New Composing Method

Approach to the new composing method

Since, in free improvisation, the music-making process is democratic and musicians have a more equal possibility to influence the music, the outcome does not necessarily reflect the idea or concept of just one person more than others. Furthermore, it has a different context every time when it is performed and it never reproduced in the same way again. I use composition as a tool to present my musical idea clearly and to form a complete piece. Meanwhile, I apply improvisation as its core to provide more space and freedom to musicians and assign natureous features in the music.

To materialize my idea while using free improvisation elements, I apply a compositional approach. I give 1) a basic motive which can be a simple sound, a story, an image, and a pattern, 2) a guideline or a direction on how it develops and ends. It does not include any information on tonalities, rhythms, chords, and bars since the music concentrates on a mass of sound rather than clearly systematized one. Each musician has a certain role which includes a specific sound, a particular technique, a role in the story, and a conceptual style. Since it does not consist of any written melodies or chords, improvisation is the main tool to transform it into musical language. Also, this role tells a musician only a basic frame that contains enough space for the musician to apply their own interpretations. All the instruments juxtapose their individual sounds meanwhile all the sounds are weaved into a whole by interaction and communication.

The structure of the music has a natureous feature which is unsystematic, non-mathematical, and irregular. Together with alternative sounds, this character is emphasized much more. I use graphic notation in my own way to convey the information with correct nuance and expression. This music-making is like weaving all kinds of irregular materials into one narrative. It uses the accident as a gear of development in the music by the interaction between musicians. I call this is an art between coincidence and inevitability.

What follows is a categorization of the sources from which I extracted ideas that influenced this new composing method.

Experiences with the free improvisation ensemble “Water Music”

The main focus of my musical activity during my Master’s studies in Norway was free improvisation. The term “free improvisation” is often mixed with free jazz and it is difficult to distinguish them clearly. Here is the British free musician Derek Bailey’s definition.

Freely improvised music, variously called ‘total improvisation’, ‘open improvisation’, ‘free music’, or perhaps most often simply, ‘improvised music’, suffers from – and enjoys – the confused identity which its resistance to labeling indicates. It is a logical situation: freely improvised music is an activity which encompasses too many different kinds of players, too many different attitudes to music, too many different concepts of what improvisation is, even, for it all to be subsumed under one name.1 

Here I use the term free improvisation to include not only free jazz but also all kind of free music which does not have the character of jazz.

Since free improvisation is unpredictable and not even musicians themselves know what will happen until the playing starts, the actual playing or ensemble situation takes a huge part of exploring and obtaining the musical knowledge. Because I was obsessed with the unconventional band setup, I formed a band project called “Water Music”. This band consists of Andreas Hatzikiriakidis on trumpet, Isach Skeidsvoll on piano, Peter Søreide on guitar, and me on saxophone. All of the band members have a jazz background but the band does not have a typical jazz approach. It is free improvisation of alternative sounds and freely improvised melodies and chords, producing a massive sound of varied elements. Similar to an orchestration sound, yet very different.

Each musician has a different idea of improvisation that generates clashes between parameters such as sound, time, groove, timbre, texture, and so on. For example, the pianist Skeidsvoll has a strong blues background and tends to play on the keys with tonality rather than the inside piano. The guitarist Søreide makes a consistent sound with certain patterns or phrases which gives an effect of pad sound. In addition, he is the only one who uses electronic sound which produces a watery shape of sound which also became the source of our band’s name. On this, two horns use all kinds of alternative sounds actively and switch the role between soloist and accompanist.

The primary concept of the sound in this band is using the contrast of musical elements. In the rehearsal process, we discussed all sorts of musical parameters and how to apply them with different ideas. There are numerous parameters not only basic ones such as melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, timbre, texture, structure, dynamics but also density, weight, speed, size, colors, brightness, thickness, distance, and so on. We investigated the way of applying the contrast or difference to the musical factors. For example, the contrast of a certain speed can be faster, slower, paused, irregular, or static. Another example, when someone plays in a certain tonality, the others can choose another tonality, un-pitched sound, noises, even silence. The sound which is produced by the interaction of this conceptual idea portrays “Ugly Beauty”.

During the ensemble process, the band creates a certain arrangement constructively. The different groupings of two or three musicians juxtapose several different musical moments at the same time that creates complexity and parallel worlds. Each musician takes silence depending on the musical flow while the others are leading the music. Those separations are united through one motive and eventually produce one sound which articulates the climax. Also, as a methodological approach, we apply the progression of dynamic level, a simple motive, or abstract theme to the music.

