A Listener's Guide to Free Improvisation (Emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) - Softcover

Corbett, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 022635380X ISBN 13: 9780226353807

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Improvisation rattles some listeners. Maybe they’re even suspicious of it. John Coltrane’s saxophonic flights of fancy, Jimi Hendrix’s feedback drenched guitar solos, Ravi Shankar’s sitar extrapolations—all these sounds seem like so much noodling or jamming, indulgent self-expression. “Just” improvising, as is sometimes said. For these music fans, it seems natural that music is meant to be composed. In the first book of its kind, John Corbett’s A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation provides a how-to manual for the most extreme example of spontaneous improvising: music with no pre-planned material at all. Drawing on over three decades of writing about, presenting, playing, teaching, and studying freely improvised music, Corbett offers an enriching set of tools that show any curious listener how to really listen, and he encourages them to enjoy the human impulse— found all around the world— to make up music on the spot.

Corbett equips his reader for a journey into a difficult musical landscape, where there is no steady beat, no pre-ordained format, no overarching melodic or harmonic framework, and where tones can ring with the sharpest of burrs. In “Fundamentals,” he explores key areas of interest, such as how the musicians interact, the malleability of time, overcoming impatience, and watching out for changes and transitions; he grounds these observations in concrete listening exercises, a veritable training regime for musical attentiveness. Then he takes readers deeper in “Advanced Techniques,” plumbing the philosophical conundrums at the heart of free improvisation, including topics such as the influence of the audience and the counterintuitive challenge of listening while asleep. Scattered throughout are helpful and accessible lists of essential resources—recordings, books, videos— and a registry of major practicing free improvisors from Noël Akchoté to John Zorn, particularly essential because this music is best experienced live.

The result is a concise, humorous, and inspiring guide, a unique book that will help transform one of the world’s most notoriously unapproachable artforms into a rewarding and enjoyable experience.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Corbett is a writer, producer, and curator based in Chicago who has written extensively on jazz and improvised music. A regular contributor to DownBeat magazine, he is the author of several books, including Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein and Microgroove: Forays Into Other Music. 

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A Listener's Guide to Free Improvisation

By John Corbett

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2016 The University of Chicago
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-226-35380-7

Contents

Preface, 
Introduction, 
Preparing to Go into the Field, 
Range and Diversity, 
Fundamentals, 
Rhythm: The Hurdle, 
Duration: Another Hurdle, 
Basic Identification: Who Is Doing What?, 
Entrances and Exits: Mapping the Flow of Events, 
Interaction Dynamics: The Core, 
Dynamics Dynamics: Passive-Aggressive Improvising, 
Transitions: Observing How the Music Changes, 
Structure: The Butcher Shop, 
Personal Vocabulary: Each unto Themselves, 
Advanced Techniques, 
On Watching While Listening, 
Live or Memorex?, 
Kindling: 20 Starter Records for Your Improvised Music Collection, 
Once vs. Ongoing, 
The Level of Mystery, 
The Ambiguous and the Unresolved: Is Tony Dead?, 
The Rule of Threes, 
Dancing Between the Hypothetical Poles, 
Poly-Free, 
Kindling II: 20 Classic Poly-Free Records, 
Distraction and Sleep, 
Thinking and Chewing Gum (at the Same Time), 
You and the Night and the Music: Audience Participation, 
Additional Reading: Seven Great Books (Plus One DVD), 
A Little Rouge, a Touch of Blush, 
On the Moral Superiority of Improvised Music, 
Life List: A Selected Checklist of Major Living Free Improvisors, 

CHAPTER 1

Preparing to Go into the Field

1. Take nothing.

No binoculars (or opera glasses) necessary. Recording devices and cameras are distractions that keep you from listening attentively; leave it to the professionals. Cell phones are a nuisance, not just for the listener but for everyone around them; sitting next to somebody texting at a concert is like having a television on at a bar — the light of the phone is a magnet that attracts a curious-minded person's built-in eavesdropping mechanism, causing them to pay rapt attention to something they don't care about in spite of themselves. I've been told that in the early '70s a special brand of idiotic audience member brought saxophones to jazz festivals, thinking that because the music was so free they could join in. Please. None of this. What you do require: ears, eyes, brain, drink. That's about it.

The point is to bring as little as possible in your head. Try to just leave it all at home. Of course, for the intermediate or advanced listener, knowing the history and the various factions and the geographical distribution are all part of the listening process. That becomes part of the excitement, figuring out what's at stake in a specific concert based on what you know about what's come before. Knowing context is essential to the sustained enjoyment of improvised music. To start with, it's important just to come ready to observe. And simple, unobstructed observation is a luxury in our action-packed lives. I have spent many evenings at concerts I'd looked forward to — even ones I organized myself, really great, important ones — and found myself thinking about work or worrying about something I forgot to do or daydreaming. Again, there's a place for all that — flip to the "Advanced Techniques" section for some ideas. But if your first task is to try to figure out what's going on in the music, you have to pay attention to it. Direct attention. As if you were defusing a bomb. Imagine you've got those red and green and black wires in hand, ready to cut one of them, but which one? Not a good time to be mulling over grocery lists or imagining great comeback lines you missed. Yo

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 022635380X
• ISBN 13: 9780226353807
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 190
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar