Approaching form
Integrating improvisation into musical works inevitably involved negotiations related to musical form, to create the necessary space for improvisation to take place. The actions related to this are presented here based on five general categories; repeating, extending, adding, replacing, and combining material.
These are:
Repeating chords
With some pieces, repeating short chords in the form of ’stabs’ – i.e. short chords played percussively – were used as a way of connecting to the composition while also providing space for new things to emerge. In Szőnyi’s Variazioni, this was first tried as a way of getting into the collective improvisation:
Repeating ostinatos
Creating ostinatos – or ‘riffs’ – based on material from the pieces often worked as a way of supplying improvisers with a background that could contain harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic material.
In Leggiero, the left hand figure from the first measure of the piece was used as a riff for an open introduction:
Repeating passages (of varying duration)
When working with original scores, a common process was to repeat selected passages and explore them through improvisation, e.g. “let’s try looping the first 8 bars”. Then, the amount of repeated bars could be extended to longer portion, such as 16 bars, or entire sections. This tactic was used as Krister Andersson and I tried out improvising over parts of Hindemith’s suite Ludus Tonalis, as a way of digesting ‘a chunk at the time’ of the challenging material.
Repeating selected passages sometimes took on the character of improvised variations on a theme, such as this brief piano improvisation from the middle of All in Twilight IV:
Repeating sections
Entire sections were also repeated as a basis for improvisations. In some pieces, several adjacent sections from the original were repeated for improvisation. This can be likened to the ‘song form’ approach that is common when improvising in a jazz context, i.e. basing solo improvisations over the main structure of the tune e.g. AB, AABA, ABAC etc in a repeated manner without introductions or outros/codas. For example, In By the Still Waters, the solo form – conceived as a binary AB form – was divided between two soloists (bass/piano in the duo version). In Cortège, the solo form – conceived as a ternary ABA’ form – was repeated for piano and bass solos. Here, the coda of the piece was saved until the end, after the last theme.
Extending passages
Extending passages, in its simplest form, could involve “staying” over something in the music for a longer time; i.e., a chord, a sound, or an atmosphere. As Härenstam and I prepared one of the improvised sections for All in Twilight III, based on arpeggiated patterns from the original, we extended the section – which was also repeated – with some extra measures, to give more space for the improvisation. This was done after the first, second, and sixth measure from the original. In the last repeat, these extra measures were omitted to create a feeling that the intensity was gradually increasing.
Adding introductions
Improvised introductions were added to several of the pieces, by a solo instrument, or as collective ensemble improvisations. These were generally open, without predetermined form or duration. Sometimes there would be an overlap between the ending of the introduction and the start of the piece, as in this example of an introduction leading into Sonatine for Flute and Piano, pt. 1:
Adding transitions
Improvisation could also act as a transition between sections. When working with Pastorale in D, this arose out of a challenge that Evenstad and I experienced, in that some sections of the piece felt fragmented and somewhat detached. As a way of overcoming this, we let improvisation be a way of connecting one section with the other. In the example below, we extended a section based on a D major tonality with a piano improvisation that then went gradually into the following section, making the change less abrupt. The transition is inserted before the time signature changes from 6/8 to 3/8:
Recording 9.7. Improvised transitions in Pastorale in D, Evenstad & Knudsen. Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg, 2023-02-14.
Thus, using improvisational processes to make one section transition into the next one was a way to make our interpretation feel more coherent, something that Evenstad referred to as ‘building bridges’ between the different sections:
TLE: Because it was quite ... Well, perhaps in the eyes of a jazz musician a bit unstructured. It wasn't really an A section and B section or anything like that, but very much, more like... Well, linear, some kind of melody. And then we would try to create an arrangement based on that. And that was both very fun and creative, but it is perhaps also what you could call challenging, that you have to work a bit to get it together, to find the ”red thread”, when you play it the way we do.
PK: … I thought it was very much about finding, partly the feeling in the different sections of the piece, but to find clear directions, like: "ok, now we are heading this way, and here we are heading that way..." That it was more difficult with that piece, since there's something that feels a bit ... Almost fragmentary about its form, that it has very different sections that appears.
TLE: Absolutely, yes, I agree. … That you had to build your own bridges between these sections, that was a good challenge. (Listening session with Evenstad, 2023-03-09)
[TLE: Det var ganska så... Ja, men kanske i en jazzmusikers ögon lite ostrukturerat. Det var ju inte direkt någon A-del och B-del eller något sådant där upplägg, utan väldigt så, kanske mer... Ja men linjärt, någon melodi, typ. Och så skulle man försöka själv att skapa ett arrangemang utifrån det. Och det var ju både väldigt kul och kreativt, men det är väl kanske också det man kan kalla utmanande då, att man jobbar lite för att få ihop det, för att hitta en röd tråd, när man spelar det på det sättet vi gör.
PK: Ja, jag håller med om det där, jag skulle säga att: inte nog med att hitta någon sorts form som kändes fungerande, jag tyckte att det handlade mycket om att hitta... dels känslan i de olika delarna på det stycket, men att hitta tydliga riktningar, att: "ok, nu är vi på väg ditåt och här är vi på väg ditåt..." Att det var svårare med det stycket, för att det är någonting som känns lite... Nästan fragmentariskt i formen på den, att den har väldigt olika delar som kommer.
TLE: Absolut ja, men det håller jag med om … Att man fick bygga egna broar mellan de här delarna, det var väl en bra utmaning.]
Transitions were also used in live performances, for instance with the trio with Kristoffersson and Olsson, as a way of going from one piece to the next. This was often decided rather spontaneously, e.g. right before a concert.
