University of Arts, London

LONDON COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION

BA Sound Arts and Design

Improvisation as subjective expression: an exploration.

Carina Levitan

19 April 2010

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Contents

Acknowledgments 3

Abstract 4

Introduction 5

Chapter 1: Music: definitions and scope 6

Chapter 2: Music and visual art: a parallel 11

Chapter 3: Hermeto Pascoal and Derek Bailey: 'free' composers 15

Chapter 4: The role of the audience 22

Conclusion 28

Bibliography 30

Appendix I 34

Appendix II 34

Appendix III 35

Appendix IV 38

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my tutor Ed Baxter for the inspiration, chats and coffees, also

Rosemary Bonsall for her great help with the English and to Hermeto Pascoal and

Ivan Vilela for agreeing to be interviewed. Finally I thank my lovely mother/teacher.

Obrigada.

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Abstract

This dissertation explores improvisation in music in order to establish what

drives musicians to play and what surrounds their spontaneous attitude. It is also

concerned with questions of interpretation and the role of the composer and the

audience. The dissertation concludes that new approaches to questioning music must

be adopted in order to allow understanding. Some literal explanations and

comprehensions inhibit artistic development and the artwork itself must essentially

inspire discussions and instigate feelings.

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Introduction

The focus of this dissertation is improvisation in musical composition.

Specifically, it aims to establish that such music stems from the natural drive and

spontaneity of the composer and is not bound by 'accepted' rules and conventions. It

tries to show how musicians and visual artists consciously act with artistic freedom

and it is up to the audience to interpret the work without explanation from the

composer/creator. Thus it wants to answer the question, To what extent does music

alone communicate its message or does it require extra explanation?

Chapter one tries to given definition and scope to the word 'music'. In this, it

looks at the derivation of the word and considers how various composers have

responded to this definition and how others have interpreted it. These include

musicians such as Daniel Barenboim, John Cage and Evelyn Glennie. Chapter two

draws comparisons between music and the visual arts, especially Conceptualism, and

to assess their respective journeys to acceptance by the Establishment. Chapter three

investigates the work of two important composers, Hermeto Pascoal and Derek Bailey

who both use improvisation in music and are known for playing 'freely'. The final

chapter considers questions of authorship in relation to literature, music and the visual

arts and considers the role of the audience as responsible for its comprehension.

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Chapter 1

Music: definitions and scope

It is first of all important to define the scope of the word 'music' as used

throughout this dissertation. Music is manifested in every society, with strong

characteristics and personalities evident in each place. Different cultures have music

as an important form of expression, however their objectives diverge significantly. In

some cases, music appears as religious manifestations. In others it aims to show

symbolic ideas or to bring people together; yet other cases enhance energy for

physical labour while some simply illustrate something. Musical intentions, rules and

the use of instruments vary from one case to another.

Recently, in 2008, the book Everything is connected: the power of music by

Daniel Barenboim, was published. In this book Barenboim merges music with life

and declares its detachment impossible. Barenboim elaborates his personal theory that

musical thinking contains the seed of all thinking. He relates in detail the tasks of life

to musical practice. He considers, "What is, perhaps, the most difficult lesson for the

human being - learning to live with discipline yet with passion, freedom yet with

order, is evident in any single phrase of music" (Barenboim, 2008, pp. 20-21).

Barenboim therefore in this text stresses the broad implication of music. Essentially,

music can have wide connotations and be considered as part of universal human

activity in which composers play a definitive role.

Literally, the word 'music' derives from the Greek µουσική (mousike) and

means '(art) of the Muses' (Onions, 1966). In Greek mythology, the Muses are

considered the source of knowledge and the inspiration of the arts. They communicate

orally the ancient culture through poetic lyrics and myths. It is not uncommon to

observe music being combined with spirituality. This strong spiritual association led

the composer Dane Rudhyar to define composition as a divine gift. For him,

composing is to perceive music at a psychic level. About composing he declares:

Essentially it is the exteriorization of inner experiences and states of consciousness and feelings. It is subjective rather than the

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development of objective and intellectually analysable patterns conditioned by our culture (Rudhyar quoted in Raël, 1983).

John Cage is another example of a composer who brings mysticism to his

music. The composition Music of Changes based on the I-Ching (Book of Changes)

shows the unpredictability of his music. The effects of sounds on people are

plentifully recognised and explored by him. He notes, "The sounds enter the time-

space centred within themselves, unimpeded by service to any abstraction, their 360

degrees of circumference free for an infinite play of interpenetration" (Cage, 1961, p.

59). In his compositions value judgements or 'mistakes' are "not in the nature of the

work" (ibid). Any incident that happens during the music's execution is authentically

part of it.

John Cage (1961) denotes music as 'an organization of sound'. With this

assertion, he states the freedom to use any sound source to compose a piece of music.

If music is an organization of sounds, the diverse styles vary according to the sources

of sounds chosen and able to be chosen by the musicians. This evidence suggests that

the surroundings determine the musical textures and shape, and the composer is the

central character of the sound choices.

John Blacking (1995) in his book Music, Culture and Experience, discusses

his observations of an isolated community in Africa. His objective in observing an

isolated tribe was to get an understanding of people's relationship with music without

external influences, and to validate an authentic response to his questionings. He says,

"Cultures change, but people remain essentially the same" (p. 51). With this assertion

he concludes the universality of human behaviour. However, arguably, although a

musician in his type of music is influenced by his experiences, the act of making

music is not a result of experience but of an artistic drive.

Drawing parallels between genres helps us to analyse music. People compare

similarities in order to judge the quality. However such classification is to be avoided

as it impinges on the genuine purpose of music's creation. Adorno (1998, p. 1) states,

"The sounds from the music say something, often something human. The better the

music, the more forcefully they say it". Music says something human, but what kind

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of something? Even if the purposes of music differ in every society its intention has in

common a hidden meaning communicated by the use of sounds.

Sound is the means by which the message of music or its content is

transmitted. Thus music encounters an intangible element for its explanation. Sounds

are frequently described in terms that relate to human emotion, for example 'sad', or to

visual aspects such as 'dark', or terms relating to texture such as 'crispy'. Those terms,

even the unambiguous ones, do not belong to hearing which points out the difficulty

of explanation. Thus music finds other elements with which to be associated. In the

exhibition For The Sake Of The Image the curator Suki Chan discusses the

relationship between sound and the moving image. She notes, “Sound is a fascinating

but elusive subject . . . It's quite difficult to examine the role of something that is

largely invisible but emotionally felt. It's also much easier to talk about visual

manipulations than aural ones . . ." (Havlin, 2010). Barenboim (2008, p. 5) confirms

this: "I firmly believe that it is impossible to speak about music".

The musician Evelyn Glennie has developed different ways of hearing. She

believes that people hear the sounds through their bodies, not only through the ears.

People are sensitive to the sound vibrations, which can be perceived by the touch and

observed by the eyes. She has been profoundly deaf since the age of 12, which has not

prevented her from playing music. She is an exceptional percussionist who received

the Grammy Award in 1989 for Best Chamber Music Performance. She states:

If someone asked me: 'How do you hear that?' Then, I simply say, I really don't know. But I just basically hear that through my body, to open myself up. [She asks the interviewer:] How do you hear that? 'Oh, I hear it through the ears.' Well, but what do you mean through the ears? What do you actually hear? So, when you try to bounce the question back to a so-called 'hearing' person, they simply do not know how to answer these questions. So then, why should I be put in that position? That is just slightly upsetting (Touch the Sound, 2009, 35mins.).

