The outset

- My aim, central questions and working method

Imagine a stage and a group of improvisers ready to play. First there is only the silent room, and the musicians ready to play. By breaking the silence, making an initial musical statement, a musical material is also presented. This material will influence the decisions for the rest of the improvisation, the musicians now has to make choices in relation to this. Does one go with or against? Develop the same idea or introduce new ones? Through these choices the musicians can, for a while, create a musical universe with its own musical laws and logic. The music material itself presents a framework that the improviser must relate to. 

The material, a point of departure? 

A musical material on its own, like a chord or a scale will not express much in itself. It is the composers task to give the material a satisfactory shape. Sculpturing it one could say. While improvising, I have the possibility to manipulate and elaborate on the musical material in real-time. Whenever I am in this situation I find it important to be able to do this in ways that are coherent with what has already been presented. Regardless if the music is completely improvised or partly composed I find it important to stay with the identity of the piece. By taking a small component of the music and looking closely at its material properties, I try to develop this small original cell into a whole musical organism. By doing this I strive to keep the musical material alive, in flux, while still trying to stay coherent with the identity of the original piece.

The material itself presents me with many choices when performing. They are choices of my own capacities or incapacities, my imagination or perhaps old habits. Every musician or composer adds his or her flavor to the music, blowing life into the constituents, and so there is a special kind of dialogue that happens between the artist and the material. This dialogue is what made me start this research project, to see how I can deepen my understanding of the musical matter and how to nurture this dialogue through improvisation. I believe it is a long term quest and what I am able to present here is only a few of the endless possibilities of investigation, ”ars longa, vita brevis”. The questions are many. How can I develop this dialogue? Would the music feel more coherent if it is distilled into its most concentrated form? Is the music hidden within the material similarly to how a sculpture is shaped out of a block of stone?

The aim

In this research project my aim is to investigate some strategies that can help me reach a level of connection to a musical material that allows me to go beyond the original composition and take real-time decisions, a state of musical flux. 

So how does one go about when trying to reach that state? The easy answer for any musician would be - practice. But practicing what? To narrow down the many musical parameters that could be subject for investigation, I will be focusing on a few specific techniques that deal with harmony. The harmonic element of music is of special interest to me, perhaps partly because of the possibility of playing chords on the guitar. I will be investigating techniques developed by composers of western classical music in the 20th century as this was a period in music history when there was a fast development in tonal language resulting in a great harmonic flexibility. More specifically I will be working with very small units of pitch material called "sets". A more detailed description of this technique will be presented on the music page under the headline "key concepts". Here I would like to discuss my reasons for this focus area.

The complexity of a musical material increases with the size. It therefore seems logical to me to start my investigation by working with smaller sets. Another reason for me to start with something small is to learn how I can create a larger work where everything is drawn from a single source. I believe this is a way of keeping the development of the music coherent. The set becomes my block of stone. Lastly, I believe that I can almost always, in any musical situation I am playing in, decide on a small fragment of music that I can use as basis for improvisation. In that way, this research project is also connected to my everyday practice.

Central questions

The research project, thus, is centered around questions on the inherent potential within a harmonic material.

• What are the possibilities for keeping the material in a state of constant transformation, a flux state?

• How does this approach affect the quality of coherence in the music? 

• How can I apply ideas from the modernist-classical composers in my practice as a guitarist and composer/performer?

• What techniques are useful for me in composition and improvisations starting from a small musical material, e.g a single pitch class set? 

I will also be reflecting on this approach regarding composition compared to improvisation and solo playing compared to ensemble playing.

Working method

My way of trying to answer these questions is through my practice as an improvising guitarist and composer. On the music page I have published a series of musical pieces that were created during the research project. For each one of the pieces I present my analysis and reflections in relation to the original questions. Here I will present some general insights on my working process.

Out of many possibilities, the way I have chosen to investigate my questions is through studying music theory dealing with the music of the early 20th century composers, applying some of the concepts on my own music making. My working process during the project can be divided into two categories that operate parallelly. 

Exercise & studying time / playing & composing time 

The idea is to separate exercises and practicing with meticulous set of rules and logic from creation that I allow to to be more intuitive. While "exercise & studying time" consists in reading and doing exercises in writing and on the guitar, in "playing & composing time" however I try to not think so much about rules but rather seek to make music ”by instinct”. This is to see if any new knowledge proved valuable for me and has been assimilated into my playing. To be able to improvise, I feel that the material I am using must be so well internalized that I do not need to actively intellectualize on it any more, in the words of Charlie Parker ”learn the changes, and then forget them”. 

I will also analyze the compositions using the tools I have studied, each composition and analysis is presented on separate pages that can be found on the music page.  In this research project all the pieces are written for different settings, each one forming a new cycle of the working method. The checkpoint page is dedicated to analyses of the project as a whole.

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