DOCSLIB.ORG

Forum: Improvisation Author(S): Barney Childs, Christopher Hobbs

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Forum: Improvisation Author(S): Barney Childs, Christopher Hobbs Forum: Improvisation Author(s): Barney Childs, Christopher Hobbs, Larry Austin, Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe, Derek Bailey, Harold Budd, Lee Kaplan, Vinny Golea, Elliott Schwartz, Larry Solomon, Malcolm Goldstein, John Silber, Davey Williams, Pauline Oliveros Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 21, No. 1/2, (Autumn, 1982 - Summer, 1983), pp. 26- 111 Published by: Perspectives of New Music Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/832868 Accessed: 23/07/2008 16:10 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=pnm. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org FORUM: IMPROVISATION The following is the first part of a gatheringof statements and interviews on the topic of improvisation.We have in no way tried to be encyclopedic;we have instead been selective, providing material of historicalinterest as well as illuminativeof the range of current practice,to enliven as well as enlighten. Interviewswere transcribeddirectly from tape, this transcript then being sent back to the originatorfor editing. What appears here, therefore,is what composers/performerswish to have appear. The interviewer'swords are italicized. Although we provide no bibliography,we urge the interested reader to investigate Derek Bailey'sbook, Improvisation(Ashbourne, England:Moorland Publications, 1980). The remaininginterviews will appear in subsequent issues of this journal. BARNEYCHILDS University of Redlands CHRISTOPHERHOBBS London Drama Centre September 1982 LARRYAUSTIN Summer, 1963, was the beginning of the New Music Ensemble in Davis, California, experimenting with free group improvisation through that year, giving many concerts, demos and making a record. The next summer I went to Rome and, being very enthusiasticabout the new way of improvisingwe felt we had originated, carried its concepts to Europe. I came to be associated with a number of composers in Rome, chiefly FrancoEvangelisti, Aldo Clementi, Ivan Vandorand CorneliusCardew, as well as Americanexpatriates Frederick Rzewski, Bill Smith,John Eaton, Allan Bryant,and Alvin Curran.In the fall of that Roman sabbaticalyear, I began to receive tapes from the Davis NME, "Here'swhat we're doing now! Here's the concert we just had!"I played these tapes and the NME record for my new composer-friendsin Rome. Evangelisti,especially, embraced our improvisationconcept totally. Was there alreadyan improvisationthing going on there? No... at least not in the free sense we felt we were practicing.In termsof primacy of idea then, I may have brought this influence to Europe. My expectations were innocent enough: I thought it would just be interestingto them, or boring. They would ask me what was going on in Davis, California,and I would say, "Well, we're experimenting with free group improvisation.No scheme, no format, no pre-conceived concept but the group dynamic itself." Hearing the tapes or the record, they-mostly Franco-would say, "Ahh...but what process are you using?""Nothing, except how we feel about one another'splaying and responding to it in the moment."They'd say "Impossible!"And I wouldgo on to say, "No, I swear it's stand-upcomposing," instead of sit-down composing,my differentiation between the two ways of making music, the two kinds of composing. Improvisa- tion is stand-up, and "real"composing is sit-down. Franco,who claimed he had given up composing, calling it a contrivance, a manipulation, embraced this concept of improvisation,because it fit perfectlywith his non-composingstance. He told me, later in 1967, that composition was dead, that the whole "act"of sitting down to contrive a piece of music was decadent. For Franco, this came from a very strong ideological motivation. He was a Communist and, when thinkingas a composer, felt totallyat odds with himself, his culture and his socio- political beliefs. In improvisation he felt that music and ideology could be reconciled.I think that was probably the case with Cornelius Cardew as well. 28 Anyway, back to the story. I played my "tapesfrom home" for them. Francowas fascinated,saying, "Thisis it. I really believe!". .and he wanted immediatelyto form a similarimprovisation group. We did form the group, an internationalone. For instance,Ivan Vandor, a Hungarian,was the tenor saxophone player, that is, a composer who also played tenor saxophone. We were all composers who also played. That was how you got in. In the Davis group, there were people who never declared themselves composers (Jon Gibson, for instance) but who were, actually.In the Italiangroup, being a composerwas requisiteand more important than "justbeing a performer,"an elitist attitude that