The articulation of improvisation, medium, sound and gesture: an exploration.
by François Zaidan

I usually prefer not to present anything in a traditional way… and these strange times make this inclination even more pronounced and comforting (at least for me, in a way). This is why this short paper, although ultimately still a quite formal theoretical proposal, is also presented as a series of personal and intuitive explorations. It aims to propose and discuss some ideas, thoughts, considerations and reflections on the articulation and trans-formation of three concepts I cherish and mobilize in all my academic and creative endeavours: medium, sound and gesture. While improvisation is my overarching interest, these key nodes of my interests work here as a point of departure for discussion, for disagreement or even maybe for ironic laughter (who knows). Some ideas definitely fall short. And some are probably way over theorized. I guess it’s all part of the fun.

As a researcher working in the field of media studies, as well as a performing musician and improviser, my main interest has recently been in exploring improvisation using a media¹ perspective. I’m committed to investigating improvisation as a medium as well as through the different media that take place within the improvisation process. More specifically, I suggest that, as a medium, free improvised music can be understood as a particular mode of entering in relation through sound and gesture: with an array of materials, with different spaces and with other individuals and bodies, among others. The French philosophers Gilbert Simondon (1989) and Bernard Stiegler (2010) are particularly useful in their treatment of improvisation as a transindividuation process, one which trans-forms singular individuals through their relations to each other and through a relation to a collective (here I use the notion of collective in a broader sense, obviously implying other individuals, but also instruments, material objects, spaces, sound, etc.). Transindividuation articulates the coming together of improvisation, sound and gesture, three notions that inform and trans-form each other in particular ways. To put it boldly, I suggest that improvisation and free improvised music more specifically, can’t occur without sound and gesture. Improvised sound and improvised gesture thus contribute to a specific practical and theoretical understanding of improvisation as praxis.

Improvisation: relation / medium / music

We don’t necessarily have to go back to McLuhan or any other media theorists to conceive that a medium is what acts and operates “in between”, a moving relation. This is still an important position to consider when trying to apprehend improvisation not only as something one does, but as a mode of relation. In that sense, it is definitely still relevant to examine improvisation as a medium, as an operator of a mediation (Bardini, 2016) without a crystal clear and fully anticipated goal (that’s a cool thing about improvisation!). Evoking the relational aspect of a medium, “the object or the bodies that are in relation, are defined through their participation rather than coming to the interaction with the definitions carried already within them” (Massumi, 2014, no page). Improvisation as a medium thus engages the individuals, their bodies, multiple instruments, objects and spaces to be defined, trans-formed or transindividuated (Simondon, 1989; Stiegler, 2010) through relations that are constantly developed and actualized.

What about music? My main point of entry into improvisation is and has been through music. Although I work within a wide spectrum of musical performances, my main analytical focus has been on free improvised music/free improvisation as a sort of case study that could be transposed to other disciplines. A strange thing I started to encounter in the relatively new and emerging literature on free improvised music is that it is not always primarily concerned with music… Intriguingly, maybe because of the claim that there are no systematically pre-defined aesthetical criteria in free improvisation (Bailey, 1992), music seems to take a backseat in profit of other concerns. The literature on free improvisation rather reveals and dwells on a wide range of theoretical and practical concerns including how sonic identities are formed and transformed (Bailey, 1992; Saladin, 2002; Béthune, 2009; Bonnerave, 2010; Zaidan, 2016), the relation to various extended instrumental techniques (Corbett, 1994 & 2016), how socio-political structures are negotiated (Citton, 2004; Saladin, 2014), and how philosophical developments are undertaken (Peters, 2009 & 2017; Costa, 2011).

I’m not suggesting that music is not of any interest in these theoretical endeavours. Instead of trying to define improvisation in a purely technical or aesthetical way, the various relations that emerge within and through free improvisation literature are welcome and needed explorations. What I’m suggesting is that these reflections are done through music rather that with music, and more specifically, they are done through an underlying conception of improvisation as a medium of these relations. Improvisation is the ‘in between’ of these relations.