Her desire is to be considered as a musician like any other. She demonstrates

an enormous internal commitment to music, independently of her disability.

And her case shows the wide field which sounds can involve. Glennie

connects all the senses in order to hear. She notices that everyone develops

their individual way of hearing and has their own individual sound, which is

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configured in their personal characteristics, such as their physical figure and

gestures. According to her, the artistic expressions are all connected in the

sense of touching. She declares:

Being a musician, being a dancer, being an artist is all about the sense of touching, really. The form of communication is about touching. I don't literally mean that kind of thing [touching herself]. I mean, touching is just something that is a little bit like hearing, it is just so vast, you know (ibid, 80mins.).

The composer La Monte Young in his Composition 1960, No.5 (1960)

reinforces the boundary of hearing as well as stressing his definition of music. He

describes the piece:

Turn a butterfly (or any number of butterflies) loose in the performance area. When the composition is over, be sure to allow the butterfly to fly away outside. The composition may be any length, but if an unlimited amount of time is available, the doors and windows may be opened before the butterfly is turned loose and the composition may be considered finished when the butterfly flies away (Young & Zazeela, 2004, p. 70).

On music, he questions the necessity of loud sounds in the realms of music in

order to validate it as a composition. For La Monte Young, the butterfly

certainly produces sounds. He mailed this piece to Tony Conrad, who could

not understand it, so he explained, "Isn’t it wonderful if someone listens to

something he is ordinarily supposed to look at?” (ibid, p. 71).

To conclude therefore, music has ample definitions and connections. The term

'music' in this dissertation however will be treated as a single object, with the

composers being responsible and free for their sound choices and the structure of

those sounds in time. It is nevertheless acknowledged that questions still arise from

this interpretation. The acceptance of its freedom is not unanimous and the standard

music production is commonly maintained by composers and requested by the

audience. Consequently, the majority of the public disparages new compositions and

the approval of new music is an intricate process. Considering current research and

the development of music and also noticing that Cage's idea dates back to 1950s, the

rigid shape of music has to be questioned. Cage's affirms that music is solely sounds

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in time. However, the recognition of diverse sounds sources and different structures

within the musical composition tends to be inflexible. These issues will be considered

in succeeding chapters.

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Chapter 2

Music and visual art: a parallel

The traditionally tight structure of music and the non-acceptance by many of

its changing can be correlated with the rejection of Conceptual art in 1960s. This

period was an effervescent moment for the Arts, and both music and the visual arts

were rebelling against the formal and 'old-fashioned' constructions of an artwork. The

ideas of the group Fluxus are found in many of the concepts explored by John Cage.

Fluxus was a group of visual artists, composers and designers, who combined

different artistic media within an artwork. Their projects were developed and exposed

in diverse formats such as videos, performances, installations, musical scores, or via

any medium or object necessary to communicate the idea. Their concepts are

described in the Fluxus Manifesto using a direct and emphatic language. The idea was

to change the system " . . . promote a revolutionary flood and tide in art, promote

living art, anti-art, promote non-art reality to be grasped by all people, not only critics,

dilettantes and professionals" (Wood, 2002, p. 23). They were successfully recognised

in the visual art world and nowadays, the visual arts readily embrace new concepts.

However in music, the journey has been slower. As in the visual arts, there has

been significant exploration to find some new configurations for music, but these new

formats still remain relatively for minority tastes. The guitarist Derek Bailey confirms

his involvement in experimenting with new ideas in the following extract from an

interview and compares his present popularity with the low esteem he experienced in

1960s, when he faced empty auditoriums:

I'm running a local [venue] (…) 5 miles away from the centre of London, and there are a few people turning up, 20 or 30 people turning up. In the 1960s, we were playing in the centre of London, in a theatre, and we've got 2 people . . . I mean, it was so rare to get any kind of audience at all. People are taking some kind of notice now, but there is no audience for this kind of stuff. It is very strange how people view it now (Bailey to Kaiser, 1987).

Even if the popularity was restricted to a small and particular audience the

recognition did not affect his reasons for playing. Although reflecting on the public,

he is not concerned with them. The spontaneous motivation for music directed him to

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attain a personal way of playing guitar. Fluxus and many other artistic manifestations

have the same target of creativity. Joseph Beuys, artist member of Fluxus, in the

documentary Transformer (1979) about his exhibition at Guggenheim Museum in

New York, was enthusiastic about the objects in the environment and declared that

they did not need to be changed at all. His work was to exhibit the objects as they are,

in order to emphasise the idea of human creativity. Describing in detail the piece

Bathtub (1960) he says, "It represents creativity in an anthropological sense, in a

human sense. Not just the creativity of artists. The stress here is on the meaning of the

object, a solid material rested in energy of spiritual nature" (Transformer, 1979

4mins.).

Joseph Beuys strongly accentuates the idea of human creativity in many of his

works. He argues that, "Everyone is an artist, everyone can create and have the ability

to see" (Joseph and Me, 2005 7mins.). He considers the people's production of

everyday artefacts as important as the output of artists and incorporates ordinary

objects into the artwork. Beuys is able to connect the art world with the everyday

environment. He is a charismatic figure, who points to the universality of art.

Nonetheless, he adds to it a controversial characteristic. When he exhibited someone

else's object, he was struck by the lack of comprehension by the audience. In 1960s,

the acceptance of different objects or materials in an artwork was withheld. Martin

Creed in a documentary about Joseph Beuys 7000 Oaks' (1981) reports, "For the first

time I really saw an art work outside a gallery that wasn't public sculpture on a kind

of pedestal, that was just in the world, an amount of stuff" (Joseph and Me, 2005

20mins.). Creed speaks with admiration. On the other hand, critics disapprove of

Beuys and others members of Fluxus.

In order to stress the importance of artistic freedom in the arts it is useful to

refer to another Fluxus member Gustav Metzger, who in 1974 called on artists to

withdraw their labour for a minimum of 3 years. The act, known as Art Strike, was to

occur between 1977 to 1980 and the intention was to use the same weapon as workers

in order to bring down the art system. It was a reformist action rebelling against the

art market, with the purpose of achieving freedom in arts. Metzger claims:

The key points were to extend the freedom of artists. You set it up and it creates itself. There is a subjective experience and a potential

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liberating purpose. Oh, here it is happening, I'm free (Metzger in Pioneers in Art and Science, 2004, 6 mins).

The Conceptualist attitude towards the art system was also concerned with

social and philosophical issues. They were pioneers of ideas which conflicted with the

mainstream and as a result they faced incomprehension. They were a group of artists,

whose ideas stretched across architecture, literature, music, dance, typography, social

structure, mathematics and politics. "They all play a role . . . And that is what makes

Fluxus so lively, so engaging and so difficult to describe", Ken Friedman declares

(1998, p. ix). He also adds, "To understand the how and why of Fluxus, what it is and

does, it is important to understand 'whodunit', to know what Fluxus was and did"

(ibid).

