INTRODUCTION
ReVoid Ensemble is an international group that was established in 2015 by composer and pianist Klas Nevrin, with funding by the Swedish Performing Arts Agency. It consists of eight musicians from Norway, Sweden and the USA.
In this exposition we present reflections by some of the participating musicians on our work during 2015-2016, as part of the artistic research project Music in Disorder.
The collaboration is an exploration of improvisation through a myriad of methods, sounds and moods — ranging from post-minimalistic complexity and dense polyrhythm to reductionist sound textures and microtonal impressionism. The combination of instruments, both acoustic and electronic, also affords an array of expressive possibilities. This creates a complex musical garden with micro-worlds more or less distinct from each other in some implied color, ambiance, imagined life and environment, surrounded by a vast empty universe abundant with hidden forces.
First phase (December 2014 - September 2015)
I started out with a research period in which I pondered upon a variety of musical ideas and concepts concerning how to compose (or at least “create material”) for eight improvising musicians. Since I hadn’t previously worked with this particular combination of instruments — and thus the challenge of dealing with four strings and the many expressive possibilities of combining winds, strings, percussion and synthesizers — I listened to, and “analyzed”, a large number of recordings of music that could serve as an inspiration. Especially worth mentioning are Ligeti’s string quartet nr 2, Barry Guy’s New Orchestra works, various balaphone and gamelan ensembles, and John Carter’s “Castles of Ghana”. I was also revisiting Jimmy Giuffre’s work, and the recently released live recording “New York Concerts”, particularly for his way of creating nice transitions between written and improvised parts.
Ricard and me regularly corresponded on email and phone, discussing a number of questions that arose in the working process. We recommended music to each other and discussed in what ways we could adapt ideas from them. I sent him clips of musical ideas that were recorded in Ableton Live, for feedback on how they sounded and how they could be utilized with the octet. At other times I would encourage him to create a rhythmic idea that could work with a particular material I was trying out. Ricard also sent me his own ideas that I played around with, giving me important input in the process. Our interaction was invaluable to the composition process, and Ricard came up with quite a few ideas that proved decisive for the directions that the compositions would take.
I started composing in more disciplined ways around May 2015. Initially I intended to revisit several methods from previous work with Klas Nevrin Ensemble. For example, I wanted to retain the approach of using longer suite forms, in which transitions between different parts constituted an important aspect of the overall sound. This also included focusing on extended free improvisations - primarily in solos, duos and trios - in which the participants were given a lot of time to develop their ideas. Other features still of interest to me were microtonality, groovy ostinatos and overt influences from (contemporary) classical music and various “world music” traditions (for lack of a better word). All this I wanted to try out with a larger group.
Just in time for the first rehearsals, in September 2015, I completed a 4-page score on an A3-format, so that everybody would have an overview. This format also made it possible to include a variety of instructions and notations, concerning for example concepts for “(relatively) free” improvisation. I could also assemble several pre-composed passages or ideas on the same page (by cutting and pasting hand-written as well as Sibelius-printed score parts).
At first I had aimed at creating a collection of materials that could be combined and re-arranged spontaneously by the group. But I decided that it would probably give better results for a rehearsal if we tried out more precisely defined forms — for example with more or less specified transitions, instrumentations, roles, etc. — so that it would be easier to evaluate what would work with the group and how the musicians would feel about different concepts and methods. It also proved much more difficult than I had thought to create an open collection of materials; i.e., “open” in the sense that a particular material could be played by different instruments and used more spontaneously (freely interpreted as well as applied in different combinations). This was partly because I had a hard time creating material that could work in that way for these instrument combinations, but also because I hadn’t worked with all the musicians before and I was unsure to what extent they would be willing to to spend a lot of time trying “simple” ideas. Maybe it was just performance anxiety, but I really wanted the ensemble to feel that we could create some interesting music together, and I didn’t want to risk that the first rehearsal felt unsatisfactory.
Thus I ended up with a long suite that was more “strict” than I had actually wished for. But it was nevertheless not intended to be a finished work, nor necessarily close to what could become a finished product. It was however an experiment with a variety of materials — tonal, melodic, rhythmic, roles, transitions, sounds, concepts, etc. — so that I could get ideas for the future, including the possibility of perhaps creating a more open collection of materials after all.