Francoconveniently over- looked. The day came for the firstsession of the Italiangroup. I retain a vivid impression. CorneliusCardew came to observe, heard the group and, in the later part of the session, joined in. Franco was an ecstatic priest of the session. We had lots of keyboards... pianos, organs... it was a huge ensemble. I played flugelhorn and string bass. There must have been ten people.. Clementi, Vandor, Evangelisti, Smith, Eaton, John Heineman, Cardew, Curran, Mario Bertoncini, myself. In such a huge ensemble you can't reconcile the differencesin approachamong the performerswho, as composers, are all trying to shape the piece in their own compositionalimage. The anomaly-funny now-was in what Franconamed the group: ILGRUPPO DI IMPROVISAZIONEDA NUOVA CONSONANZA,the new conso- nance improvisation group. To me, it had no consonance as a group, but perhaps that was what was "new" to the Italians. The concept for GINC was very idealistic, very romantic, and it seemed right in tune with what everyone wanted to do: very Italian, very anarchic, very diverse. I don't think we could ever have come to an agreement about anything, which was maybe its main charm. We had weekly sessions, which was about all that any of us could, I guess, abide. (Aldo and Franco argued a lot, and Aldo, frustrated, dropped out.) Was there any leader in the group, or was it just where everybody sat down and played? Like the Davis group, there was no recognized leadership. The group dynamic was the thing to sustain: individuals coming together to make music and react freely to one another. Wasn't it during that period in the '60s that the whole idea of group-ness began to take over in our society? Not only corrective consciousness-expanding groups, but also the reaffirmation of a group feeling in rock music? Yes, we were group-oriented. In fact, a psychologist named Harry Aron followed us around, writing about us and analyzing our behavior. I commented on that 29 phenomenon in an articlein the late '60s in the New YorkTimes, called "MusicIs Dead, Long Live Music."I talked about groups being the wave of the future. Actually it was a wave of the past. I had finally realizedwhat it was we had been doing: "Oh! So this is a 'group thing' we're doing!" So GINC gave a debut concert, and it was outrageous,which meant it was successful,well attended and supported by the state, the best thing you can do in Italy... be supported by the state. We had a whole concert to ourselves on the Nuova ConsonanzaFestival in the springof 1965. Evangelistiwas the festival entrepreneur,so it was no surprise that we were included. Since he had stopped composing, this improvisation thing was just right. He could sit out there and wail and not feel guilty about not composing.I've never thought of it in the politicalcontext until now, but Cardew certainlyhad to cope with the contradictionof elitist composing and ideological beliefs... and his ScratchOrchestra and AMM were, I've since learned, manifes- tations of that political stance. If you embrace a kind of musical anarchy,pretty soon you begin to think politically. I'm not sure that what he was doing then-what either of them were doing-directly gave rise or confirmed certain ideologies, but maybe there was some of that at work. FrederickRzewski, Alvin Curran,Allan Bryantand others who were members of MusicaElettronica Viva-formed a year later-were also present, not during the first sessions however. They were in Rome and they came to those concerts;I can'tbelieve that they weren't influenced by what we did. It'smarvelous to think that a California outfit had something to do with influencing Europeans and expatriateAmericans as early as 1964. After you'd been in Rome a year you came back, and the New Music Ensemble continued. Yes, they had made a second record while I was in Europe. When I came back, it seemed to me to be a changed group, but, then, I had changed as well... full of new influences... had a lot of new scores. A little side story: when I first met Cardew in Rome-at that first improvisation session-I knew who he was but didn't know his music very well.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • THE SHARED INFLUENCES and CHARACTERISTICS of JAZZ FUSION and PROGRESSIVE ROCK by JOSEPH BLUNK B.M.E., Illinois State University, 2014