In a performance by Beuys entitled How to explain pictures to a dead hare

(1965), he holds a dead hare with his face covered with honey and gold leaf, wearing

large shoes with felt and copper soles and whispers to the hare for three hours about

what is art. He murmurs to the corpse an incomprehensible text - and it was, in fact,

only to the dead hare that Beuys revealed the secret of his work. Beuys illustrates the

idea that it is apparently not the artist who will uncover explanations. He renounces

explanations in order to attack intellectuals and critics, whom he believes are not able

to understand or to enjoy art. This refusal is illustrated by Nicholas Zurbrugg's

comment (quoted in Friedman, 1998, p. 174):

The Fluxus aesthetic and the provocative register of Baudrillard's writings sometimes appear to resist evaluation. This is surely because they both employ the same self-deflating logic which initially typecast Dada as a little more than an irritating joke.

Derek Bailey encounters the same questioning of his work. Regarding his

approach towards music he says, "The art market has never appealed to me. Playing

an instrument creatively - improvising - will include art, I suppose, but it goes well

beyond the boundaries of art in many ways" (quoted in Watson, 2004, p. 2). During

the radio interview, Henry Kaiser (1987) asks Bailey:

What you've just played doesn't sound strange to me, because I've been listening to you for years, but I'm sure that to many people that are listening, it might sound a bit unusual. What are you doing there? Where are these funny sounds coming from?

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Bailey ironically and dryly answers:

What am I doing? Well… ah… they are notes, they're known as 'notes'. Sometimes described as pitches; and also you can have a collection of notes together, which are called harmonies, and I play them within a… I put them together in such a way so that they relate rhythmically. It is like notes, chord, and rhythm, just like playing in a band (ibid).

Radical movements in the visual arts gained much earlier acceptance than in

new forms of music. This is reflected clearly in attitudes towards, for example, the

work of Derek Bailey. His work is discussed in detail in the next chapter together

with that of the composer Hermeto Pascoal.

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Chapter 3

Hermeto Pascoal and Derek Bailey: 'free' composers

This chapter discusses artists who have elaborated a personal and original

vocabulary within their music. It investigates the work of the multi-instrumentalist

Hermeto Pascoal and the guitarist Derek Bailey. Despite their music differing

considerably, both developed an individual way of playing and are known for playing

freely, improvising live. Bailey (1992) in his research into diverse kinds of

improvisation from different parts of the world states:

The attitudes and precepts associated with the 'avant-garde' have very little in common with those held by most improvisers . . . The desire to stay ahead of the field is not common among them. And as regards method, the improviser employs the oldest in music making (p. 83).

In this statement, he compares the 'avant-garde' movement that emerged in 1960s

which created what is known as 'free improvisation' with other types of improvisation.

Improvisation can be considered the oldest activity in music. The term 'free

improvisation' relates to this period; however the search for freedom in art has been a

constant throughout its history.

Hermeto Pascoal was born in 1936 in Olho D' água da Canoa, a small city in

the countryside of northeast Brasil. His first instrument was the accordion, which he

started playing at 7 years old. Due to the weak educational system of Brasil, he had

only one teacher in his life who taught him how to read and write. Consequently, in

music, he was self-taught. When young, he had help from his father who gave him his

first lessons on the accordion. Thereafter he learned piano, flute, saxophone and

clarinet himself, playing all in a masterly fashion. His early ideas about music are

indicated in his second album released in Brasil in 1973 entitled Música Livre de

Hermeto Pascoal (Free Music of Hermeto Pascoal). His music is based on the

conventional structure of harmony, melody and rhythm and he explores the variety of

sound sources, choosing freely anything that surrounds and inspires him. He says,

"The harmony is the mother of music, the rhythm is the father and the melody or

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theme is the son" (Hermeto quoted in Morena, 2008b). He comfortably improvises on

this structure and impressively conducts and surprises his partners, who need to

follow him wherever he is going. The freedom lies in his free exploration of sounds

and his autodidactic way of learning the instruments, establishing an individual way

of playing them (Appendix I, track 1).

Hermeto is popularly known as a 'free' musician, but this has not always had

positive implications. On the contrary, he was judged by the press to be too 'hermetic',

a pun on his name (Pascoal, 2000, p.12). Around 1969, he had hard times within the

music market, which did not welcome most of his ideas. Unsatisfied with record

labels in Brasil, he travelled to the United States to record his third album Missa dos

Escravos (Slave Mass) released in 1977. In Brasil, it was not permitted to bring

animals to record in the studio, and Hermeto's composition included animal sounds.

Therefore in United States he could achieve his objective and this album became his

masterwork. He reveals, "The pig played very well the compasses so I decided to take

the orchestra out and gave it freedom to play" (Pascoal, 2000, p. 13) (Appendix I,

track 2).

The environment inspires Hermeto Pascoal to compose. In his book

Calendário do Som (Calendar of Sounds) released in 2000 he composes one piece of

music per day during a year, from 23 June 1996 to 22 June 1997. For each song he

describes what inspired him at the moment of its composition. For example Day 62,

"As usual, my music starts with one style and finishes with various. It depends on the

day and the mood" (Pascoal, 2000, p. 390); or Day 42, "This music was made while I

was supporting Brasil [in the Olympic Games] to win at least few medals, even made

of iron" (ibid, p. 64) (Appendix II). He has imaginative and simple ideas for

composition. However the outcome is complex in terms of harmony and rhythm.

Once he creates the music, he writes the score and improvises over it with his

partners.

In order to enhance this research, on 23 January 2010, I interviewed Hermeto

Pascoal by email. In this conversation he explains the process of his work (see

Appendix III for a full transcript of the interview):

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There is the study of my instruments and the practice with my formations. That is the apprenticeship, improvement and maintenance of technique. Even so, during these study times, many themes arise and I end up composing and recording it. When I’m going through some song with the duo, or with a big band or with the Group, it is a way of structuring the music, listening to the arrangement for the first time, and seeing the way in which each musician interprets with freedom (ibid).

Asked if the rehearsal is based on some kind of score, he explains that his partners are

generally guided by it, but stop using it when they memorise the new song. However

this is not a rule: "Whoever wants to read, reads" (ibid). Supposedly, the rehearsals

are tied on the score, although the live performance shows the freedom of the

musicians to improvise. He conducts the musicians to explore the boundary of their

technique and creativity. In one of his concerts, invited by Unicef in 1995 to play in

Rosário in Argentina, he built a swimming pool on stage, where he and the members

of his band played (Morena, 2008a). His playful performances happen anywhere and

with any instrument; it can be at his dentist or playing water in a lagoon.

Hermeto recorded in 1984 examples of what he called Sound of the Aura. He

claims that it is possible to hear the sound of each human and animal, which is

suggested by the sonorous vibration through their speech that links mind and body

(Morena, 2008c). Hermeto does not consider himself the composer, but the mentor of

the idea, arranger and interpreter. The composition belongs to those who speak in the

recording (Appendix I, track 3). His performance playing with objects can be seen in

a television programme where he played with a kettle of water, his beard and others

objects (Calendário do Som, 2001). Hermeto asserts that " . . . everything is sound,

everyone can play and everyone has a lot to contribute to music". Those thoughts are

written down by Aline Morena (2008b) in the Principios da Música Universal

(Principles of Universal Music), which express subjectively his ideas and allow the

reader to freely interpret his work. Asked if that was his intention, he replies:

That's right. The Principles of Universal Music represents the basis of my work. Another explanation would follow the same precepts. But it is clear that not everyone has the ability to perceive everything that is there. Perceiving it is not about giving the same explanation. It is to feel in accord with your own musicality and experience (Appendix III).

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His ideas are also demonstrated in the title of his album Só Não Toca Quem Não Quer

(Only If You Don't Want It) released in 1987 (Appendix I, track 4).

In the same interview I asked him to distinguish between his 'free' way of

playing music and the 'free improvisation' of the 1960s. He clarifies:

My first album in Brasil called Free Music of Hermeto Pascoal, was free in the sense of playing with freedom on the top of the harmony, the rhythm, my interpretation and the timbres. However, the term 'free' has another intention: it means playing without any concern for harmony, rhythm or melody. After going through all that, I called what I do Universal Music (Appendix III).

Hermeto, although having hard times in the beginning of his career, often

plays for quite large audiences nowadays. I asked him if he is concerned about the

public and he replies, "I am only concerned that somebody might have a heart attack

in one of the shows because people's response is so overwhelming that it always

amazes me" (Appendix III).

Derek Bailey (1930-2005) was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.

His importance within the context of 'free improvisation' is emphasized by the

enthusiastic comment of the composer THF Drenching:

. . . Free improvisation dissolved these abstract musical moralisms. There was music where instrumental proficiency no longer meant flaccid self-aggrandisement. And it wiped the floor with the composerly prejudice for abstract thought, proved you could knock out something like Stockhausen's Zugvogel sieben Tagen a week in a room above a pub (Drenching quoted in Toop, 2006).

This comment is from the collection of tributes to Derek Bailey after his death

published in The Wire magazine and assembled by David Toop. Improvisers such as

Han Bennink, Otomo Yoshihide, John Butcher, Keiji Haino, among others,

demonstrated their gratitude to Bailey for being a great source of inspiration.

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Bailey was one of the pioneers of 'free improvisation' in Europe. Together

with Gavin Bryars playing bass and Tony Oxley drums, he formed the group Joseph

Holbrooke, which became renowned among improvisers; even through it existed for

only three years, between 1963 and 1966. As discussed in chapter two, in the 1960s,

many musicians were experimenting with new ways of making music. The New

Music, Free Jazz and the 'Avant-garde' classical music are some examples of this

effervescent period. Bailey declares himself uninterested in those movements, but

states, "Those people were trying to find a new way of playing. They were going

somewhere, so I tagged along" (Bailey to Kaiser, 1987). The idea of 'free

improvisation' is to develop a personal, thus comfortable and satisfactory way of

playing music. Bailey affirms:

It has no stylistic or idiomatic commitment. It has no prescribed idiomatic sound. The characteristics of freely improvised music are established only by the sonic-musical identity of the person or persons playing it (Bailey, 1992, p. 83).

He plays guitar holding it in the conventional way and amplifies it like any

other guitarist would do. A picture of him playing might not impress much; he

normally sits and remains still while playing. However sonically, he demolishes the

traditional music structure. He plays without harmony, rhythm or repetition. In the

album called Mirakle released in 2000 he improvises with the bassist Jamaaladeen

Tacuma and the drummer Calvin Weston. Tacuma and Weston, a pre-existing duo of

players, 'anchor' the funk while Bailey interacts freely. Bailey's attitude and style are

clearly perceived in this album. The mix of a regular beat combined with Bailey's

'sparky' sounds work powerfully (Appendix I, track 5).

Although recognised as an icon among musicians, Derek Bailey often plays

for small audiences. However, he has an indifferent attitude to it: "Frankly My Dear I

Don't Give A Damn", confirms this in the song title from the album Standards

recorded in 2002 and released in 2007 (Appendix I, track 6). Comparing 'free

improvisation' to experimental music and 'avant-garde' music, he notes that the only

aspect which " . . . they do have in common is sharing inability to hold the attention of

large groups of casual listeners" (Bailey, 1992, p. 83). He believes that only a select

group of fans might appreciate improvisation and only those involved in doing it

seemed to be able to comprehend. He asserts:

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This suspicion arose mainly as a result of the almost total absence of comment concerning improvisation and the hopeless misconceptions usually expressed in the comment which does occur (ibid, p. ix).

Beyond his talent on guitar, he contributed fundamentally to further studies

about improvised music. His book Improvisation released in 1980 covers the

spectrum of improvisation in many of its forms, such as Indian music, flamenco and

baroque. He claims that:

Improvisation is always changing and adjusting, never fixed, too elusive for analysis and precise description; essentially non-academic . . . there is something central to the spirit of voluntary improvisation which is opposed to the aims and contradicts the idea of documentation (ibid).

Bailey points to the absence of information about improvised music. When musical

notation was created, " . . . a musical work was no longer strictly musical; it existed

outside itself, so to speak, in the form of an object to which a name was given: the

score" (Jacques Charpentier quoted in Bailey, 1992, p. 59). The score assumed in the

old ages, a crucial responsibility within the music. Consequently, the effort in recent

times, to lose the rigid structure of the Classical score and to develop a personal music

is part of the activity of any improviser (ibid). Improvisation, as Bailey states, has an

inherent characteristic of non-documentation, thus a spontaneous attitude towards the

creation of music.

In conclusion, both Derek Bailey and Hermeto Pascoal demonstrate a genuine

and instinctive method of approaching music. They play spontaneously according to

their experience in practicing the instrument. Spite of knowing how to write a music

score, Hermeto confesses that he rejects this information while he is playing or

composing. He learned how to write music after a long period playing without that

knowledge (Morena, 2008a).

During an improvised performance the instant of creation is exposed. The

artist shows his musical choices, the 'accidents' and 'mistakes' to the public. The music

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happens at that moment and on that place. Derek Bailey reveals his thoughts with his

vocal accompaniments to his playing:

I was sitting at the organ, my fingers wandered idly over the every key. I know not what I was playing, what I was doing there and suddenly I was like a god, like the sound of the last amen, like the sound of the last amen (Bailey to Kaiser, 1987).

The immediate attitude is what influences and inspires him to play.

I conducted an interview with the composer and professor Ivan Vilela where

he reflects about the notion of intuition being something ingenuous and unconscious.

Nonetheless, he declares that intuition is blend with knowledge:

We have always thought of intuition as something divine and innocent, but no, intuition is loaded with knowledge that has been assimilated and when it comes out, it comes out spontaneously for already being well outlined in the author’s comprehension (Appendix IV gives a full transcript of the interview).

22

Chapter 4 The role of the audience

In music, literature and visual arts there has been considerable debate about

the notion of the 'author' in respect of artistic composition and creation. Traditional

notions of the composer/artist as 'author' have been questioned and the role of the

audience as 'author' has been suggested. This chapter explores notions of authorship

in respect of writers, artists and musicians in order to relate these to improvisation in

music.

The writer Italo Calvino (1988) in his lecture called Exactitude (delivered at

Harvard University and published in his book Six Memos for the Next Millennium)

expresses the difficulty of writing with exactitude. In his analysis, he explores the

abstract poems of Giacomo Leopardi, whom he chose as someone whose work would

clearly oppose exactitude. However in the end, Calvino had to accept that the opposite

was in fact the case. He declares, "The poet of vagueness can only be the poet of

exactitude, who is able to grasp the subtlest sensations with eyes and ears and quick,

unerring hands" (ibid, p. 60). He highlights the paradoxical combination of an

objective temperament of a human being living "side by side with the demon of

sensitivity" (ibid, p. 65). Calvino attempts to present aspects of subjectivity as

precisely as possible within a written communication and is concerned about the

arbitrary use of words. He states:

It is a plague afflicting language, revealing itself as a loss of cognition and immediacy, an automatism that tends to level out all expression into the most generic, anonymous, and abstract formulas, to dilute meanings, to blunt the edge of expressiveness, extinguishing the spark that shoots out from the collision of words and new circumstances (ibid, p. 57).

Furthermore, Calvino adds to it that in Italian the word vago (vague) also means

'lovely' or 'attractive' (ibid, p. 57). This appraisal reflects that idea that open

interpretations within a text or in another artistic work can be a positive attribute.

23

The film director Wim Wenders in an interview was asked to define the theme

of his films. He declares:

I can't really say the main theme, because the films have many themes. But it's the eternal tenor, the eternal question that's posed. Or an ever-present attitude more than anything else . . . There's an underlying motif that they all possess, and that is the question, "How should you live?" That is… how can we manage, in these times, with all the things we experience and what happens in the world… How can we manage to find out what we live for? And that, I think, in all the films I've made… is the central theme (One Who Set Forth, 2007 5mins.).

In his films, for example Alice in the Cities (1974), the long takes of an 'empty'

landscape or the presentation of the characters without dialogue or with hazy

conversations allow the audience open interpretations, rich in meaning. The open

narrative of his films encourages the observer to perceive diverse and representative

elements from the scene (objects, gestures, sound, words) in order to grasp the

meaning and to evaluate the theme of the film. In his interview, he clarifies that there

is hidden meaning that depends on the receiver's experiences. Therefore, he does not

reveal his intentions, but accepts that individuals will interpret his films in their own

way.

The painter Francis Picabia (2008) during an interview reflects on his work

and his needs as a painter and debates artists' understanding of their own work.

Equally as Wenders demonstrates, Picabia believes that artists should not realize what

they are doing and that at the moment they discover it they should try something

different. In interview he was asked if he agreed that the audience, as a result, might

not understand his work, because the interviewer believes the audience should at least

grasp the idea. Picabia responds, "I don't think so. For my part, a painter should

always do a painting as if no one will ever see it. That's the one and only way he/she

should express himself" (ibid). As Picabia remarks, artists must focus on the creation

of the 'object' and not on the public's reaction or acceptance. However, this personal

attitude impinges on the observer's comprehension. The work, when displayed, might

not communicate the idea, therefore it does not supply the observer's expectation, who

hopes to understand it. In this he echoed the opinions expressed by Ivan Vilela in

interview. Vilela states that music says something unspeakable and explanations

24

might run into danger of restricting the subjectivity to words. He completes, "We

create other forms of expression, like art, because we realize that words are limited in

the explanation of reality, whether it is real or metaphysical" (Appendix IV). Vilela

exposes the inversion: words are not a sufficient mean of communication, therefore

the art contribute to its improvement. Furthermore, he declares that literal analysis of

an artwork is limited and it can become redundant.

In order to scrutinise the multiple interpretations of a work and investigates

whether the creator is responsible for its clarification, the work of Roland Barthes will

be examined. Barthes endeavours to determine meticulously the possible meanings of

words, music and images. He is seen as the quintessential researcher into semiotic

theory. Barthes in his essay called The Death of the Author published in 1967

questions the authorial voice within a text, perceiving its multiple existence, thus its

irrelevance. He states, "The voice in writing loses its origin, the author enters into his

own death, writing begins" (Barthes, 1977, p. 142). The author creates the text and the

latter exists independently. Barthes amplifies a text's comprehension: the text is not

merely made by the author; it is made by multiple writings and drawn from many

cultures. The text enters into mutual relations of dialogue and contestation. However

". . . there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader,

not, as hitherto said, the author" (ibid, p. 148). Barthes asserts that explanations are

always sought in the person who creates. Arguably, he suggests that answers should

be found within the work itself and interpreted by the readers, thus not relying on the

author's explanation.

Noel Carrol (2001) develops what Barthes explores in The Death of the

Author. Carrol discusses the 'anti-intentionalism' in arts. In his essay Art, Intention,

and Conversation from the book Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays, he

suggests removing the credibility of the author when the latter intents to explain his

ideas. He states, "We do not believe that the sculptor had the intention of making a

blue statue by painting it pink" (p.156). Carrol believes that the authorial

pronouncement is arbitrary and insincere, therefore irrelevant. Based on Barthes' and

Carrol's ideas we can dispense the author's explanation in disclosure his intentions.

According to Picabia, the author should not be even conscious of that. Consequently,

25

the artwork should be analyzed as an autonomous object. The work is dropped by the

artist and the observer finds the interest to understand it. As a result, the audience

does not 'listen' the authorial voice in order to trust and to assist in finding answers.

And the work is more outspread to debate.

John Cage (1991) illustrates this idea. Cage releases the authorial involvement

in order to analyse the music itself. He presents in a lecture his composition One 7.

The piece is approximately thirty minutes long and consists of long periods of silence

interrupted by brief vocalizations. The lecture was given at the theatre of the San

Francisco Art Institute and was followed by a session of questions from the audience.

One of the questions referred to his concern as to whether or not the intention of the

piece was to entertain the audience. He replies:

That's not my problem. I find [the work] interesting myself, not in terms of self-expression, but in terms of activity. So I assume that others will find it interesting too. Or if they are not interested in it, I am (ibid).

Cage affirms that the piece is not a self-expression but an activity which results in

ignoring his personal motivation in order to analyse it as a creative human action. The

piece does not belong to him at the instant of its creation. Thus, the observer’s

interpretation is as equally valid as the artist's. At this point, the music composition

does not recognise the artist and the focus is onto the single object: the music.

As Adorno (1998, p. 1) states, "The sounds from the music say something,

often something human. The better the music, the more forcefully they say it". The

music says something subjective by the elusive means of sounds. Hence, music is

hardly attached to the "demon of sensitivity" as Calvino (1988, p.65) reflects.

Accordingly, a subjective artwork should not be analysed objectively, but it must

raises discussions and argumentations. The vague interpretation and explanations

therefore can be a positive attribute.

The multiplicity of meanings of a work is discussed in another Barthes' essay

called From Work to Text (1971). In this essay he argues that the interdisciplinarity

changes the dialectical interaction between the object and the observer. He believes

26

that the fields of knowledge should be opened and intersected and he notices changes

in the development of different disciplines, such as linguistics, anthropology,

psychoanalysis, among others. Roland Barthes suggests that closed disciplines, called

by him 'Work', are obsolete and new areas of studies have appeared, which he calls

'Text'.

It is useful to examine Barthes ideas, in order to approach music as a semiotic

system associating with what he defines as 'Text'. In his essay he describes 'Text' by

seven propositions. However, this dissertation will not describe all of them, but it will

focus on the fourth proposition in which he defines 'Text' as plural:

The Text is plural. Which is not simply to say that it has several meanings, but that it accomplishes the very plural of meaning: an irreducible (and not merely and acceptable) plural (Barthes, 1977, p. 159).

Barthes illustrates this plurality as a woven fabric and explains that it is not a co-

existence of meanings, but inter-connectedness (ibid). The multiplicity is clearly

observed in music. As it has been discussed in the previous chapters, the emotive and

subjective characteristic intrinsic in music leads and influences the audience to an

explosion of interpretations. Within the musical context, the composer John Zorn

illustrates:

All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person - the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there (quoted in Service, 2003).

In respect of improvisation, Derek Bailey (1992) indicates its divergent

aspects: "It ranges from the view that free playing is the simplest thing in the world

requiring no explanation, to the view that it is complicated beyond discussion" (p.85).

He notes the difficulty which musicians face when talking about improvisation.

Bailey declares that most improvisers choose to use abstract terms and intuitive

descriptions. He continues, "There was a commonly held suspicion that a close

technical approach was, for this subject, uninformative" (ibid, p. xi). Thomas Clifton

(quoted in Bailey) asserts:

27

The question is not whether the description is subjective, objective, biased or idiosyncratic, but very simply it is whether or not the description says something significant about the intuited experience. So that the experience itself becomes something from which we can learn and in so doing learn about the object of that experience as well (p. xi).

Clifton describes the importance to explain intuitive experiences in order to add

something which the readers could learn from it. Bailey demonstrates in his book

Improvisation the lack of documentation about the theme. In this he perceives the

difficulty of writing with exactitude within the context of improvisation.

In conclusion, musicians argue that their proficiency is communicating ideas

musically, not literally. Beethoven alleges that his music was clear enough itself and it

did not need to be explained in words. He was afraid that his poetic ideas would be

misinterpreted as a mere description (cited in Blacking, 1995, p. 36). Considering

Beethoven's position, the creators are fulfilled with their music result; therefore they

avoid appending more information to the piece of music. Referring to the audience's

incomprehension, Stravinsky (1964) declares, "The trouble with music appreciation in

general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be

taught to love it instead". One could add that music is not made merely to be loved;

other sensations such as anxiety or discomfort also belong to the interpretation of

music, as well as its intellectual reading. However, presumably, Stravinsky means to

declare that enjoying or appreciating music itself is a cognitive process.

28

Conclusion

The dissertation aimed to establish that improvisation as a musical form stems

from the spontaneous urges of the composer and the responsibility for its

interpretation depends on the relationship between the audience and the composer.

Diverse interpretations of music were demonstrated by a range of composers.

And it was clear that sound is an elusive medium of communication and therefore its

readings vary extensively. Chapter one demonstrated that when listening to or

creating a musical composition it is common to use senses other than just hearing in

order to comprehend and to appreciate music. The diversity of music interpretation

and other artistic manifestations was further discussed in chapter four. It was seen that

the plurality of meaning about one object is a consequence of the inter-connectedness

of references and intentions created by the author. Roland Barthes suggests opening

the fields of knowledge and intersecting disciplines. An object cannot be rigidly seen

as only one, it accomplishes several points of view from the authors and,

consequently, echoes to the readers. For this reason, the explanation from its authors

and readers has an equivalent importance in order to evaluate an artwork.

The parallel between visual art and music drawn in chapter two demonstrated

the similarities between visual artists and composers towards the arts Establishment.

Despite their approaches differ both attitudes are controversial. Visual artists use

emblematic images in order to represent an idea, as Joseph Beuys shows in his

performance entitled How to explain pictures to a dead hare (1965). In comparison,

the 'free' musicians simply play and 'expect' the audience to comprehend the music

itself. The work of Hermeto Pascoal and Derek Bailey was analysed in order to

reinforce the spontaneous attitude of musicians. They improvise without concern

about the audience's comprehension and in live improvisation the authentic intention

of the performer is exposed. The refusal for explanations is showed in the context of

improvisation. Its stress is on the immediate moment rather than creating a work that

will last in history. As Derek Bailey reveals in his book Improvisation those

practitioners are not concerned in documenting their activity since the register does

not expose truthfully their experience.

29

Different perspectives for appraising an artwork were discussed in chapter

four, and it was shown that the understanding of a piece of music, text, film or visual

art, should not be objective. The hypothesis of the dissertation is that the

responsibility for musical interpretation lies in the relationship between the composer

and the audience and there are no conclusive answers. Italo Calvino strengthens this

subjectivity and emphasises the vagueness as a positive attribute, since it enriches and

opens the possibility of further discussions. Questions about an artwork are put to its

creator with the false impression that his answers will relieve the observers' doubts or

curiosity. As considered in chapter four, Beethoven was afraid that if he explained his

music, his poetic idea would be tarnished. Consequently, a new way of interpreting or

questioning music might be essential for any comprehension. As Ivan Vilela states:

"Art and science walk in opposite directions. Art doesn’t wish to explain anything, it

only wants to 'say' something, or to say nothing and simply 'be' " (Appendix IV).

30

Bibliography

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Adorno, T. W. (1998) Music and language: a fragment. In: Adorno, T. W. Quasi una

fantasia: essays on modern music. London: Verso

Adorno, T. W. (1999) New Music, interpretation, audience. In: Adorno, T. W. Sound

figures. Stanford California: Stanford University Press

Bailey, D. (1992) Improvisation: its nature and practice in music. Ashborune: Da

Capo Press

Barenboim, D. (2008) Everything is connected: the power of music. London:

Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Barthes, R. (1977) Image, music, text. London: Fontana Press

Blacking, J. (1995) Music, culture & experience: selected papers of John Blacking.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

Borer, A. (1996) The Essential Joseph Beuys. London: Thames and Hudson

Cage, J. (1961) Silence: lectures and writings by John Cage. Middletown: Wesleyan

University Press

Calvino, I. (1988) Six memos for the next millennium. USA: Estate of Italo Calvino

Carrol, N. (2001) Art, intention, and conversation. In Carrol, N. Beyond aesthetics:

philosophical essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Chanan, M. (1994) Musica practica: the social practice of western music from

Gregorian Chant to postmodernism. London: Verso

31

Friedman, K (1998) The Fluxus reader. West Sussex: Academy Editions

Handy, C. (1996) The search for meaning. London: Lemos & Crane

Kahn, D (2005) Ether ore: mining vibrations in American modernist music. In:

Erlmann, V. Hearing Cultures: essays on sound, listening and modernity. Oxford:

Berg Publishers

Kahn, D. (1999) The parameters of all sound. In: Kahn, D. Noise, water, meat: a

history of sound in the arts. London: MIT Press

Onions, C. T. (1966) The Oxford dictionary of English etymology. London: Oxford

University Press.

Pascoal, H. (2000) Calendário do som. São Paulo: Senac

Sontag, S. (1993) A Roland Barthes reader. London: Vintage

Trifonas, P. P. (2001) Barthes and the empire of signs. Cambridge: Icon Books Ltd.

