, the sound of traffic punctuating his silences. A neatly-dressed woman in her early 40s, placing small objects on the frame of a piano, feeding it into a mixing desk, making microscopically precise adjustments, accompanied by an animated Italian man operating a reel-to-reel tape recorder - pulling the tape and deftly flicking