When we started rehearsing I was already fatigued by the amount of planning and logistics that were involved. I had realized I was not just an artistic leader with some administrative duties, but actually a producer, travel agency, international employer, etc. - all in one. Nothing I had previously done was even close to this amount of work. I also found it challenging to work with a large group in which the members sometimes had differing needs, expectations and expressions, both artistically and practically. It was a real challenge to my role as a leader, since I usually want to keep the process rather open, allowing for others’ initiatives and contributions to the process. But I felt I had to take more control than I actually would have preferred. Maybe this was also due to expectations from the group that the rehearsals should be led by me in a more stringent way?
I had a lot of equipment to take care of, including of course my own setup (keyboards, mixer and effects) but also several audio and video recording devices because we needed PR-material from this first rehearsal period for future needs. This too demanded a lot of energy from me, and the recording felt somewhat out of place, considering that we hadn’t actually started with a more collaborative artistic process! The recordings certainly became useful in many ways, not least for the working process of finding out what we wanted to do, but nevertheless it took a lot of focus and energy away from other things. It would probably have been impossible to do it in any other way though, because we simply had to get as much as possible done when we actually did meet with the whole group.
It quickly became clear that some parts of the suite were not working as well as I had hoped, especially the ones that were more based on groove and polyrhythm. There were several reasons for this, but perhaps the most important one was that it was difficult to involve the whole group without actually composing more precisely for all instruments, whereas I was looking for more collectively improvised opportunities. I also felt that I wanted to move towards a more experimental sound, and the groove material seemed to produce obstructions to this. With “experimental” I mean that I didn’t want the music to be idiomatic (like “jazz” or “world music”), and instead more exploratory, not least by creating more room for reciprocal interaction within the ensemble. Similarly, some of the microtonal material I had prepared also seemed to obstruct the collective improvisation. There wasn’t enough time to experiment with intonation, nor was there enough time to achieve the intonational precision that I had hoped for. I also felt a pressure to “make things work”. Maybe this was due to expectations from the group that I should steer the group towards certain results that I had in mind, or it was simply because I lacked the tools for communicating my vision about an alternative working process.
Although all these circumstances might seem like negative experiences they actually forced me to find other methods for polyrhythmic and microtonal expressions that proved rewarding later on, and that probably wouldn’t have happened if it were not for the limitations and challenges that we faced. (Yet I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had been able to create a more collaborative working process from the start!)
I had originally intended to experiment more with various instrumentations, roles and transitions in the different parts of the suite, and see what would happen. But again the collaborative process didn’t really work as I had hoped with so many members, and three days of rehearsal was not nearly enough. Before the third day I therefore went through the scores and made some quick changes: I divided the suite into two parts, omitted some sections, and made certain decisions for instrumentation and other things, so that we could narrow our focus to fewer methods for improvisation and work on the interpretation of a selection of pre-composed sections. Although I was indeed frustrated at the time, and had some doubts, later on I would feel that this first rehearsal period had nevertheless revealed other possibilities, and during the second phase of composing these experiences proved highly useful.
The very first day we also did a free improvised concert in the evening at Glenn Miller Café in Stockholm. We decided to use two freely improvising quartets per set. I was originally inspired to do this when Per had told me about Barry Guy’s working method with one of his orchestras, in which Per also had participated. This was a great way to allow for more collaborative interaction to happen, and also to get to know each other. We had fun, the audience was enthusiastic, and we got to try out several different quartet combinations of the group, which was great for me, and everyone else I believe, in order to get an idea of what the ensemble was capable of. We threw ourselves into creating spontaneous music together, and this meant that we didn’t get overly stuck in a rehearsal approach. The second and third days of rehearsal felt more productive and enjoyable after this concert!
"Quasi-Flamenco" (by Klas Nevrin)
Video from live concert with Klas Nevrin Ensemble at Umeå Jazz Studio, in Umeå (Sweden) on the 6th March 2014.
Examples of clips exchanged between Klas Nevrin and Ricard Österstam. "13 on the floor" was a rhythm created and recorded by Ricard, then combined with a 4-part glissando harmonic development in strings (here played on MIDI synthesizers, recorder in Ableton Live).
