Original sheet music
Working directly from the original scores was an approach that was tried out in several constellations; sometimes at an early stage, before opting for other approaches. Quite often, I added chord symbols to these scores, particularly in sections that were intended for improvisation, to give an overview of the harmonic progression. Added annotations could also relate to instrumentation, form, or other adaptations that were made with the music.
As David Härenstam and I worked out our version of Takemitsu’s All in Twilight, most of the work processes took place with us together in the rehearsal room with the score, working out different ways of distributing the melodies for our instruments and trying out improvisational ideas on the spot. One of the advantages with this was that we could build our version of the composition in a collaborative manner, working from the same source material rather than from an interpretation by one of us. This meant that we had all the instructions from the source material present when working with the music – including indications about character, phrasing, dynamics, tempo, etc. – which might not have been the case if we had prepared an adaptation of the score. One of the possible disadvantages with this way of working was that it might have led at times to some quick solutions regarding improvisation, such as settling for improvisation over a chord or something else that could be tried ‘on the spot’. A reflection I made while working with the third movement was that there might be advantages to preparing the frameworks for improvisation beforehand, taking the required time to go through the material in-depth,
… feeling the music, and really get to know the material before deciding a solo section, so that it doesn't happen arbitrarily, or as a ‘quick fix’. (Audio journal, 2022-02-09)
In fact, this was something we discussed when we were preparing an improvised section for the piano in movement III; that we wanted to bring out something more from the composition than simply basing the improvisation on one chord, which was our initial impulse.
When I tried the same concept with Svante Söderqvist based on Beach's By the Still Waters – as shown in the score example above – I made some initial preparations to facilitate our work, such as writing down chord symbols and preliminary ideas on how to distribute the melody between our instruments at different points.
The concept of working from original scores also worked with larger ensembles. An approach that I found to be particularly fruitful was to bring a piano piece to an ensemble of improvisers, and work out the improvisational frameworks together. When working on Szőnyi's Variazioni in a quartet setting, together with the trio en en en, it was relatively easy to distribute the different parts in the ensemble, with the outer voices played by the soprano saxophone and the bass. The other parts were generally covered by the piano; sometimes doubling the other instruments, at other times focusing on the inner voices. The drums generally worked from the bass as the starting point, gradually taking on a freer role in relation to the score.
With this setup, we could then try different ways of going in and out of improvisation in different ways. A similar approach was tried out in a septet setting, based on Gubaidulina’s Forest musicians to the septet. In this case, I found it useful to prepare some orchestration ideas beforehand, by annotating directly in the piano score, so that the collective work could focus on working out the improvisational frameworks together. The advantage of working with the original score in these situations was that the departure points for improvisation could be developed and tried out in the room, together with the other musicians, where they were influential in shaping the premises for the improvisations; what places to use from the composition, what main soloists would be involved in the improvised dialogues, how the backgrounds were constructed, and so on. Just as in the duo work with Härenstam, by having access to the same information – i.e., the piano score in its entirety – all of the members had an overview of the composition, which gave a flexibility for doing spontaneous adaptations.
There were also instances where the presence of a highly detailed score seemed inhibiting from an improvisational standpoint, which was something I discussed with Tuva Halse and Amund Åse at one point. One aspect that Halse brought up was how the presence of such notated material can pull you into a certain way of responding to it:
TH: I relate very much to the notes, in a way, every time I get a piece of sheet music in my hand.
PK: Yes, so the sheet music sort of gets priority?
TH: For me it's like; I'm going straight back to my classical background, in a way. So for me it might be more; "yes, now I'm going to free myself from it", in a way. But it just takes some adjustment.
PK: I've done this kind of thing from original sheet music too, from piano pieces... and I really think it can be difficult to break free from the sheet music. But you can practice it. …
TH: I sort of have an "autopilot", where you play the sheet music, and then there is sort of an atmospheric thing around it, in a way. In any case, I feel like I can quickly end up there. (Conversation with Halse & Åse, 2022-09-22)
[TH: Jeg forholder meg veldig till noterna, på en måte, hver gang jag får en not i hånden.
PK: Ja, så noten får liksom prioritet?
TH: For meg blir det liksom: jeg kommer rett tillbake till min klassiske bakgrunn, på en måte. Så for meg blir det kanskje mer; ”ja, nå ska jeg frigjøre meg fra det”, på en måte. Men det krever bare litt omstilling.
PK: Jag har ju gjort sådant här från originalnoter också, från pianostycken... och jag tycker verkligen det kan vara vanskligt att frigöra sig från notbilden. Men man kan träna sig i det. …
TH: Jeg har liksom fort en "auto-pilot", att man spiller noten, og så er det liksom atmosferiske ting runt, på en måte. Jeg kjenner i alle fall at jeg fort kan havne der.]
The same topic surfaced in a discussion with Terese Lien Evenstad, as we addressed the challenge in moving between sight-reading and improvising:
PK: It's a challenge, to move between being, to put it crudely, a sight-reader and an improviser. … It can be difficult when there are detailed scores, because you can end up in a mindset of “this is the way it has to be”, I can feel.
TLE: Exactly, but also that you are drawn so much into the score instead of listening, as if you are sucked into it, to play it right. But then you're reminded, as soon as it becomes a little freer: oh right, I have to listen too. (Conversation with Evenstad, 2023-03-09)
[PK: Det är en utmaning, det där att röra sig mellan att vara, om man hårddrar det, notläsare och improvisatör. … Det kan vara svårt när det är detaljerade notbilder, för då kan man hamna i ett måste-tänkande, att "nu måste det vara så här", kan jag känna.
TLE: Ja men precis, också att man dras så mycket in i notbilden i stället för att lyssna, liksom att man sugs in i det, för att spela rätt. Ja. Men då påminns man ju, så fort det blir lite friare: åh just det, jag måste lyssna också.]
Some considerations:
Although working from the original score worked well in the situations mentioned above, its usefulness as a starting point seemed to depend to a large degree on certain properties of the piece in question. One such property was instrumentation; the pieces approached in this way were all written for solo instruments (i.e. guitar or piano). With compositions for large ensembles, such as orchestral music – e.g., La mer by Debussy and Images by Tailleferre – the approach seemed less fruitful and was abandoned in favor of other adaptations, mainly piano reductions. Another property was musical density; where the original contained musical information with a lot of density, it seemed more viable to work with other approaches. The musical content could also play a role. For instance, in a piece like Cortège, the left hand part is generally written as an accompaniment to the melody. Seen that the accompaniment patterns weren't prioritized as I prepared the piece for a jazz piano trio setting, it was more fruitful to work with an adaptation of the score.
It should be noted that the pieces where we worked from original scores generally stayed close to the original works in that, besides the addition of improvised elements, they retained most of the written-out pitches of the originals – as was the case with By the Still Waters and Ludus Tonalis – or even all the original pitches – as in the case with All in Twilight. In other words, perhaps unsurprisingly, working directly from the score often resulted in more ‘faithful’ renditions of the source material, at least from the perspective of reproducing the pitches as notated. However, there could still be significant deviations from the mood and character of the pieces, as can be observed in a piece like Prélude en berceuse.