Watson, B. (2004) Derek Bailey and the story of free improvisation. London: Verso

Wood, P. (2002) Conceptual Art. London: Tate Publishing

Web Sources

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September 1991. [Internet] Available from:

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32

Havlin, L. (2010) For the sake of the image. Dazed Digital [Internet] 01 March 2010.

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_Image> [Accessed 11 March 2010]

Kaiser, H. (1987) Audio interview with Derek Bailey. KPFA programme. Auckland,

NZ. [Internet] Available from: <http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/bailey_derek/Derek-

Bailey-Interview-by-Henry-Kaiser_KPFA_2-7-87.mp3> [Accessed 22 February

2010]

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operations. [Internet] March 1960 Available from:

<http://www.ubu.com/historical/young/> [Accessed 14 March 2010]

Morena, A. (2008a) Biography [internet] 2008 Available from:

<http://hermetopascoal.com.br/english/biografia.asp> [Accessed 11 March 2010]

Morena, A. (2008b) Principios da Musica Universal [internet] 30 September 2008

Available from: <http://hermetopascoal.com.br/img/partituras/00000413.jpg>

[Accessed 07 March 2010]

Morena, A. (2008c) Sound of Aura [internet] 2008 Available from:

<http://hermetopascoal.com.br/english/musicas.asp> [Accessed 11 March 2010]

Raël, L. (1983) The essential Rudhyar: an outline and an evocation. [Internet]

available from: < http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/ess/ess_25.shtml > [Accessed 17

February 2010]

Service, T. (2003). Shuffle and cut. The Guardian, 7 March. [Internet] available from:

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2003/mar/07/classicalmusicandopera.artsfeatures>

[Accessed 11 December 2009]

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[Internet] available from: < http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Igor_Stravinsky> [Accessed

11 December 2009]

33

Toop, D. (2006) Derek Bailey. The Wire [Internet] 06 February 2006. Issue 264.

Available from: <http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/42/> [Accessed 11 March 2010]

Transformer (1979) Documentary directed by John Halpern. USA: Mystic Fire

Video. [Internet] Available from:

<http://www.ubu.com/film/beuys_transformer.html> [Accessed 23 February 2010]

Young, L. Y. & Zazeela, M. (2004) Selected writings. [Internet] Ubuclassics.

Available from: <http://www.ubu.com/historical/young/> [Accessed 14 March 2010]

Articles

Birkett, R. & Eastman J. (2009) Limits and Freedom 2. In: Calling out of context.

Institute of Contemporary Arts. London 14-22 November 2009. London: ICA

Other Sources

Joseph Beuys and me (2005) Documentary directed by Martina Hall. London: BBC 4,

28 February 2005. [Video: VHS]

One who set forth: Wim Wenders' early years (2007) Documentary directed by

Marcel When. Germany: Baseline StudioSystems. [Video: DVD]

Picabia, F. (2008) Francis Picabia: la nourrice americaine England: LTM

Recordings [sound recording: CD]

Pioneers in Art and Science: Metzger (2004) Documentary directed by Ken

McMullen. U.K.: Pinnacle Vision. [Video: DVD]

Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie (2009) Film directed by

Thomas Riedelsheimer. UK: Signum Records [Video: DVD]

34

Appendix I (CD enclosed)

1. Carinhoso. Album: Música Livre de Hermeto Pascoal (1973). Hermeto Pascoal (6'39'')

2. Slave Mass. Album: Slave Mass (1977). Hermeto Pascoal (4'20'')

3. Quando as Aves se Encontram Nasce o Som. Samples: Sons da Aura (1984). Hermeto

Pascoal (1'39'')

4. Viagem. Album: Só Não Toca Quem Não Quer (1987). Hermeto Pascoal (4'28'')

5. What It Is. Album: Mirakle (2000). Derek Bailey (9'01'')

6. Frankly my Dear I Don't Give a Damn. Album: Standards (2007). Derek Bailey (9'40'')

Appendix II

Day 42, Hermeto Pascoal.

35

Appendix III

23 January 2010

Interview by e-mail with the composer Hermeto Pascoal

By Carina Levitan

Dear Hermeto,

I attended an unforgettable performance and marvellous speech you gave in

Diamantina- MG in 2000, which were incredibly influential on me. From that

moment on, I have been enjoying your unique way of seeing music: unique and yet

simple, broad and natural way of making and understanding music. You emboldened

me to study it and to spread those ideas… I want to thank you again for collaborating

with this interview and helping to further me in my search.

Well, I think I can start with this initial question that went through my head right now:

Is what I wrote before about your music the as same as you believe in?

Carina Levitan: The Principle of Universal Music is a broad and abstract way of

seeing music, which influences different understandings. Is this really the idea?

Hermeto Pascoal: That’s exactly it. People have the freedom of feeling Universal

Music, in their own way.

CL: The thing that surrounds my work is the issue of the difficulty musicians have in

explaining their own music because they believe that the message was already spoken

in 'musical form'. Do you agree? Do you agree that extra explanations are

unnecessary?

HP: I think that the more creative the music, the less necessary it becomes to

explain it because it takes away the opportunity of each one to have their own

ideas with respect to it.

CL: Are you able to handle naturally questions that are put to you about your music?

HP: I can, but often people ask me things that I don’t find interesting, then I

reply in a different way, which makes the person see what they could have asked

me.

36

CL: I believe that Universal Music and the Principles of Universal Music that you

wrote about on your website are very clear to me. However, I find many people with

difficulty in understanding. What do you think could be said or explained besides that

which was written? Can you find another way of explaining it?

HP: The principles that Aline described on the website represent the basis of my

work. Another explanation would follow the same precepts. But it is clear that

not everyone has the ability to perceive everything that is there. Perceiving it is

not about giving the same explanation. It is to feel in accord with your own

musicality and experience, just as you felt. You’re doing better than many

journalists out there. Pity that I don’t have a newspaper to hire you.

CL: Are you worried about the way in which the public understands Universal Music?

HP: I am only concerned that somebody might have a heart attack in one of the

shows because audience response is so overwhelming that it always amazes me.

CL: I’ve read a lot about playing 'free' or 'free music'. Would you make any

distinction between these and your own style of playing?

HP: My first Record in Brazil is called A Música Livre de Hermeto Pascoal (The

Free Music of Hermeto Pascoal) it being 'free music' in the sense of being

created with freedom in the harmony, in the rhythm, in the interpretation, in the

timbre. The term ‘free’ as you refer to has another intention: it means rather to

play without worrying about harmony, rhythm or melody. After going through

all that, what I do is called Universal Music.

CL: What is going through your head when you’re improvising on stage? Do you find

yourself thinking about yourself and searching for memories or references? Or do you

stay alert and in contact with whomever is playing with you?

HP: Things seek me out. It’s not me who seeks them. I am open to everything: to

intuition, to the musicians, to the audience...I am a vehicle and I don’t

premeditate anything.

CL: Is the process the same when you are practicing? Do you agree that while the

process may be the same, the tempo is different?

37

HP: There is the study of my instruments and the practice with my formations.

That is the apprenticeship, improvement and maintenance of technique. Even so,

during these study times, many themes arise and I end up composing and

recording it. When I’m going through some song with the duo, or with a big

band or with the Group, it is a way of structuring the music, listening to the

arrangement for the first time, and seeing the way in which how each musician

interprets with freedom.

CL: Do you practice with any type of score or notations?

HP: In the case of the duo no, because Aline knows all the songs by heart and I

go on building on it until, bit-by-bit, I end up learning the melodies. In the

group, whoever wants to read, reads and who doesn’t want to, doesn’t read.

Normally, as they memorize, they end up not using it any more.

CL: What is your music trying to communicate? Is there a standard pat answer or

does each song have its own language?

HP: For all the reasons I’ve explained, each one feels and interprets Universal

Music in their own way. Some people from the press have already wanted to

make this a Movement, which is very small for Universal Music. It’s not just a

fad. It is an infinite reality.

I am writing about the denial of explanations… Therefore, I would like to be perfectly

clear that for this investigation, any answer, but really, any answer, even denial of

answers will be welcome.

HP: I don’t deny anything I said. It’s what I really think. And when I don’t like

the majority of the questions I am asked, I simply don’t answer them.

Thank you!

Carina

38

Appendix IV

25 January 2010

Interview by e-mail with the composer and professor IVAN VILELA

By Carina Levitan

Dear Ivan,

(...)

Carina Levitan - As a musician, can you deal naturally with questions about your

music?

Ivan Vilela - Yes, it was from questions of a pupil that I was able to better

understand how and what my creative processes were and also formulate a

concept about intuition that I really believe is something loaded with knowledge.

We have always thought of intuition as something divine and innocent, but no,

intuition is loaded with knowledge that has been assimilated and when it comes

out, it comes out spontaneously for already being well outlined in the author’s

comprehension.

C.L. - As I’ve said before, I deal with the difficulty of the musician in explaining their

own music by believing that the message was already spoken in 'musical form'. Do

you believe that extra explanations are unnecessary?

I.V. - Carina, music I believe says something which is unspeakable. Speaking

further about music may be necessary if you want to understand rationally how

the creation is or was processed. Explanations run into danger of restricting the

unspeakable to words. We create other forms of expression, like art too, because

we realize that words are limited in the explanation of reality, whether it be real

or metaphysical.

C.L. - Do you feel at ease in explaining the meaning of your music to the listener?

I.V. - No, no way. I feel at ease explaining the creative process behind it if that is

what you are asking, but not the meaning of my music. Does music need to be

meaningful? I haven’t found any all-embracing explanation yet in semiotics for

the meaning of musical compositions.

39

I never imagined that my compositions might be meaningful. I really hope they

don’t, you see, the great thing about art is that it touches each one in a way as

each one allows themselves to be touched. Teillard de Chardin used to say that

“the eye that sees the world is the world that the eye sees”.

C.L. - Are you concerned about the way in which the public grasps the music you are

playing?

I.V. - Maybe it would please my vanity to know whether they like my music or

not. I never start out composing thinking about what this or that music will do or

mean. I always write music trying to express something that bothers me and

which it can’t be made explicit with words. My music composition professor at

university, Almeida Prado, used to say: “me do psychoanalytical therapy? Never.

If I understand my ghosts, I won’t be able to express them any more in my

music”.

I understand Almeida. If we give names to the unspeakable, if we explain the

unexplainable, we won’t need to express them any more in another form.

Art and science walk in opposite directions. Art doesn’t wish to explain anything,

it only wants to “say” something, or to say nothing and simply “be”.

C.L. - As a listener, do you ever remember any time where you were listening to

something that you didn’t understand? Do you ever remember wanting to ask what a

particular piece of music was trying to communicate?

I.V. - No, I remember listening to contemporary music and not understanding it,

but enjoying or not the sensations it was giving me. I listen and understand today

and find that it’s lost a little of its grace. When I was a boy, I used to listen to

Hermeto’s recording of the Missa dos Escravos (Slave Mass) and Gismonti’s

Dança das Cabeças (Dance of the Heads) and I would go crazy trying to imagine

how anyone could write something so complex. Today I listen and I see and I

understand this complexity in a clearer and more explicit way.

I never asked what the music meant, perhaps to where the writer might have

wished to arrive at.

C.L. - Do you believe that understanding music is easier by being a musician? Or

rather, can you understand it better as compared to someone who doesn’t play?

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I.V. - Yes, in the same way that I can look at a picture and I can feel something

without understanding it. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don’t. The ordinary

man on the street can feel instrumental music as well as I can feel the visual arts,

don’t you think?

C.L. - And as teacher, have you come across at any time any moment where you

weren’t able to explain to the student the meaning/sense of a piece of music? Has this

type of approach ever occurred in class?

I.V. - I don’t remember. This last year, I taught a course on the history of MPB

(Brazilian Pop Music) and doubts arose in students about implications of music

in the existing socio-political and economic-cultural reality of the period in which

the songs were launched. Because a song has lyrics and these lyrics can create a

narrative, right there, we find meanings and significance in the historical

context. Note that the whole course was underlain historically in a way that we

might understand the MPB as another way of narrating reality, at times the only

one, as in the period of the dictatorship and censorship of the dark years.

C.L. - Do you believe that each student requires a different learning method?

I.V. - Yes, mainly when something very specific like an instrument is taught.

Methodology has behind it the word culture. When we come up with a method, it

is designed for somebody to study it and this somebody can come from various

places, cultural levels, values etc.

Unfortunately, what we try to do is we bring uniformity to the average student.

At the same time in which it is good to have only one student to teach them

everything, a group of students makes knowledge flow more. I never have all

knowledge in any of my classes. I am always questioned and at times I am

wrong. When a question comes up, we all go home and during the week we

research all the doubts that have arisen, and so together we build knowledge.

The student’s appreciation is greater and the taste sensation is different. The

Portuguese words for knowledge (saber) and taste (sabor) are derived from the

same root. Knowledge learned with taste becomes unforgettable, it is playful.

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C.L - I can recall how in the documentary Violeiros do Brasil (Brazilian Violists), you

comment that rather than selling your soul to the devil you preferred to study. Do you

believe that you made the right choice?

I.V. - Without a shadow of a doubt. No genius exists without an oeuvre and no

oeuvre exists without work, although I may be a very long way from being called

genius. In conclusion, I’m going on working.

C.L. - Hermeto Pascoal calls his music and his way of playing Universal Music, do

you believe that there really is such a thing as 'universal music'? Or rather, could we

call 'universal music' music which is played all over the world, even in different

styles? Or is it only that music which Hermeto plays to be called Universal Music?

I.V - “Universal is the singer who sings his village”, Maiakovski used to say.

Feelings of the human soul are the same for any people. The way of expressing

them will be coloured by the culture of each people group. Thus, when someone

sings, their human feelings will touch the soul of others who also feel. Aren’t

feelings of love, anger, jealousy, hatred, compassion, joy, power the same for all

mankind?

Carina Levitan - I’d like to be perfectly clear that my point in this interview is,

precisely, my belief that words will never be adequate enough to explain what music

is capable of communicating. Do you agree with this statement?

Ivan Vilela - Totally, Carina. We are one in this thought.

Thank you again!

Carina

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Carina Levitan 2010

Improvisation as subjective expression: an exploration. By Carina Levitan is licensed

under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

License.