    COMMON GROUND: THE SHARED INFLUENCES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF JAZZ FUSION AND PROGRESSIVE ROCK by JOSEPH BLUNK B.M.E., Illinois State University, 2014 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master in Jazz Performance and Pedagogy Department of Music 2020 Abstract Blunk, Joseph Michael (M.M., Jazz Performance and Pedagogy) Common Ground: The Shared Influences and Characteristics of Jazz Fusion and Progressive Rock Thesis directed by Dr. John Gunther In the late 1960s through the 1970s, two new genres of music emerged: jazz fusion and progressive rock. Though typically thought of as two distinct styles, both share common influences and stylistic characteristics. This thesis examines the emergence of both genres, identifies stylistic traits and influences, and analyzes the artistic output of eight different groups: Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis’s electric ensembles, Tony Williams Lifetime, Yes, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, and Soft Machine. Through qualitative listenings of each group’s musical output, comparisons between genres or groups focus on instances of one genre crossing over into the other. Though many examples of crossing over are identified, the examples used do not necessitate the creation of a new genre label, nor do they demonstrate the need for both genres to be combined into one. iii Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Part One: The Emergence of Jazz………………………………………………………….. 3 Part Two: The Emergence of Progressive………………………………………………….. 10 Part Three: Musical Crossings Between Jazz Fusion and Progressive Rock…………….... 16 Part Four: Conclusion, Genre Boundaries and Commonalities……………………………. 40 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….
    [Show full text]
  • The Rai Studio Di Fonologia (1954–83)
    ELECTRONIC MUSIC HISTORY THROUGH THE EVERYDAY: THE RAI STUDIO DI FONOLOGIA (1954–83) Joanna Evelyn Helms A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music. Chapel Hill 2020 Approved by: Andrea F. Bohlman Mark Evan Bonds Tim Carter Mark Katz Lee Weisert © 2020 Joanna Evelyn Helms ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Joanna Evelyn Helms: Electronic Music History through the Everyday: The RAI Studio di Fonologia (1954–83) (Under the direction of Andrea F. Bohlman) My dissertation analyzes cultural production at the Studio di Fonologia (SdF), an electronic music studio operated by Italian state media network Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) in Milan from 1955 to 1983. At the SdF, composers produced music and sound effects for radio dramas, television documentaries, stage and film operas, and musical works for concert audiences. Much research on the SdF centers on the art-music outputs of a select group of internationally prestigious Italian composers (namely Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, and Luigi Nono), offering limited windows into the social life, technological everyday, and collaborative discourse that characterized the institution during its nearly three decades of continuous operation. This preference reflects a larger trend within postwar electronic music histories to emphasize the production of a core group of intellectuals—mostly art-music composers—at a few key sites such as Paris, Cologne, and New York. Through close archival reading, I reconstruct the social conditions of work in the SdF, as well as ways in which changes in its output over time reflected changes in institutional priorities at RAI.
    [Show full text]
  • Peter Johnston 2011
    The London School Of Improvised Economics - Peter Johnston 2011 This excerpt from my dissertation was included in the reader for the course MUS 211: Music Cultures of the City at Ryerson University. Introduction The following reading is a reduction of a chapter from my dissertation, which is titled Fields of Production and Streams of Conscious: Negotiating the Musical and Social Practices of Improvised Music in London, England. The object of my research for this work was a group of musicians living in London who self-identified as improvisers, and who are part of a distinct music scene that emerged in the mid-1960s based on the idea of free improvisation. Most of this research was conducted between Sept 2006 and June 2007, during which time I lived in London and conducted interviews with both older individuals who were involved in the creation of this scene, and with younger improvisers who are building on the formative work of the previous generation. This chapter addresses the practical aspects of how improvised music is produced in London, and follows a more theoretical analysis in the previous chapters of why the music sounds like it does. Before moving on to the main content, it will be helpful to give a brief explanation of two of the key terms that occur throughout this chapter: “free improvisation” and the “improvised music field.” “Free improvisation” refers to the creation of musical performances without any pre- determined materials, such as form, tonality, melody, or rhythmic feel. This practice emerged out of developments in jazz in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly in the work of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, who began performing music without using the song-forms, harmonic progressions, and steady rhythms that characterized jazz until that time.