Improvisation: sound & soundworlds

What does it mean to improvise with and through sound? How does the media of sound participate in the process of transindividuation between individual(s) and collective in free improvisation? And how does sound inform and transform the improvised performance? These are quite difficult questions to address. Part of the difficulty is in discussing sound itself. An obvious way would be to describe it physically, as vibrations transmitted through air, water, etc. and reflected/absorbed on/by surfaces, objects, etc. Nevertheless, such an overly simple definition suggests a certain autonomy of sound once it leaves its source. This autonomy is beautifully captured by Brian Massumi (2002) when he notes that an echo “cannot occur without a distance between surfaces for the sounds to bounce from. But the resonation is not on the walls. It is in the emptiness between them” (p.14). The production of sound in free improvisation works in the same continuous way, through emptiness; improvising and improvisers engage in the middle of this process. Sound propositions are emitted, heard and negotiated in the process of actualization that is the improvised performance. As sound leaves the performer, it becomes part of the becoming collective.

Although I have just evoked sound as somewhat autonomous, part of the definition of free improvisations relies on the idea that “The characteristics of freely improvised music are established only by the sonic-musical identity of the person or persons playing it” (Bailey, 1992, p.83). In that regard, free improvisation is somewhat idiosyncratic. Sound “belongs” to the improvisers (although maybe only to a certain extent, as I tried to demonstrate earlier). Along these lines, Ben Watson (2004) offers a very interesting way of defining free improvised music when he proposes the idea of performers each having different and individual “soundworlds” that are brought together and negotiated during the improvised performance.

Each a side of the same coin, the continuous autonomy of sound and the clash/negotiation of the idiosyncratic soundworlds of improvisers both have elements of unpredictability and a dusty and reminiscent sense of experimentalism. As previously mentioned, free improvisation is not, theoretically, concerned with any aesthetical a priori. In that sense, following John Cage, we might consider improvisation as a process “the outcome of which is unknown” (1955, cited in Nyman, 1974, p.1). Although I would also argue, as does Gary Peters (2017), that it would be absurd not to invoke rehearsing (re-hear-sing) as a key component of improvisation. Still, the clash, the negotiation, the juxtaposition and the result of different soundworlds is always partially unknown at every performance. Sound and the improvisers’ soundworlds are then always in the making, partly within and outside the performers. Sound is both the known and the unknown, the not totally predictable, and the basis of creation, and trans-formation in the improvised performance.

Improvisation: gesture

The last point I want to address is the articulation of improvisation and gesture. This seems particularly relevant regarding the theme and the original context of the Music Pours Over the Sense symposium. Although not a dancer nor a performer (in the performance arts sense), I’ve always been interested by the corporeal and gestural aspect of free improvised music. It seems to me that it would be quite difficult to apprehend improvisation and the improviser/instrument relation without any reference to gesture. The same goes for the relation between improvisers, whether these are sound artists, dancers, performers, visual artists and even an assistance. For Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, gesture can be understood as the main modality of action; it is an intermediary rendering action possible and visible. He goes further and notes that gesture “allows the emergence of the being-in-a-medium of human beings” (1992, p.58). In many ways, this echoes what I evoked earlier regarding an understanding of improvisation as a medium. Gesture is also an “in between”, a constant intermediary (ibid.) and a mode or relation. We are in the process of improvisation with and through gesture, and gesture makes improvisation possible. It enables the improvisers to engage with the instruments at play and engages in physical reactions to the always emerging and actualizing situation. In that sense, gesture offers a way of understanding improvisation as a process in which individuals “produce and experience sounds physiologically” (Nyman, 1974, p.14). But how does gesture inform, trans-forms and partake in the transindividuation process of improvisation?

To address this question, I would argue that gesture in free improvised music operates on a smaller, less evident level (than dance or performance for instance). It is through small and somewhat mechanical gestures that the bodies of improvisers come together to create sound and to engage with the improvisation process. John Corbett offers a vivid insight into the formation of the “improviser assemblage” by describing Evan Parker playing: “Fingers, mouth, tongue, teeth, lungs: these are the distinct members of the solo-saxophone ensemble. Joined together as the Evan Parker solo assemblage, they are constellated in such a way as to break the seeming unity of melodic expression” (Corbett, 1994, p.82). Although gesture is not explicitly mentioned, it is an integral part of this assemblage. The Evan Parker assemblage is “joined together” and actualized through gesture; it makes his improvisation effective and audible/visible (Agamben, 1992).