Through free improvisation, I discovered that even though a composition does not offer given rules such as tonality, rhythms, tempo, chord progressions, and forms, it can create one sound if individual parts have tangible ideas and develop them constantly with a clear vision while they cooperate closely. During this process, musicians interact and make an intimate connection between different ideas that generate ensemble and the order in chaos. The whole structure is not systemized elaborately. Nevertheless, all the irregular elements congregate together and compose one-sound that shows natureous features. In addition, influences between ideas produce a new motive which is developed in a new direction. This chain reaction builds an arrangement spontaneously.

Elements from early music which has African root

My interest in early black music is caused by free jazz/free improvisation. This genre emerged from musicians who encountered the limitation of existing music. In this style, musicians focus on their voice or sound rather than scales, chords, and other theoretical elements. For example, many free jazz saxophonists such as John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Albert Ayler used harsh overblowing and other extended techniques to create unconventional saxophone sound. The structure of the music deviates from the pre-established form, but are developed by improvisation as its core. It has a certain pulsation of musical flow, despite a lack of regular meters and rhythms.

There is a strong connection between free jazz and early black music that leads me to focus on the common characteristics they share. In both, the musical parameters are applied in a different way that articulates natureous features rather than organizes systematic structures. The form includes irregularity, the phrases and rhythms have flexibility and variability, and the sound expresses diverse texture, timbre, and temper. This liberty which is contained in the music allows creating distinctive tensions. In addition, free jazz musicians paid attention to their roots, cultural background, and spiritual aspect that makes similar characteristics with early jazz appear in their music.

The breakdown of form and rhythmic structure has been seen by some critics to coincide with jazz musicians' exposure to and use of elements from non-Western music, especially African, Arabic, and Indian. The atonality of free jazz is often credited by historians and jazz performers to a return to non-tonal music of the nineteenth century, including field hollers, street cries, and jubilees (part of the "return to the roots" element of free jazz). This suggests that perhaps the movement away from tonality was not a conscious effort to devise a formal atonal system, but rather a reflection of the concepts surrounding free jazz. Jazz became "free" by removing dependence on chord progressions and instead using polytempic and polyrhythmic structures.2

The atonality in early black music allows deviating from the structure of scales and chord progressions. It retains continuity of sounds rather than chords and melodies. It expands the definition of note and embraces alternative sounds as a tool in the composition. Since it is out of the tonal system, any kinds of sounds or noises can make a harmonization to a certain perspective. In addition, this atonality causes breaking the rhythmic segmentation. Like human talking, it distorts rhythm and makes it imprecise and ambiguous.

e.g.1) Ed Lewis - Lucky holler (Sounds of the South, 1993, Atlantic) 00:00-00:07

e.g.2) Neil Morris - The Banks of the Arkansas (Sounds of the South, 1993, Atlantic) 00:00-00:14

Another element in both free jazz and early black music is collective improvisation. 

Rejection of the bop aesthetic was combined with a fascination with earlier styles of jazz, such as Dixieland with its collective improvisation, as well as African music. Interest in ethnic music resulted in the use of instruments from around the world, such as Ed Blackwell's West African talking drum, and Leon Thomas's interpretation of pygmy yodeling.3 

The first source is spiritual at the churches in the black community. It is not “music” but I discovered that it contains musical elements, especially 1) call and response and 2) collective improvisation. It has a structure that a minister leads and other people answer. The timing between those two roles is not precise. Often the beginning or the ending of both parts are overlapped by each other. The responses from people are varied based on a common theme. They have different words, timing, volume, register, and phrases. Some of them use clapping. In this ensemble, the music is produced as a whole sound of a mixture of irregular and imprecise elements by collective improvisation.

e.g.1) Reverend G.I. Townsel – A Sermon Fragment (Sounds of the South, 1993, Atlantic) 00:00-00:16

e.g.2) Reverend W. A. Donaldson – Baptizing Scene (Sounds of the South, 1993, Atlantic) 00:00-00:14

The second reference is African folk music. I discovered a similar concept in African folk music but with a clearer role of each part. Last autumn, during my Erasmus exchange period in Gothenburg, I encountered the Czech guitarist Vít Beneš who is deep into Ghanaian music. He spent a year in Ghana and has been working on applying the Ghanaian rhythmic concept in his music. We interchanged our musical ideas that led me to investigate African folk music associated with early black music. Since the topic of African folk music is very wide, I focus on rhythmic ensemble music. Even though it is not written music, definitely it has a compositional concept. This music has a root of the spiritual ceremony together with dance. So the music has a consistent groove which is repetitive. Rather than having a specific soloist, each instrument plays its own role with its own rhythm while it is based on the general motive and groove. Musicians have the freedom to make variations and improvisations while they interact and link together intimately. Through this process, the compound of the whole sound composes the melody of the music. Particularly, in this style, I pay attention to the structure that the whole sound consists of each repetitive part that works individually.

e.g.1) Banda-Linda musicians - Horn ensemble: Ganza Knogo Ngo (Central African Republic, 1983, Smithsonian Folkways) 00:44-01:06

e.g.2) Banda-Linda elders – War chant: Ye Zame Andero (Central African Republic, 1983, Smithsonian Folkways) 00:40-00:55

I developed this concept to the composing method which I call “Watchmaking” and applied it to the specific piece that I explain in chapter 5. This method is also related to the concept from Korean folk music which I demonstrate in the next chapter.