    [Show full text]
  • Jazz and the Cultural Transformation of America in the 1920S
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s Courtney Patterson Carney Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Carney, Courtney Patterson, "Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 176. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/176 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. JAZZ AND THE CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA IN THE 1920S A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Courtney Patterson Carney B.A., Baylor University, 1996 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1998 December 2003 For Big ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The real truth about it is no one gets it right The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try1 Over the course of the last few years I have been in contact with a long list of people, many of whom have had some impact on this dissertation. At the University of Chicago, Deborah Gillaspie and Ray Gadke helped immensely by guiding me through the Chicago Jazz Archive.
    [Show full text]
  • Russell-Mills-Credits1
    Russell Mills 1) Bob Marley: Dreams of Freedom (Ambient Dub translations of Bob Marley in Dub) by Bill Laswell 1997 Island Records Art and design: Russell Mills (shed) Design assistance, image melts: Michael Webster (storm) Paintings: Russell Mills 2) The Cocteau Twins: BBC Sessions 1999 Bella Union Records Art and design: Russell Mills (shed) Design assistance and image melts: Michael Webster (storm) 3) Gavin Bryars: The Sinking Of The Titanic / Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet 1998 Virgin Records Art and design: Russell Mills Design assistance and image melts: Michael Webster (storm) Paintings and assemblages: Russell Mills 4) Gigi: Illuminated Audio 2003 Palm Pictures Art and design: Russell Mills (shed) Design assistance: Michael Webster (storm) Photography: Jean Baptiste Mondino 5) Pharoah Sanders and Graham Haynes: With a Heartbeat - full digipak 2003 Gravity Art and design: Russell Mills (shed) Design assistance: Michael Webster (storm) Paintings and assemblages: Russell Mills 6) Hector Zazou: Songs From The Cold Seas 1995 Sony/Columbia Art and design: Russell Mills and Dave Coppenhall (mc2) Design assistance: Maggi Smith and Michael Webster 7) Hugo Largo: Mettle 1989 Land Records Art and design: Russell Mills Design assistance: Dave Coppenhall Photography: Adam Peacock 8) Lori Carson: The Finest Thing - digipak front and back 2004 Meta Records Art and design: Russell Mills (shed) Design assistance: Michael Webster (storm) Photography: Lori Carson 9) Toru Takemitsu: Riverrun 1991 Virgin Classics Art & design: Russell Mills Cover
    [Show full text]
  • Expanding Horizons: the International Avant-Garde, 1962-75
    452 ROBYNN STILWELL Joplin, Janis. 'Me and Bobby McGee' (Columbia, 1971) i_ /Mercedes Benz' (Columbia, 1971) 17- Llttle Richard. 'Lucille' (Specialty, 1957) 'Tutti Frutti' (Specialty, 1955) Lynn, Loretta. 'The Pili' (MCA, 1975) Expanding horizons: the International 'You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man' (MCA, 1966) avant-garde, 1962-75 'Your Squaw Is On the Warpath' (Decca, 1969) The Marvelettes. 'Picase Mr. Postman' (Motown, 1961) RICHARD TOOP Matchbox Twenty. 'Damn' (Atlantic, 1996) Nelson, Ricky. 'Helio, Mary Lou' (Imperial, 1958) 'Traveling Man' (Imperial, 1959) Phair, Liz. 'Happy'(live, 1996) Darmstadt after Steinecke Pickett, Wilson. 'In the Midnight Hour' (Atlantic, 1965) Presley, Elvis. 'Hound Dog' (RCA, 1956) When Wolfgang Steinecke - the originator of the Darmstadt Ferienkurse - The Ravens. 'Rock All Night Long' (Mercury, 1948) died at the end of 1961, much of the increasingly fragüe spirit of collegial- Redding, Otis. 'Dock of the Bay' (Stax, 1968) ity within the Cologne/Darmstadt-centred avant-garde died with him. Boulez 'Mr. Pitiful' (Stax, 1964) and Stockhausen in particular were already fiercely competitive, and when in 'Respect'(Stax, 1965) 1960 Steinecke had assigned direction of the Darmstadt composition course Simón and Garfunkel. 'A Simple Desultory Philippic' (Columbia, 1967) to Boulez, Stockhausen had pointedly stayed away.1 Cage's work and sig- Sinatra, Frank. In the Wee SmallHoun (Capítol, 1954) Songsfor Swinging Lovers (Capítol, 1955) nificance was a constant source of acrimonious debate, and Nono's bitter Surfaris. 'Wipe Out' (Decca, 1963) opposition to himz was one reason for the Italian composer being marginal- The Temptations. 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone' (Motown, 1972) ized by the Cologne inner circle as a structuralist reactionary.
