IntroductIon

Improvisation

Some nights I couldn’t get anything interesting out of the synthesizer and then there were those magical nights
when it seemed every new sound was a source of inspiration. . . . A tiny movement of a wire or knob could make a
huge difference. Filters were imperfect and the stray capacitance of my hand changed things. . . . Broken modules
were frustrating, but with experimentation I found they could produce even more interesting sounds. . . . No longer
interested in making tapes, I just wanted to experience new sounds, to find the elusive combination of timbres that
would enable transcendence. . . . I was living with a machine and it was becoming part of me [1].

So writes Trevor Pinch of his first synthesizer, painstakingly cobbled together

In 1973 from plans in a hobbyist magazine. In our technologically mediated world, most of us
value our computers, phones, cars and saxophones for their rational utility—their ability to
get a job done efficiently, predictably and reliably. For playfulness, exuberance and inspira-
tion—in love, art, food or music—we turn to people, not machines. But Pinch speaks of his
instrument not as one would a typical machine, but rather as one might a might a volatile
lover or—more to the point—a moody musician: unruly and irrational perhaps, but an inspir-
ing collaborator nonetheless.

Musicians have long had a tendency to anthropomorphize their instruments, ma il
embrace of idiosyncrasies of the kind Pinch describes is a relatively recent development.
David Tudor expressed the zeitgeist of the homemade electronic music scene of the 1970s
when he titled his loose collective of young performers “Composers inside Electronics”: In
describing his approach to circuitry, Tudor said, “I try to find out what’s there—not to make it
do what I want, but to release what’s there. The object should teach you what it wants to hear”
[2]. This openness to the inherent musical implications of the technology went beyond the
compositional process: the unfamiliarity of such new devices, combined with the unreliability of
amateur workmanship that Pinch describes, led to unpredictable performances. No matter how
the pieces were scored—conventional staves, prose instructions, graphic notation, oral tradi-
tion—the instability of the instruments demanded flexibility: that ability to think on one’s
musical feet that we usually associate with improvisation.

The proliferation of commercial MIDI synthesizers in the 1980s and computer music
software since the 1990s has been characterized by a growing rationalization of behavior—
electronic instruments today behave more like cars than Pinch’s balky filters. Yet the spirit of
stray capacitance and loose wires lives on as a musical aesthetic: Self-described improvising
musicians have embraced electronic devices over the past few decades—either as extensions
of more traditional instruments, or as instruments in their own right—and the tradition of
the open-form score, dating from the heyday of unpredictable circuits, perpetuates a spirit
of improvisation in “composerly” circles as well.

For LMJ20—the 20th-anniversary issue of Leonardo Music Journal—I invited authors to

reflect on the role of improvisation in technologically tinged music. The response was signifi-
cant. We received far more submissions than we could publish in print—included in this issue
are abstracts of several papers with links to their full versions on the web [3].

A dozen papers address various strategies and techniques of performing with technology.

Pianist Sarah Nicolls contributes case studies of four interactive works for piano and live
computer systems. Ben Neill and David Rothenberg discuss their collaborative activities with

©2010 ISAST

LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 20, pag. 7–9, 2010 7

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clarinet, trumpet and a host of signal processors. Doug Van Nort describes his turntable-
inspired “greis” software system, developed for use with the improvisational trio Triple Point,
while Dafna Naphtali and Hans Tammen analyze their interactive improvisations for “Endan-
gered Electric Guitar” and software signal processing. John Robert Ferguson and Robert van
Heuman discuss “exploring the dialectical relations between precision and indeterminacy”
in their electronic duo. In Nick Fox-Gieg and Margaret Schedel’s collaboration, the bowing
gestures of a cellist control real-time computer animation, while drawing on a graphics tablet
produces musical sounds.

