Connections are highlighted between the action of chance and indeterminism in improvisation, and its associated relationships with composition and a model introduced as an investigative tool. This article investigates the active commonalities and convergences in experimental compositional and improvisational work across stylistic delineations. At the same time, with a few notable exceptions, 2 little has been documented or analyzed in contemporary scholarly writing that examines the field in a holistic manner or takes into account either its breadth of practice or its effective cross-genre artistic contribution. 1 Although often operating on the fringes of musical communities, the enormous output of this work, via concerts and recordings, has been reviewed widely by a host of music magazines and on-line blogs. I am referring to music making that actively engages with unforeseen circumstances and outcomes as an essential component of the work ( Nyman, 1999, 1–30). Further possible applications of the ECIC are suggested in the conclusion.Īmong improvising musicians today, and composers who are writing for improvisers, there is a burgeoning interest in experimental music (EM) practices that transcend idiom and musical tradition ( Beins et al., 2011 Cox and Warner, 2013 Gottschalk, 2016). The works are: “Spiral Staircase” – a composition by written by Satoko Fujii in late 2007, John Cage’s 4′33″, and a performance of “My Favorite Things” by the John Coltrane Quartet. This model is applied as an investigative and comparative tool to three distinctive works in order to illuminate the presence or otherwise of various experimental interactions within them. The ECIC model is outlined as providing a means to observe the interactions and continua between composition and improvisation on the one hand and more or less experimentally conceived music on the other. The historical Experimental Music movement of the 1950s and 60s is briefly revisited, and the jazz tradition included as an essential protagonist both being important historical movements leading to the formulation of ideas around contingent musical practices. I propose the Experimental Composition Improvisation Continua (ECIC) as a model with which to better understand these experimental musical works. Among improvisers and composers today there is a resurgence of interest in experimental music (EM) practices that welcome contingency engaging with unforeseen circumstances as an essential component of the music-making process, and a means to sonic discovery.
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