    [Show full text]
  • The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts Michael Parsons
    The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts Michael Parsons Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 11, Not Necessarily "English Music": Britain's Second Golden Age. (2001), pp. 5-11. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0961-1215%282001%2911%3C5%3ATSOAVA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V Leonardo Music Journal is currently published by The MIT Press. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/mitpress.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Sat Sep 29 14:25:36 2007 The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts ' The Scratch Orchestra, formed In London in 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton, included VI- sual and performance artists as Michael Parsons well as musicians and other partici- pants from diverse backgrounds, many of them without formal train- ing.
    [Show full text]
  • Some Notes on John Zorn's Cobra
    Some Notes on John Zorn’s Cobra Author(s): JOHN BRACKETT Source: American Music, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring 2010), pp. 44-75 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/americanmusic.28.1.0044 . Accessed: 10/12/2013 15:16 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Music. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 198.40.30.166 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 15:16:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JOHN BRACKETT Some Notes on John Zorn’s Cobra The year 2009 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of John Zorn’s cele- brated game piece for improvisers, Cobra. Without a doubt, Cobra is Zorn’s most popular and well-known composition and one that has enjoyed remarkable success and innumerable performances all over the world since its premiere in late 1984 at the New York City club, Roulette. Some noteworthy performances of Cobra include those played by a group of jazz journalists and critics, an all-women performance, and a hip-hop ver- sion as well!1 At the same time, Cobra is routinely played by students in colleges and universities all over the world, ensuring that the work will continue to grow and evolve in the years to come.
    [Show full text]
  • View 2012 Program
    INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR IMPROVISED MUSIC SIXTH FESTIVAL/CONFERENCE Improvisation · Self · Community·World February 16-19, 2012 William Paterson University Wayne, New Jersey, USA Keynote artists and performers: Pyeng Threadgill & trio Ikue Mori, Sylvie Courvoisier & Jim Black Mulgrew Miller WyldLyfe Robert Dick & Tom Buckner Karl Berger with the University of Michigan Creative Arts Orchestra And over 50 other artists presenting concerts, panels, talks and workshops! ISIM President’s Welcome ISIM President’s Welcome On behalf of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Improvised Music, I extend to all of you a hearty welcome to the sixth ISIM Festival/Conference. Nothing is more gratifying than gatherings of improvising musicians as our common process, regardless of surface differences in our creative expressions, unites us in ways that are truly unique. As the conference theme suggests, by going deep within our reservoir of creativity, we access subtle dimensions of self—or consciousness—that are the source of connections with not only our immediate communities but the world at large. It is dificult to imagine a moment in history when the need for this improvisation-driven, creativity revolution is greater on individual and collective scales than the present. Please join me in thanking the many individuals, far too many to list, who have been instrumental in making this event happen. Headliners Ikue Mori, Pyeng Threadgill, Wyldlife, Karl Berger, the University of Michigan Creative Arts Orchestra, the William Paterson University jazz group, Mulgrew Miller, Robert Dick, and Thomas Buckner—we could not have asked for a more varied and exciting line-up. ISIM Board members Stephen Nachmanovitch and Bill Johnson have provided invaluable assistance, with Steve working his usual heroics with the ISIM website in between, and sometimes during, his performing and speaking tours.
    [Show full text]
  • A More Attractive ‘Way of Getting Things Done’ Freedom, Collaboration and Compositional Paradox in British Improvised and Experimental Music 1965-75
    A more attractive ‘way of getting things done’ freedom, collaboration and compositional paradox in British improvised and experimental music 1965-75 Simon H. Fell A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Huddersfield September 2017 copyright statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the “Copyright”) and he has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such Copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of any patents, designs, trade marks and any and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the “Intellectual Property Rights”) and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. 2 abstract This thesis examines the activity of the British musicians developing a practice of freely improvised music in the mid- to late-1960s, in conjunction with that of a group of British composers and performers contemporaneously exploring experimental possibilities within composed music; it investigates how these practices overlapped and interpenetrated for a period.
    [Show full text]
  • Christopher Hobbs, Word Pieces
    Christopher Hobbs Word Pieces 1966-70 Experimental Music Catalogue www.experimentalmusic.co.uk WORD PIECES 1966-70 This collection brings together all the pieces I have written using solely words or typography. These were busy years; in 1967 I started at the Royal Academy of Music, studying composition with Cornelius Cardew. By 1970 I had left the Academy, and was a member of the Scratch Orchestra, AMM, and the Promenade Theatre Orchestra. Before 1966 I had written music using either graphic scores or conventional music notation, or a mixture of both. One Note 1966 was originally fully written out using chance operations - it was Cardew who suggested that it would be more effective as a verbal score, and words seemed an interesting and challenging way of expressing musical ideas. The pieces here represent the greater part of the work I produced over these years, though there were some conventionally notated pieces, whose proportion grew through 1969 until by 1970 they became predominant. I have written no word pieces since 1970. The publishing history of the pieces is as follows; all the works up to and including The Friesian Cow were issued by the Experimental Music Catalogue in 1969 as Word Pieces 1966-69. For that publication I retitled several pieces. They now appear with their original titles as “Composition [Date]”. Various pieces then found their way into the Anthologies which the Catalogue began issuing in 1972: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 in the Verbal Anthology , The Castle Keep in the Vocal Anthology , Walk Event in the Visual Anthology, Voicepiece and The Friesian Cow in the Scratch Anthology.
    [Show full text]
  • Spiritual Moments in Music Therapy: a Qualitative Study of the Music Therapist’S Experience
    SPIRITUAL MOMENTS IN MUSIC THERAPY: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF THE MUSIC THERAPIST’S EXPERIENCE Maya K. Marom ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to systematically investigate spiritual moments in different music therapy settings and to examine specifically the personal experience of the music therapists involved in them. Ten leading figures in the U. S. music therapy arena were asked to recall a session or two in their careers in which they felt that the therapeutic process became spiritual in nature. They were asked to explain why they viewed these sessions as spiritual. Finally, they were encouraged to describe their own thoughts, feelings, and actions during those sessions. Their testimonies were analyzed according to phenomenological principles, and the major issues that were brought forth were defined, compared, and shaped into an extensive description of the topic. The therapists’ reflections on the term spirituality portrayed it as a dynamic experience that at once reaches inward to touch the greatest depth of the human soul and outward to form the greatest transpersonal connections. Likewise, the range of sessions that were defined as spiritual was quite wide. The examples given by the therapists included moments of major changes in the clients’ behaviors, emotions or thoughts, moments of powerful bonding between therapists and their clients; moments of sudden realizations on behalf of the therapists regarding the therapeutic process, their clients or themselves; moments of strengthened religious beliefs (of clients or therapists) and contacts with transcendent entities. Various aspects of the therapists’ experience before, during, and after the spiritual moments were examined. Their prior preparedness was examined, as well as their thoughts, feelings, actions, and retrospective reflections on these spiritual moments.
    [Show full text]