Concepts from Korean folk music

The investigation of early black music and African folk music led me to search for folk music in my own culture. Like a lot of other folk music, Korean folk music has a verbal learning process from teacher to apprentice rather than using sheet music on paper. There is a traditional notation which is called “Jungganbo”, which tends to be used for orchestra ensemble rather than individual practice. Because of this background, the music includes variations of certain parts or missing parts and it requires improvisation inevitably. Consequently, the music contains flexibility and adaptability which affect the process of music-making.

In Korean folk music, there is an improvised music which is called “Sinawi”.

Sinawiis a musical genre performed by an instrumental ensemble. The genre requires the most extensive improvisation among Korean musical genres and showcases the highly developed artistic creativity and competence of the musicians. Sinawi was originally performed by shaman-musicians during a ritual to accompany shaman’s songs and dances in the southwestern province. The shaman-musicians were principally the male descendants of a shaman family whose vocation was inherited. In the late 19th and early 20^th centuries, some of the masters developed a stage ensemble version of sinawi and a solo instrumental genre, called sanjo.4 

Sinawi is a free improvisation by a small ensemble group where musicians play their own motives and develop them based on a common theme. Melodies composed in a single mode merge in harmony and create a real polyphony interspersed with instrumental solo. The form is built by the interaction between musicians. It gives an impression of complete composition meanwhile the music alters gradually like a living creature. Today, Sinawi is improvised on several instruments within a rhythmic and modal framework which is set in advance but which leaves the musicians a great deal of liberty, as in jazz.

Furthermore, Sinawi shows several similar characteristics with free jazz, particularly John Coltrane’s large ensemble in the album, Ascension. First, it is a group ensemble of free improvisation. Second, it has a simple structure that consists of the parts of the ensemble or co-soloing and the solo parts of each musician. Third, the dynamic develops in one direction. Sinawi starts with a slow tempo and it is increasing gradually until the end. In Ascension, Coltrane gave the musicians no directions for their solos, other than that they were to end with a crescendo.

e.g.1) Sinawi (2015, National Gugak Center) 01:30-01:50, 11:01-11:15

e.g.2) John Coltrane – Ascension: Edition I / Pt.1 (Ascension, 1966, Verve) 00:00-00:30

I also discovered a similar approach in Korean folk drumming, “Samul nori” which I mention in chapter 3. Samul nori also has the same feature as sinawi that the tempo increases gradually from slow to fast. In the drumming group, the general groove is leading by a leader who plays “Kkwaenggwari”. Also, the leader decides the tempo, the beginning and ending of the music while other drummers follow it by playing separate roles. The music has a structure that each drum plays a certain rhythmic pattern or phrase on the common groove and makes variations of it. The music has a development while each element affects the other and creates a new idea. All the elements are connected organically and produce a massive sound like a watch that consists of many small parts cooperating conjunctly while each part does its own job.

e.g.) Kim Duk Soo Samulnori (2017, KBS Jeonju) 02:00-02:25

This concept in Korean folk music contains collective improvisation as an influential element while it is in a certain framework. I developed it as a composing method that has the shape of the structure of the watch. In this method, I request specific roles or sounds to musicians meanwhile the interpretations of their roles are up to themselves. Everyone has a repetitive movement that gives and receives effects from others. During this process, each musician’s motive is altering and developing gradually which creates the direction and structure of the music.

Similar concepts from other references

John Coltrane – Kulu Sé Mama

This is the first track in the album Kulu Sé Mama made by jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. It was recorded during 1965 and released in 1967 from the jazz label Impulse! Records. This track was written by Juno Lewis who is a drummer, singer, and composer and it includes “a lengthy autobiographical poem that reflected his pride in his ancestors and strong sense of tradition.”5 Unlike Coltrane’s previous albums, it contains a lot of African folk influences from Lewis. According to Nat Hentoff, “his singing is in an Afro-Creole dialect he cites as Entobes. His drums include the Juolulu, water drums, the Doom Dahka, and there are also bells and a Conch Shell.”6 

This music has a strong spiritual atmosphere and contains collective improvisation. Because of that spiritual aspect, it is often called “Astral jazz”.

