Improvising Culture: Discursive Interculturality as a Critical Tool, Aesthetic, and Methodology for Intercultural Music Author Wren, Toby Christopher Published 2015 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School Queensland Conservatorium DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/3070 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367035 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au Improvising Culture Discursive Interculturality as a critical tool, aesthetic, and methodology for intercultural music Toby Wren BMus (Composition) MMus Queensland Conservatorium AEL Group Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2014 2 Toby Wren. Improvising Culture. Toby Wren. Improvising Culture. 3 Abstract This research considers musicians from different cultural backgrounds, improvising together, and ‘improvising’ new musical contexts. It springs from my practice as a composer and improvising guitarist, exploring the borders between South Indian Carnatic music and jazz. The process of collaborating with musicians from different traditions raises questions about the ways that musicians draw on their acquired knowledge in the production of intercultural music: How do musicians from different cultures interpret each others’ musical gestures and negotiate a cohesive performance? At play throughout the dissertation are the conflicting notions of individual expression, and culturally derived archetypal models of expression. The relationship between musicians and cultures is explored through an ethnographic methodology. The dissertation begins with a critical review of the literature on intercultural hybridity that reveals the way that power inequalities have historically characterised many of the exchanges between the West and its Others. In the course of analysing the products of interculture, the discussion also examines the inherent problem of hybridity’s reception, given the different cultural frames of reference of different audiences. From the analysis of hybridity, improvisation emerges as a key locus for examining the way in which musicians are heard to negotiate self and culture in intercultural hybridity. A new understanding of improvisation is proposed based on an examination of the literature from diverse disciplines including cognitive psychology, complex adaptive systems, embodiment and ethnographic accounts of improvisers. Improvisation is situated as a dynamic process of developing preferences based on cultural acquisition, which enables us to understand the different approaches developed by improvisers and broader cultural differences between musical systems. The relationship between improvisation and culture necessitates a rethinking of the way that we listen to and analyse the products of interculture. I propose the critical framework of Discursive Interculturality as a way of unpacking intercultural exchange through a close analysis of the musical work. This type of analysis is based on the theories of hybridity and improvisation as developed in previous chapters, to reveal the intersection of cultural archetypes and individual expression within the intercultural hybrid work. In doing so it reveals the way that power is implicated in intercultural exchange through 4 Toby Wren. Improvising Culture. collaboration and performance and reveals the way that musicians play their culture and play beyond their culture in intercultural hybridity. Discursive Interculturality is tested as a form of critical analysis used to examine two case studies from my practice: the intercultural concert series Cows at the Beach (Wren, 2011, 2013), and a jazz quartet recording, Rich and Famous (Wren, 2012). The specific ways in which Carnatic and jazz structures have evolved to enable creative expression are explored as an important piece of context and to show how they have informed the various experimental compositional structures and collaborative frameworks employed in the case studies. These compositional structures are described as a way of establishing the enabling and limiting factors on the improvisers. The Discursive Intercultural analysis examines recordings of the case studies, participant interviews, reflective practice, music analysis and recordings and reveals the way that musicians draw on their cultural inheritance in negotiating a satisfactory musical outcome based on intercultural dialogue. The recording of the Ultimate Cows concert (Wren et al. 2013) acts as a musical coda to the dissertation, serving to answer some of the questions raised and demonstrating a dialogic intercultural project based on a Discursive Intercultural aesthetic. Toby Wren. Improvising Culture. 