Challenges and further questions
There were some concerns about whether or not there were too many precomposed passages and predetermined frameworks or concepts. Some participants felt that it may have affected there ability to be more creative in the improvisation, especially when precomposed parts required them to cue the others (thus having to adjust and prepare for what’s coming next). I believe this is a complex issue, and it’s difficult to evaluate. On the one hand the experience of the improviser is of course crucial. On the other hand, sometimes the experience may not always be congruent with the result. I, for one, find that certain qualities in the results are indeed valuable. For example, there is a certain unpredictability due to unaccustomed interminglings of improvisation and constraints that “force” us into less comfortable zones of interaction and non-control. I also believe that it might feel “easier” (though not necessarily “fully comfortable”) when we have played the pieces several times together in concert. The feeling that there are (too) many ideas involved in the same piece might also change when we get to know them more, and thus find new ways of hearing them together, and transition between them.
Another challenge, connected with the one just mentioned, has to do with endings. When there is a mixture of constrained improvisation and precomposed passages it’s not entirely clear how to end with a more free improvisation. The ability to create “natural” endings in free improvisation — that arise from having time to stretch out and develop ideas more unconditionally — seems to be somewhat disrupted. When one doesn’t have the opportunity to stretch out in extended improvisation then the endings seem to arrive rather abruptly or “non-organically”, not leaving enough time for longer build-ups and developments. Also, when the free improvisation comes out of a previous precomposed passage (or more constrained improvisation), this seems to affect the ways in which the free improvisation is developed, and thus how it can end.
This too is difficult to evaluate. On the one hand there are the aesthetic qualities of unpredictability and ambiguity that are produced in this situation, but on the other hand the improvisers might feel circumscribed in a way that makes it difficult to develop their own ideas. Perhaps this could be related to an overall impression of restraint in the music, something which several people in the audience spontaneously suggested (irrespectively of each other) and that they regarded as a highly positive quality. I also feel that there is such a restraint, and that it has something interesting to offer. There is a certain intensity that arises due to it. More importantly, even though an individual improviser might feel that he or she wasn’t given enough time or space to contribute with all their capacity, nevertheless something very interesting might be happening on a more collective plane. Is this perhaps connected to the kind of “middle ground” between precomposed material and free improvisation that we’re working with? Usually, perhaps, improvisers are more accustomed to alternating between more or less precomposed passages and more or less free improvisations. Or, alternatively, having more time to explore constraints and with fewer instruments. But in this work we are trying to explore collective improvisation that involves more instruments in shorter time-spans. If so, then it is not entirely surprising if it feels unaccustomed, but it may still be a valuable path to tread further on!
A final note on the socio-musical dynamics and the conditions for experimental processes: It seems possible, and indeed preferable to me, that when we have now established a sense of the group — we know each other better, perhaps with a clearer idea of what’s possible to create together, also having established some fundamental forms of communication and trust — that we could explore less hierarchical methods for rehearsal. This would necessitate initiatives from all participants in the group, and that these initiatives also depend on a willingness to explore unaccustomed forms of collective improvisation (rather than comparing them to what is “normally” done). It would also entail that we have enough time for more “open” experimenting rather than resorting to strategies for achieving quick results.
Second phase (October 2015 - January 2016)
The second phase started out with an evaluation of what happened in the first phase. I decided to fully abandon the idea of using extended free improvisation in smaller constellations, opting instead for shorter free improvisations and trying to involve the ensemble as a whole more often, so that we could utilize the full power of the ensemble (it’s richness of dynamics, density and sound color). This was something which Ricard encouraged me to, and my hope was that it would allow the group to find new sounds and interactions together. But it meant I had to explore ways in which playful aspects of collective improvisation could be involved even when using pre-determined concepts and materials, not least due to the challenges that we had encountered in the first phase. I simply had to find ways of involving collective improvisation that weren’t dependent on time-consuming rehearsals.
I didn’t want to resort to the strategy of polarizing between pre-composed parts, on the one hand, and entirely free improvisations or “solos”, on the other hand. So I was forced to come up with a middle ground that would work with this ensemble. I also didn’t want the music to be overly dependent on cues or directing, since that would obstruct the heterarchical character that I was looking for. Although we ended up using cues in some pieces, many others have a distinct sound to them due to not being overly synchronized, even when highly dependent on precomposed material (for example in the use of heterophony).
