This presentation centres on a 15-minute video essay that explores the theme of ‘endings’ in experimental improvised music (EIM), based on artistic research conducted with a grand ensemble of 26 improvising musicians. We situate the artistic research within our broader theoretical approach, before inviting the audience to participate in a performative exercise that brings the question of endings described above to life.

EIM – as a praxis – is distinctive in that it is typically performed with a minimum of pre-agreed parameters. Where most musical traditions structure pieces through the use of scores, keys, time signatures or other socio-musical techniques, EIM takes none of these things for granted. While they may emerge in the course of a performance, their contingency means that performances hinge on an ethical and aesthetic resonance that emerges between musicians, who must make sense of and respond to one another and their environment, just as they produce, listen, and respond to the unfolding music itself.

This ongoing negotiation – in which musicians emotionally as well as musically resonate to greater or lesser degrees – is perhaps encapsulated most clearly in how improvisations end. Without a preordained structure, improvisors must collectively find a potential ending, then agree to end the piece. Such agreements are not always straightforward. Some performers may ‘miss’ a chance to end; others may feel an ending coming, but disagree that it is the ‘right’ moment or the ‘right’ way to end.

Thus, endings present a neat case study of the complex social and musical sense-making that takes place during improvisations. What do musicians respond to as they ‘find’ an ending to a piece? What musical and non-musical phenomena ‘tell’ musicians that a piece might be ending? Why do some endings ‘work’ better (that is, are more emotionally- or aesthetically-satisfying) than others? How do musicians cope with different opinions over these issues as they unfold in the music?