The instrumentation alone takes "Kulu Sé Mama" in an astral direction, and so do Coltrane's, Sanders' and Tyner's motif-rich solos, the mantra-like ostinato shared by the bassists, and the use of multiple drummers/percussionists. To make "Kulu Sé Mama" fully paid-up astral jazz, all you would need to do is add a tamboura (and maybe an alto flute and some incense).7 

The instrumental setup of the band is doubled up by additional musicians based on Coltrane’s classic quartet which consists of pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones. “Sanders joins Coltrane on tenor, Donald Garrett joins Garrison on bass (and bass clarinet), and Frank Butler joins Jones on drums. Juno Lewis, who wrote the tune and contributes chanted vocals (another astral jazz signature), plays a variety of West African hand drums, bells and a conch shell.”8 

These band members can be categorized into two groups. The musicians from Coltrane’s classic quartet tend to have conservative approaches in that they play in time and tonality as a core sound. On the other hand, additional musicians have approaches towards folk influences and free improvisation. They play freely and move around everywhere by using various alternative sounds and creating their own groove rather than following the main rhythm that generates distinctive tensions in the music. The composition has a clear theme and motive which are repeated and developed dramatically through the music by collective improvisation and exploration of all kinds of potentials rather than using the elaborate structure of the arrangement.

e.g.) John Coltrane – Kulu Se Mama (Kulu Se Mama, 1967, Verve) 

• 02:55-03:32  Collective playing of the first theme between three wind instruments and singer. The unclear border between theme and solo. Different concepts between three wind instruments: Bass clarinet has a more approach of free improvisation while two tenor saxophones stay with tonal melodies. Percussion plays rhythms freely.

• 05:00-05:45  Collective improvisation. Repetitive singer melody. Based on the main groove from bass and drums, musicians move around freely and generate a lot of tension of sounds and rhythms. Coltrane plays in tonality while Sanders and Garrett play freely with alternative sounds.

Many elements from this music influenced my work. First, it describes the theme by using soundscape and atmosphere rather than a well-structured form and accurately written melodies. Second, this soundscape and atmosphere are articulated by collective improvisation. And third, while they are on the same theme, any kinds of variations of sounds and rhythms are well blended together. Particularly, I focused on the sounds from the group of additional musicians which have an approach to free improvisation. Since the mixture of irregular sounds can create a certain groove, I applied it without a regular core groove to emphasize the whole mass of sounds.

Peter Brötzmann – Machine Gun

This is Peter Brötzmann’s second album recorded and released in 1968. “This album captured the anxiety of a generation grappling with the Vietnam War and civil unrest. The emotional and political complexity it was born from still resonates today.”9 The first track which has the same title as the album, “Machine Gun” directly describes the sound of a machine gun. From the beginning, heavily distorted sounds of wind instruments pour out and rough drumming which sounds like a military march follows it with rumbling bass. It has a very clear theme that delivers the image and emotions of it to the audience directly. Brötzmann explained the framework of it. “I got some paper and wrote and drew some things. It’s a very conventional, simply structured piece…It’s a Charles Ives thing: solo, solo background, solo.”10 After this violent 45 seconds, it has solo parts for each instrument with accompaniment.

For me, the main appeal of this music is the concept that uses a specific sound and texture to express the theme. Everyone plays free improvisation but articulates one theme with a specific sound that clearly describes a certain image. Also, the obvious title makes the listener conceive this image intuitively meanwhile it also leads the audience to search for an unrevealed significance. The whole structure of this music follows the one from the traditional jazz, as Brötzmann said, solo, solo background, and solo. In my composition, I used the concept of the theme as the whole music. Without the border between theme and solo, I applied this concept to describe the whole composition as an image by specific sounds.

e.g.) Peter Brötzmann – Machine Gun (Machine Gun, 1968, BRÖ) 00:00-00:20 

Vilde&Inga

Vilde&Inga is an acoustic free improvisation duo of violin and contrabass from Norway. They were awarded the Lindeman Prize for Young Musicians in 2016. They describe their music, “by exploring nontraditional approaches to the instruments, the duo greatly expands their timbre palette. The wide horizons of colour allow the music to develop slowly and organically, yet with a keen underlying sense of compositional form.”11 This duo produces varied timbres and textures by using a lot of alternative sounds. Their music has a specific sound concept that describes the theme and they develop the musical structure from this idea. 

This music shares a similar concept with my project that uses alternative sounds as the main tool to articulate the theme of music. Also, rather than having a melody and structure, it emphasizes describing the image by sounds like an audio-painting. In my project, I applied some arrangements to build an obvious development of the dynamic and story. Since they are a string duo, without a percussive instrument, their music has a more liberal approach to the time rather than using precise rhythms. This aspect allows a musician can use space freely that generates natureous structure.

e.g.) Vilde&Inga – Makrofauna (Makrofauna, 2014, ECM) 02:00-02:30