Several of the compositions we ended up with might not seem to allow for much collective improvisation, at least not if there is an expectation that for collective improvisation to happen it has to be based on as much “freedom from constraints” as possible. But I would argue that the compositional ideas are designed in ways that do allow for collective improvisation, albeit in some unexpected forms. Indeed, it seems to me, the aspects of collective improvisation that I’m particularly interested in — such as reciprocal interaction, ambiguity, disorder and non-linearity, utilization of coincidence, and so on — can be involved even when there are many constraints. Even when several aspects of the music are constrained other aspects may not be, and it is precisely the latter that can be exploited for collective improvisation although simultaneously being influenced by the former. If, for example, too much focus is put on whether or not a particular tonal material is specified, or an overall form, one might miss how other aspects such as intonation, micro-rhythm and dynamics are in fact collectively improvised. These might be judged as having more to do with the “details” of how something is played, but that’s only a matter of perspective. In fact, I have been more or less deliberately aiming for a result in which collective improvisation with those “detailed” aspects of the music can come more to the fore. This approach is perhaps similar to some approaches to interpretation in contemporary "classical music", in which unsynchronizations and coincidences are invited for rather than shunned, at the same time as certain structures are kept in place.
I also decided to focus on shorter pieces instead of longer suites, a decision that again was largely influenced by discussions between me and Ricard. We agreed that it would be interesting to explore brevity as an aesthetic value because it might challenge all of us in the group to relate differently to collective improvisation. (It would also of course make it easier to compose and rehearse!) If we do not have an “undefined” amount of time to explore and create structures and forms, what would happen in a large group like this? And how would different combinations of compositions affect the more free improvisations? As it turns out, some of the pieces are not so short after all! I also chose to join a few of the shorter pieces, thus resembling a longer suite form. But the ambition was nevertheless an important influence in the compositional process.
Another important influence was that I decided to exhange one of my keyboards. I felt the need for an instrument that would allow for more elaborate dynamics, and on which I could use techniques similar to what I play on an acoustic piano (both in terms of the range of the keyboard and in the “resistance” of the keys). I finally opted for a VAX77, probably the most dynamically responsive MIDI-keyboard ever built. This meant I would have to use a laptop for sounds, which also led me to using new sounds and effects, including sampled gamelans, multi-delays and a beat-repeat effect. This would become a major influence on the music as a whole. For example, I now had more opportunities for randomizing rhythm, which proved useful in creating complex polyrhythmic combinations in the group as a whole.
The concert on the 29th January at Teaterstudio Lederman in Stockholm was in my opinion highly succesful! We managed to get the music together during the 4 days of rehearsal preceding it, and all the participating musicians were focused and engaged. The audience was responsive and the sound system (set up by Intelligent Sound) worked great, which was an important aspect of the concert indeed. I will be analyzing the performance in more detail in another exposition.
Comparisons with previous work
Although there are many differences between the compositions used previously with “Klas Nevrin Ensemble” and the ones that we now use with “Revoid Ensemble”, some aspects remain similar. For example, there is a similarity in the attempt to blend a large variety of acoustic and electronic sounds with each other, and one of the challenges that this involves is to achieve a rich dynamic spectrum and complexity. This is however an area that I feel we could work more with. It includes challenges such as the following: Since certain sounds are typically only produced at a specific volume, how can these be used satisfactorily in combination with sounds at other volumes? When creating layers of dynamics, what ways are there of allowing each layer to be heard (including but not limited to the use of particular sound equipment and engineering)? How can we allow for contrasts and variations, in both dynamics and sound color, without settling for a particular profile or adjusting too much to each other (i.e., using the same levels of volume)? And all these questions can be related to the workings of collective improvisation as well.
Another similarity is the use of non-standard intonations, yet without abandoning tonal patterns altogether. This resonates with my interest in alternative intonation systems that are connected with some form of tonal structure, ranging from Indian Raga and Balinese Gamelan to the work of composers and improvisers such as Terry Riley and Lou Harrison. This too is an area that I want to explore further. How could we refine the use of certain intonations (for example making them more precise), yet without obstructing the processes of collective improvisation?
