Creating open form scores for improvising musicians

Cynthie van Eijden

Abstract This research aims to explore and develop an updated approach to "open form" in music. "Open form" is traditionally referred to as "aleatoric music": a score is provided but the composer has left some choices open. The term "aleatoric" music implies that chance determines how to fill the open spaces. The renewed approach in this research however aims to provide a score in which a performer as an improviser or co-composer is invited to shape the music according to his own opinion. The score provides a plan and context for improvised content and, in doing so, invites the performer to co-create the piece. The research developed in three phases. In the first phase, improvisation was used as a learning tool in music theory classes. Different approaches to improvisation were studied and practiced. In the second phase, one group of musicians evolved from an improvisation course and went on a tour of five concerts. For them an open form score was created in order to provide context to the improvisations of the musicians. This composition is called View from a high mountain, a composition in six parts that allows improvisation at several moments. In the third phase, findings from the outcome and performance of View from a high mountain caused a renewal of the approach in the classroom. Through this renewal the boundary between education and musical production became a thinner line that allowed several cross-overs. Instead of a handbook containing a method or exercises or a new open form score The Improvisation Tree was created. The Improvisation Tree is a model that can be used as a help for creating, analyzing, categorizing and comparing open form scores.

Introduction

We might assume there was music before there was music notation. This seems logical from the fact that something should exist before it can be written down. Creation of music does not begin from notation, nor does it end there. It starts from imagination and results in sound. The road from imagination to sound may – but does not necessarily - involve notation.

Music did not derive from music notation, rather it is the other way around. We should therefore not be surprised too much that when in western music education an increasing amount of attention was drawn to notation, also growing numbers of musicians felt the need to start making music again on the basis of their own impulses. Many music education institutions nowadays have found or are finding new ways to structure education to meet this natural wish. Here, the art of inventing and performing (“improvising”) becomes a meeting place for students and teachers¹. A great number of disciplines, skills and subjects become intertwined by doing this. Most often this is experienced as an advantage. Developing a meeting place like this requires a common understanding of definitions, communicative skills of teachers and students, an atmosphere open to ideas and documentation to enable reflection.

During and before the research I was (and still am) a teacher of music theory at two institutions: the Young Talent Department of the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (Department Aachen). In the Conservatoire, I teach pupils of 9-18 years of age in the classical music department, who play all instruments. In Aachen, I teach music theory subjects to students doing their Bachelor and Master Studies. Years before I started doing this research, I had already started to turn the music theory classroom into a meeting place for improvisation every now and then. I did this for several reasons, including connecting creativity to knowledge, applying music theory in a practical manner, or showing the impact of thinking in sound very directly.

The research took place in three phases, which were: 1. Improvising in music theory classroom, 2. Creating an open form score for improvising musicians that was performed in public concerts, 3. Evaluating the findings from Phase 2, and using its conclusions to renew the approach in the classroom and to present results on a concert stage as well.

___________________

¹Examples are the Master Improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik Basel, the Impro Intensive Festival organized by the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and the improvisation workshops for teachers by the Netzwerk Musikhochschulen in 2017 and 2018.

Back

Tip

Tip