Adding interludes
In Utanmyra-variationer, we saw our improvisations mainly like interludes that were inserted between von Koch's different variations. One example is found in this interlude that we added between two fast variations. Here, Härenstam manages to bring out a bit of Utanmyra as well as the theme from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, movement II at the same time:
Adding endings
Improvisations were sometimes added to conclude a piece, as a way of opening up the original ending. This was done, for instance, in several versions of By the Still Waters, where the original ending would transition into an open, improvised section.
Recording 9.9. Open ending from By the Still Waters with Söderqvist & Knudsen. Kingside Studio, Gnesta, 2022-09-26.
This sometimes took on the form of a musical fade-out, with improvisations gradually dissolving. They could also act as a way of prolonging the original ending, as in some live versions of Cortège, where it served to build extra intensity right before the coda. Similarly, in Leggiero, we added an open, improvisation near the end of the piece, based on repeated cells – as described under indeterminate notation – to achieve a build-up before the ending phrase.
Replacing passages
With some pieces, there was a feeling that it would be difficult to include certain passages – or entire sections – in the new adaptation. This was the case with Leggiero, where there was simply too much material in the original to make room for improvisation. Since these pieces are both written in a ternary form (ABA’), the most obvious solution was to replace the middle section with improvisation.
The improvised section that replaced the original could also retain elements from the source material. This was the case with Leggiero; initially, I tried incorporating various motives and figures into the improvised section, distributed among different performers, but soon concluded that it was more fruitful to work with a limited amount of material. In the end, one of the final phrases from the original B section was kept as a musical signal – with indeterminate pitches – to end the improvised section.
Combining composition and improvisation
I often found it rewarding to experience the combination of composed and improvised composed passages. When trying out parts of Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis with Krister Andersson, we would try several different ways of combining melodic material with improvisations. For instance, as we were doing Fugue in Eb, I gradually took on a more and more improvised approach to playing my harmony part:
… like having a written harmony part that you follow, but that you eventually let go of. Which is what happened; it morphed almost seamlessly from the written part to something improvised … So this was exciting for me, as something different from an improvised solo, where it's clearly one voice at the center of it. (Audio journal, 2022-03-01)
This was then taken further when working with Amy Beach’s By the Still Waters together with Söderqvist, rather than playing the background part the same way when restating the theme, I would gradually abandon the accompaniment in the right hand and go into improvised lines. At the same time, I maintained the melody in the left hand, just as when playing the theme. Although initially challenging from a coordination perspective, the approach of moving in and out of the written accompaniment added a new dimension to the second presentation of the theme.
Recording 9.11. Improvisation combined with melody in By the Still Waters, Söderqvist & Knudsen. Kingside Studio, Gnesta, 2022-09-26.
This also required a certain awareness of balance; after performing the piece live on three occasions, these improvisations took on a more prominent role, where the improvised lines acted more as a foreground element in relation to the melody. Sometimes I felt – in retrospect – that these improvisations were taking on too much of a ‘solo’ character, which is not necessarily the desired effect.
In All in Twilight IV, we conceived the improvised piano part partly as an added layer floating on top of what the guitar plays, sometimes joining in by playing certain phrases in unison. The improvisation also moves between being in the foreground in some places – typically when the guitar plays repeated figures – and, at other times, more in the background, adding color and musical comments to the guitar part.
Recording 9.12. Improvised piano layer over guitar in All in Twilight IV with Härenstam & Knudsen. Kingside Studio, Gnesta, 2022-03-23.
When working with Takemitsu’s All in Twilight III, we went from trying a simple solution at first – based on doing a piano improvisation over one chord, similar to how we had done in, for instance, mvt. II – to include fragments of the piece as a part of the solo section. In comparison with the ‘improvisation over a chord’ approach, Härenstam commented on how this combination of the composition and improvised phrases added a new dimension to the original:
… because you got a long line of Takemitsu, but it still turned into something completely new. And that's awesome. Then I can imagine that even Takemitsu would think it would be exciting to listen to. Because his line is included, his sounds and his scales. But something completely new is happening. And it's exciting, that you can do that. And I think that is a way to make the music live on longer. (Conversation with Härenstam, 2022-02-09)
[… för man fick med sig en lång linje av Takemitsu, men där det ändå förvandlades till något helt nytt. Och det är skithäftigt. Då kan jag tänka mig att, det tror jag att även Takemitsu skulle tycka det var häftigt att lyssna på. För hans linje finns med, hans klanger och hans skalor. Men det är något helt nytt som händer. Och det är ju häftigt, att man kan. Och det tror jag är ett sätt att få musik att leva vidare längre.]
In the first reimagined version of La mer that I created with Halse and Åse, there were several instances where different themes – in free interpretations – would be played simultaneously.
AÅ: I think that's really cool, when we kind of got into a flow where everyone played melodic phrases on top of each other, like a kind of ’canon’ thing. That you can use the melodic motifs even more freely under such a foundation. If you have more time before the concert, you can do that, and then you can learn more parts from the score as well, in a way. More parts from that section. Because there are probably a lot of counterparts. (Conversation with Halse & Åse, 2022-10-01)
[AÅ: Det synes jeg er veldig kult, når vi liksom kom inn i en sånn flow at alle spilte melodiske fraser oppå hverandre, som en sånn kanon-grej. At man kan bruke dem melodiske motivene enda mer fritt under en sånn base da. Hvis man har lenger tid til konserten, så kan man gjøre det, og da kan man lære seg flere stemmer fra partitur også, på en måte. Flere deler fra den delen. For der er sikkert mange motstemmer.]