Finally, I will briefly propose an ontological take on the previous question. Deleuze and Guattari wrote: “To improvise is to join with the world, or meld with it. […] Along sonorous, gestural, motor lines that mark the customary path of a child and graft themselves onto or begin to bud ‘lines of drift’ with different loops, knots, speeds, movements, gestures, sonorities” (1980, p.311). Along these lines, I would suggest that gesture can be understood as a primary mode of relation in free improvised music as well as in improvisation in general. As a crucial force that makes improvisation happen. It enables improvisers to interact and to create with and through the production of sound in the context of free improvised music as well as with our implication in the world in general. It is in that sense that, mobilizing everyday sound and gesture, senses, our bodies in motion, in constant transition, in constant “in between”, that Gary Peters claims that even “a whole life might be seen as an improvisation” (2017, p.19).

Conclusion

Writing about free improvisation, as notes David Toop (2016), can be a very difficult and paradoxical task: “how to write as an individual author about group music and collective organization […] how to convey in words a music largely wordless” (p.7). This is why, I argue for writing and thinking with improvisation as the medium for different ideas to collide, to clash and to trans-individuate. This time, the focus was on sound and gesture, but there are many other paths. In this sense, improvisation is not as narrow of a framework as if might first appear, and can be taken up under different lights and through different articulations. In this broader sense, it can spark new ideas in approaching music, dance, performance, visual arts and other forms “the outcome of which is unknown”.

¹Following Bardini (2016), I refer to “media” as distinct from a notion that evokes “mass media”; here the term media works as the plural of medium (in italics) “to signify the milieux, intermediaries or means of communication, the operators of mediation” (p.159, my translation).

References

Agamben, G. (1992) [2000]. Means Without Ends. Notes on Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Bailey, D. (1992). Improvisation: its nature and practice in music. Boston: Da Capo Press.

Bardini, T. (2016). Entre archéologie et écologie. Une perspective sur la théorie médiatique. Multitudes, 1(62), 159-168.

Béthune, C. (2009). L’improvisation comme processus d’individuation. Critical Studies in Improvisation, 5(1), 1-11.

Bonnerave, J. (2010). Improviser ensemble. De l’interaction à l’écologie sonore. Tracés, 1(18), 87-103.

Citton, Y. (2004). L’utopie jazz entre gratuité et liberté. Multitudes, 2(16), 131-144.

Corbett, J. (1994). Extended Play. Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein. Durham: Duke University Press.

Corbett, J. (2016). A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Costa, R. (2011). Free Musical Improvisation and the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Perspectives in New Music, 49(1), 127-142.

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1980). Capitalisme et schizophrénie. Mille Plateaux. Paris: Les éditions de minuit.

Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual. Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham & London: Duke University Press.

Massumi, B. (2011). Semblance and Event. Activist Philosophy and the Occurent Arts. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Nyman, M. (1974) [1999]. Experimental Music. Cage and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Peters, G. (2009). The Philosophy of Improvisation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Peters, G. (2017). Improvising Improvisation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Saladin, M. (2002). Processus de création dans l’improvisation. Volume !, 1(1), 7-16.

Saladin, M. (2014). Esthétique de l’improvisation libre. Expérimentation musicale et politique. Dijon: Les presses du réel.

Simondon, G. (1989). L’individuation psychique et collective. Paris: Aubier.

Stiegler, B. (2010). Ce qui fait que la vie vaut la peine d’être vécue. De la pharmacologie. Paris: Flammarion.

Toop, D. (2016). Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970. London: Bloomsbury.

Watson, B. (2004). Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation. Londres: Verso.

Zaïdan, F. (2016). Transindividuation et individuation collective : une exploration à travers l’improvisation libre et la rythmanalyse (Mémoire de maitrise, Université de Montréal).
Repéré à https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/handle/1866/18679

François Zaidan is a musician and improviser as well as a Ph.D. candidate at the communication department of Université de Montréal. His recent academic works mobilize improvisation as a creative process to explore the notions of individual and collective, and his doctoral research aims to investigate the practical and theoretical implications of sound recording in free improvised music performances.