Up to this point, the focus of this blog has been on obtaining other music that I didn’t know anything about, and writing something about it.  This was an attempt at two things: 1)Get better at writing about things (and actually having a point, which it is possible I still do not) and 2)Learn about the music by listening to it carefully enough to say something to attempt to make a point.

Today, I am going to move the focus of my writing to something that has been on my musical mind lately.  Specifically, I am going to write about a method of composition that I have been thinking about.  I don’t know if this method is a new method (I doubt it is), but I think of it as “Static Improvisation”, and in the ensuing text, I am going to try to explain what I mean by that. 

The high level idea is that a composition composed of “static improvisations” is like a framework that abstracts the details of many pieces of music with one representation.  It is up to the performers to disambiguate between these abstractly “aliased” instances of the piece, and to select one, in advance of a performance, to perform.   Another way of saying this is that the composition describes a set of parameters and constraints, and before performing the musicians, (in contrast with the composer), set the parameters in a way that satisfies the constraints, and then perform the resulting instance of the piece.

The concept of improvisation in general has been broadly explored, and needs no explanation.  The style of composition I am discussing here, however, is probably most similar to the compositional techniques of the minimalists of the late 20th century.  An example of a composition that is similar in nature, but, as I will explain, different is the well-known “In C” by Terry Riley.  In this work, performers are restricted to playing in the key of C (not surprisingly), meaning they must limit themselves to the white keys on a piano.  In addition, the composer has written several one- and two- bar phrases that the performers will play.  It is then only loosely proscribed in the actual text of the piece where each phrase is played — it is up to the performers to select from the set and to play them.  Steve Reich explored a similar structure on his recording entitled “Drumming”, in which the entire composition is based entirely on a one-bar rhythm phrase that is applied in a variety of contexts by varying the instrument, de-aligning the phrase in phase on one part from the rest of the group, and by the omission of some notes occasionally.  Static Improvisation is similar in spirit to the these compositions in that both call for the musicians to adhere to a structure, and then at the time of the performance, rather than just sequentially transforming a set list of notes in to sounds, they must make judgements about what to play, and where to play it (in the case of “In C” for instance), but not with complete freedom, as with general improvisation.

Static Improvisation further explores this area by not actually proscribing the phrase or rhythm or notes that are to be played, but by only imposing compositional constraints on what those phrases or rhythms must be.  For example, one such constraint could be that each phrase be no more than 2 bars (if the piece is in time), and that from a given note, the next note must always be the sharp of that note’s fifth.  Another might be that the performer is to compile a set of rhythmic phrases, and those phrases are the only ones that they are to play during the performance.   Then, in advance of a performance, a performer incorporates these constraints and produces a piece of music for their part that satisfies them all.  The performance then unfolds as the performer manipulates the fixed patterns that they created in advance in an improvisational way to create an instance of the piece.

The distinction between these constraints, and the constraints I’ve described concerning Riley and Reich above is that in the case of Static Improvisation, the performer must actually participate in the composition process, much in the same way an improvisational musician would do.  They actually have to work within the same compositional frame that the composer intended (as an improviser often must), and at the same time create units that will compile to make the whole of an instance of the composition.  In contrast with classical improvisation, however, the performer is not free to make arbitrary decisions during the performance of the piece.  That is, the decisions made beforehand are fixed — a decision made during performer-composition is a constant for the duration of the performance.  That means, if a constraint is that a performer must only ever play from a set of phrases they produce at the outset of the piece, then those phrases are set, and the performer may choose at anytime to play any, but cannot play any other.

The language that I am using to describe this style of composition is largely borrowed from the world of computer science, and I will clarify what these things mean for the interested and informed.  My use of the word “Static” in the description derives from the same as “static” in “static analysis” of computer programs.  This is analysis that is done on the source code before the code is compiled and run — statically.  This is a contrast to dynamic analysis, which in the improvisation idiom is analogous to dynamic improvisation, or what is commonly called just improvisation.  The concept of abstracting many “instances” of a piece of music in one composition is also very analogous to a computer program.  A computer program is an abstract representation of a runtime behavior that is dependent on the input parameters and environmental constraints.  A program is a composition, and a program’s execution is it’s “performance”.  In much the same way, a static improvisation composition is like a program, in that it takes an input (performers’ decisions) and defines a set of constraints, and when then performed produces an output (a de-abstracted “instance” or “execution” of the composition).

I am currently in the process of composing and refining a piece of music for several instruments, and I hope to be able to play it with a group sometime soon.  I’m sure the process of composing and performing will be enlightening for me in the process of expanding this method as a vehicle for composition, and I will continue to write as ideas in this vein progress.