5 Statement of Authenticity The original work contained herein is that of Toby Wren and has not previously been submitted for for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, no material previously published or written by another person has been included except where due reference is made in the dissertation. Selected material that is the original work of the author has been published in a selection of journals and anthologies and as musical scores, recordings and live performance throughout the course of this research project. These publications are listed on page 8 of this dissertation. Toby Christopher Wren November 2014 6 Toby Wren. Improvising Culture. Table of Contents Abstract 3 Statement of Authenticity 5 Table of Contents 6 List of Figures 9 List of Audio and Video Examples 11 Audio and Video in this dissertation 11 Acknowledgments 12 A note on translation 13 Referencing as used in this dissertation 13 List of Publications, Conferences and Performances 13 Chapter 1. Introduction 16 1.1 The Chakra Quartet 16 1.2 Research Questions 17 1.2.1 Case Studies and ethnography 19 1.2.2 Methods 20 1.2.3 Signification in intercultural work 21 1.3 Definitions 23 1.4 Reflexive positioning of the author 26 1.5 Chapter Summary 28 Chapter 2. Intercultural hybridity: Literature 31 2.1 Introduction 31 2.2 Mylapore, Chennai, 2009 31 2.3 I am not your Other 34 2.4 Doomed to failure? 41 2.5 Populating the third space 46 2.6 Carnatic-jazz in recordings 50 2.7 Concluding remarks 55 Chapter 3. Improvisation as cultural performance 57 3.1 Introduction 57 3.2 Definitions 59 3.3 Pressing 61 Toby Wren. Improvising Culture. 7 3.4 Demands on Memory 65 3.5 Complex Adaptive Systems 70 3.6 Distributed Cognition, Group Creativity, the Field, Embodiment 74 3.7 You say ‘potato’. Performers’ voices 79 Chapter 4. Discursive Interculturality: A critical framework for hybrid intercultural work 87 4.1 Introduction 87 4.2 Discursive Interculturality as critical methodology 89 4.3 Discursive Interculturality as aesthetic 93 Chapter 5. Genus, Genesis, Poiesis 96 5.1 Carnatic structures 96 5.1.1 Melody 100 5.1.2 Song form and improvisation 103 5.1.3 Rhythm 106 5.1.4 Mathematical structure of rhythmic cadences 110 5.2 Jazz structures 114 5.2.1 Song form and improvisation 119 5.3 Problematising Carnatic-jazz 122 5.4 Background to case studies 126 Chapter 6. Case study 1: Rich and Famous 130 6.1 My background 130 6.2 Composition 133 6.3 Flood Lines 133 6.4 Rich and Famous 141 6.5 Album structure 146 6.6 Appropriation or discursivity? 149 Chapter 7. Case study 2: Cows at the Beach 153 7.1 Compositions, Collaborative frameworks 153 7.2 Cowboys and Indians 156 7.3 Cowboys & Indians: John Rodgers, Eshwarshanker Jeyarajan, Andrew Shaw 159 7.4 Cowboys & Indians: Vanessa Tomlinson, Erik Griswold 163 7.5 Kannakku 165 7.6 Kannakku: Huib Schippers and Dheeraj Shesthra 171 Chapter 8. Conclusions 181 Postlude: Bangalore, January 2013 187 8 Toby Wren. Improvising Culture. Coda: Ultimate Cows DVD 189 Musicians 189 Compositions 190 Scores 190 Filming Credits 190 Glossary 190 Reference List 196 Interview subjects 226 Appendix A. Rich and Famous Full Scores 232 Appendix B. Cows at the Beach Full Scores 237 Appendix C. Further examples of korvai design 247 Appendix D. Krithi transcription: Vatapi Ganapathim 248 Appendix E. Scores from Ultimate Cows 258 Toby Wren. Improvising Culture. 9 List of Figures Figure 1. The Chakra quartet setting up for the house concert performance in Bangalore, January, 2013. Left to right: Tunji Beier (mridangam), Toby Wren (guitar), Jessica Struch (vocals), and Karthik Mani (ghatam). ................................................................................. 17 Figure 2. Continua for hybrid work. ........................................................................................... 49 Figure 3. Continuum for Indian-western. ................................................................................... 50 Figure 4. A new model for improvisational cognition? ............................................................... 64 Figure 5. The individual improviser in an intercultural context. .................................................. 91 Figure 6. Madurai T. N. Seshagopalan (centre). With (L-R): B. Harikumar (mridangam), Guruprasanna (ghatam), Tambura, and S. D. Sridhar (violin), 31 December 2006. ........... 98 Figure 7. Equivalent Western and Carnatic names for notes/swaras. ..................................... 102 Figure 8. The typical form of a Carnatic krithi. ......................................................................... 104 Figure 9. The four most common thalams in Carnatic music. .................................................. 106 Figure 10. The kriya (clapping