The development of improvisation strategies for non-improvising classically trained instru-

mentalists is the focus of Chapman Welch’s essay. Improvisers’ interpretation of real-time
computer-generated scores is the focus of Michael Dessen’s article on his multi-location “tele-
matic” performances. Joanne Cannon and Stuart Favilla describe techniques for improvis-
ing the spatialization of electronic sound for the Bent Leather Band, while Koray Tahirog˘lu
details his experiments with solar-powered sound circuits and SMS-based electronic work that
allows audience participation.

Four authors contributed papers focusing on details of musical hardware and software. Jon

Rose provides a witty history of the electronically extended violin bow. John Fenn posits the
musical significance of artist-designed “boutique” guitar effect pedals. William Hsu details
his “timbre-aware ARHS improvisation system,” while Joshua Pablo Rosenstock recounts the
development of iGotBand, a video game for improvisers.

Several contributors chose to emphasize the more theoretical, analytical or historical

aspects of improvisation. Richard Dudas employs the term “comprovisation” in his lucid over-
view of the interplay of composition and improvisation in interactive music with electronics
and computers. Sebastian Lexer outlines a methodology for developing software tools opti-
mized for non-idiomatic free improvisation. Vincent Cee proposes a theoretical framework
for discussing improvisation in a “post-literate society.” Michael Young reflects on aspects
of intimacy and identity in technologically mediated performance, while Jonathan Impett
focuses on the question of improvising musical form. Leonardo Peusner’s paper presents
mathematical and graphic tools for visualizing and synthesizing improvised music. By analyz-
ing the vocalizations of the Australian Pied Butcherbird, Hollis Taylor “challenges the assump-
tion that improvisation is a process unique to humans.” Aura Satz provides a history of the
role of music and sound in séance culture.

We’ve included two submissions that, while falling slightly outside the rubric, seemed of
particular relevance to the LMJ community: Perry Cook and Scott Smallwood discuss their
solar-powered laptop orchestra project, SOLA; and Andrew Lucia, Christopher Lee and
Matthew Lake analyze and illustrate patterns in the early works of the composer Karlheinz
Stockhausen.

Tara Rodgers, founder of the Pink Noises project for women in electronic music, ha
curated an insightful CD for this issue. Sounds Like Now: Improvisation + Technology features
electronically enabled improvisation.

Improvisation has always been an essential part of musical culture—composition, as we

know it from European “art” music, has been the exception, rather than the rule. But musical
instruments traditionally, almost universally, have been pretty deterministic devices, prized
for their accuracy and control, whether used for playing notes off paper or improvising freely.
In the wake of John Cage, Tuttavia, there emerged a perceived need for instruments that
embodied some degree of indeterminacy themselves. The development in the 1970s of afford-
able integrated circuits that could be assembled, Lego-like, by non-engineers was well timed,
from a standpoint of musical history: it paved the way for a generation of silicon luthiers who
built the first of these indeterminate instruments. E, whether one labels one’s music
“composed” or “improvised,” as Neill and Rothenberg observe some 4 decades later, “when
performing with live electronics, improvisation becomes inevitable.”

8 introduzione

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On Another Note
For 20 years, Leonardo Music Journal has served as a voice for improvisers and iconoclasts strewn
across the musical globe. I want to take this occasion to thank those who made the effort to
write articles and contribute audio tracks; the curators who designed and organized the CDs;
the members of the editorial board who advised us on direction and reviewed manuscripts; IL
able editorial crew in the Leonardo offices who transformed texts and managed production;
and the LMJ community at large, for its ongoing support.

Nicolas colliNs
Editor-in-Chief
E-mail:

Riferimenti

1. Trevor Pinch, “The Synthesizer,” in Sherry Turkle, ed., Evocative Objects (Cambridge, MA: CON Premere, 2007) P. 167.

2. David Tudor and Victor Schonfeld, “From Piano to Electronics,” Music and Musicians 20 (agosto 1972) pag. 24–26. See also the special
issue Composers inside Electronics, Leonardo Music Journal 14 (2004).

3. For these articles, as well as other materials (such as audio files), see the online supplement to this issue at .

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introduzione 9
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