Finally, there is also a similarity in using grooves and ostinatos, although in a somewhat more experimental way than previously. I enjoy the over-layering of several tempos and rubatos, not least because such "disorderly order" often produces surprisingly interesting and useful results. This is a form of rhythmic interplay that parallells the use of dynamic layers. With several things going on at the same time, it also requires the participating musicians to be highly attentive to a complex soundscape. Although I abandoned some of the compositional ideas that I had originally intended to use with the Revoid Ensemble, we instead came up some new methods that I believe are rewarding and could be deepened with further work. For example, how could we make more use within the group as a whole of the randomized rhythmic and tonal patterns that are produced in the laptop and effects? How could we work more systematically with overlayered tempos and different kinds of rubato (for example in various forms of looping, both digital and acoustic)?
Eivind Lønning on trumpet, Anna Lindal with extended techniques on the violin, and Per Texas Johansson playing a bass clarinet.
Offline preparations - January 2016
I had so looked forward to the January dates with the Revoid Ensemble, but now found myself lying in bed with a 40°C fever the day before departure. The fever persisted and I had to cancel my participation the first two days of rehearsals. As I lay in bed I thought about what possible effects my not being there might have? After all it was the first crucial and formative days with a new and in many ways unknown group of musicians I was missing. On Wednesday I was thrown into the rehearsals and was struck with how good everything sounded. The music was immediately interesting to me, the other musicians sounded great, and my new drum kit too. I felt somewhat blurred by the aftermaths of the illness but, maybe because of that, was relaxed and felt no pressure. In the evening I met up with the two musicians in the group I’ve spent the least time with. We just sat in the hotel restaurant conversing but I felt it having a tremendous importance to me personally but also to the dynamics of the group as a whole.
As part of Music in Disorder, Klas has written an internal paper to fire off some vital questions and topics of interest for our research. One of them is regarding the importance of work procedures, methods of rehearsal, and preparation. It got me thinking of these recent experiences with the Revoid Ensemble and how what happened (quite a bit of it outside of the actual music domain) had such a strong impact on the music during that week. It got me interested in paying attention to how we prepare ourselves for improvising and how our methods and procedures (more or less well thought-through) are influencing our music-making. I’m now hoping we might find some meaningful ways of investigating this further as our work with the project develops.
Appreciation vs evaluation
Everyone knows that sometimes improvisation works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes we agree which one belongs to which category, and sometimes we don’t.
Our view may be an aesthetic one and linked to musical preferences. This will limit the mind and drive us towards the domain of evaluation. Product evaluation.
Appreciation is a different animal than evaluation. Appreciating musical improvisation, as a listener or as a player, can of course mean simply listening to the sum total of the sounds and enjoying the music. However, this sometimes brings us back to aesthetics and evaluation. We might be inspired then, to try appreciating the complex processes, or journey, of improvisation.
“Komplexitet handlar därför mer om förloppet som sådant än om färdiga tillstånd; det är mer intressant hur saker och ting förändras snarare än hur de är i ett givet ögonblick.” - Klas Nevrin (p.12)
The processes of collective musical improvisation are numerous; interaction, complexity, chance and differentiation, and makes itself known in different kinds of interplay, counterplay and synergetic effects beyond. These are all words, constructions to describe reality. Or maybe the word is really in the beginning? Words can deepen our initiative and make us see and hear new things. This begs the question: Should we speak about improvisation? Yes, but maybe try to appreciate. Not evaluate.
My definition of the terms appreciation and evaluation: You appreciate that there is water in the glass. You evaluate there could have been more.
Some short reflections on ReVoid ensemble’s process and performance
At the beginning of the project we sat down for a discussion, Anna, Ricard, Klas and I. I found myself telling the group something I had about all along - that Klas’ music comes for me as a direct descendant of the original Third Stream movement. We discussed Gunther Schuller, Joe Maneri, and Ran Blake as connections from USA, which are rare for me in Stockholm (the only other musician I have met here who resonate with me in this particular way is Fredrik Ljungkvist). Although the heyday of the third stream movement was long before the advent of practice-led or artistic research, I see some parallels in this formative movement. Schuller and his many colleagues were trying to bring order to the vast plethora of musics they were playing and interacting with during the burgeoning musical and artistic movements of the New York and east coast they inhabited. Joe Maneri in particular spoke often when I knew him of all the varied musics and environments he found himself in. One day playing a Greek wedding, the next in a jazz dance band, the following studying serialism. The ”third” kind of music was, for Schuller, a melding of the different jazz and classical music contexts he was working in. A synergistic bringing together of diverse and even conflictual elements.
Klas’ music for ensembles I have played in with him over the last few years has deepened and expanded to fit this new group, part free improvisational group, part jazz ensemble, part contemporary music chamber group. The modular compositions for this group struck me immediately as an outgrowth of the earlier model of tunes and pieces- a bringing together of the elements of all into this new system, which I look forward to seeing grow. I see each module as a kind of seed, each of which could contain a long and very detailed piece containing its elements.
The compositions inspired by Ligeti are a direct continuation and development of a set the Quintet did where we played an arranged version of the 8th Movement of Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata. I wonder now if we can learn to improvise on this delicate, complex material. It strikes me always, both in the case of Ligeti’s music and in the case of Klas’, as a point of order, peace and symmetry in the music. Perhaps working on bringing the subtlety of ambiguity to this material would be an interesting direction to take around it. Ligeti’s string quartet material also figures as a great inspiration for this work.
The just intonation material, which I first saw used in material for the quintet, has also deepened and developed. In seeing Klas’ ever-growing set-up, based on just intonation and synthesis, I contemplate my own practice around microtonality, which is a strange and anecdotally driven mixture of a well-tempered system of 72 pitches learned many years ago from Joe Maneri, the natural just intonation which arises from many extended techniques on my instrument, and my practice in electro-acoustic composition where tonalities are draw from concrete materials and the various sounds offered by the Buchla synthesizers I have been working with. I have also thought to revisit some of Lou Harrison’s work before our next session, since I know that his work figures as a strong influence in Klas’ microtonal work. I wonder if there are electro-acoustic composers we might look into together as well, since Klas is working so heavily with electronic instruments in order to access a full palette of microtonal possibilities.
Heterophony is a feature of the work in this ensemble which I have found extremely rare in most of the improvised music I have played or encountered, although I have worked with it during the years I played other sorts of musics where it is more common, most especially ottoman music for the sema ceremony. It offers a subtle and brilliant balance between the individual and the collective, and also between order and disorder, especially in the way it can fall apart at any moment.
The modularity of the compositions for this first meeting and concert was fascinating to work with. I wonder if there is some way we might try to work with the spectrum of blocks versus morphing in our more freely improvised pieces next time, since the meta-form contains blocks with improvised transitions.
It was (and always is) a pleasure to work with Petter Hölaas from Intelligent sound. This ensemble has developed a very interesting relationship to the relationship between the electronic and the acoustic, including the choice to work with this particular engineer and his very keen and specialized way of listening and building speakers. Klas’ rack of keyboards dominated the center of the stage like a starship with tendrils reaching all about us. Somehow the marvelous set-up of mic-ing, monitoring and amplification, which makes even the softest playing come through, matched that impressive visual presence. The entire set-up mirrors a way of thinking about the spectrum between the acoustic and the electronic which I have never encountered before at all. This is something we could discuss further. In some way it also contains the order-disorder dichotomy in the way the hyper exactitude of the electronics, as well as that which the microtonal ideas and some of the composers we are exploring, contrast with the fluidity and the forms and way of improvising we are looking at.
The concert was a very focused experience for me. Although I had been listening to the music all week in our rehearsals, it was here that I really heard and felt the string arranging. Audrey’s background in musics quite different from the rest of the group is a really fascinating sound world, and really brings the electronic instruments Klas is using together with the acoustic ones in special ways. We worked a great deal on timbre qualities and transitions during the week of rehearsals, and I felt this showed well in the in concert.
I have the idea of these pieces as places in some respect - almost like each numbered section is a kind of garden of sound ”plants”. One walks through it as a labyrinth or arboretum, grown at the intersection of the most refined forms of architecture and molding of the earth, and the most chaotic forms of plant life and the chaos of the soil. The music in the concert came together as neither precise nor ambiguous, but as a very precise ambiguity. There is much in the music which makes me think that, beside the question of order and chaos, there might be a question of all the balance points, which contain both and are thus rendered a third object of synergy.
