Words without Discourse: Creative Strategies on Free Improvisation.
Manuel Falleiros
1.1 Flow
Derek Bailey (1993) sought to conceptualize Free Improvisation by identifying the distinctive elements that differentiate various modalities of improvisation, based on aspects of their practices related to disparate cultures, eras, and geographies. In his endeavor to establish a distinct field for Free Improvisation, Bailey highlights the differences between the common-sense understanding of improvisation in general and the practical execution by the improviser.
Thus, by juxtaposing various improvisational practices—such as the diverse forms of improvisation among Eastern peoples, jazz, flamenco, and the Baroque period, among others—Bailey seeks to extract the commonalities shared across these different practices. However, each improvisational practice also asserts its own specificities. Distinct modalities can sometimes present actions so disparate from one another that it becomes difficult to categorically justify why both might be classified as improvisation. A jazz improvisation, such as a bebop in the style of American saxophonist Charlie Parker (with its intricate rules and rigid clichés subjected to a vertiginous pulse), can be vastly distant, in terms of practical elements, when compared to an ethereal, fantastical, and inventive proposition like Aus den Sieben Tagen by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (which requires the interpretation of a poetic text and its musical “translation” [1]). Here, we are not merely comparing the differences in the sonic outcome, but rather the creative processes and practices of these modalities.
In Free Improvisation, there is no prerequisite ideal of technique or theoretical understanding required to perform an improvisation—a fact not observed in the two examples cited above, as each possesses its own specific requirements for execution. Free Improvisation is an autonomous practice, and perhaps this is the very freedom its name proclaims. This implies that the improviser does not require “authorizations” or highly specialized knowledge to engage in creative action. This becomes evident when contrasted with idiomatic improvisation, which demands highly specific training and delineates strict stylistic rules, or with compositional improvisation proposals, in which the improviser is subjected to the “suggestions” of the composer. However, this does not mean that, in Free Improvisation, the improviser requires “nothing” to be creative, nor that creativity can occur purely spontaneously.
The creative process is a complex phenomenon involving determined and contingent elements, memories and images, volitions and affects, and stimuli; it requires both directed experiments and serendipity, all synthesized through a specific skill. Regardless of the individual’s level of technical or intellectual development, anyone who undertakes Free Improvisation utilizes the maximum extent of their faculties when creating music, a fact verifiable in both examples cited previously.
Improvisation—and this fact does not differ significantly in the case of Free Improvisation—fundamentally requires a specific state of readiness. This readiness is constituted by the most attentive listening possible on the part of the improviser, coupled with a controlled action aimed at concretely realizing the sonic image on their instrument, such that there is no discernible difference between thinking and playing. However, this description could equally apply to the practice of a soloist performing with an orchestra: the soloist must remain attentive to the sounds of other instruments and strive to execute the memorized music as closely as possible to the ideal presented in their mind. The difference, in this case, lies in memory. However, this memory does not refer to a recollection of the past (such as the soloist’s hours of practice in their room), but rather to a plan. Thus, we can say that this memory constitutes the knowledge of a plan that delineates future action: a map indicating the direction, quantity, and destination of the steps to be taken.
The soloist performing with an orchestra will react and interact differently: they do not create a new discourse. Their objective is to re-present a predetermined discourse. The improviser, conversely, does not condition their action based on an external proposition, but rather on a negotiation. It may happen that the improviser decides what to play moments or even months in advance, but the crucial difference is that the improviser themselves is proposing the music. Thus, they are not a mere “franchisee,” but rather embody simultaneously the proposer and the executor of the music. The soloist knows that another musician will not interact with their cadenza, even if the latter feels inspired to create. The possibility of creative negotiation is closed off by the documentary determinations of the composition; interlocution is abolished by prescriptive limits and the absence of the composer’s living presence (who might otherwise recompose alongside the inspired musician), and is instead restricted by the legacy document.
It fell to the avant-garde, around the 1960s, to highlight these limits. The figure of composer John Cage was emblematic in this regard. His critique of power relations served as an invitation to the instrumentalist to react beyond mere execution and to contribute to the creation of music through improvisation. Creation, however, should not be immediately equated with improvisation, just as an extreme interpretation of a work does not necessarily constitute a new work. Canadian composer John Oswald provides a curious example that illustrates this boundary. In his sound collage album Plunderphonics [2], he presents a “version” based on the prestigious recording of the Aria from J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations by pianist Glenn Gould. With appropriate justification, Oswald’s music could be considered both a version (albeit a purposefully radical one) and a new creation (under an aesthetic of recycling or collage). However, it would be difficult to find arguments to classify it as an improvisation.
This is because, in music, the term improvisation corresponds to direct contact with sound production at the very moment of musical creation. Creation in the present moment, without temporal mediation, is an indispensable characteristic of improvisation, regardless of its modality. The improviser must be alone or with other improvisers, creating in the moment, not for a later time. This characteristic condition of improvisation finds an even more radical expression in the advent of Free Improvisation regarding the instant, as the improviser deals with the sounds they create and hear in the present moment, actively resisting submission to formulas and clichés. Gradually, we see a field being delineated by its elements: readiness for action, the absence of a plan, the pushing of certain skills to their limits, direct sonic action, creative autonomy, and creation realized in the present moment.
These characteristics refer to a practice that, in our search for clarification, we will relate—applying the necessary caveats—to the ideas Roland Barthes presents in his text “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers, and Other Essays” (Écrivains, intellectuels, professeurs). In this text, Barthes addresses how speech is processed and its condition of being uncorrectable and unplanned:
“Speech is irreversible; that is to say, we cannot correct a word unless we state precisely that we are correcting it. Here, to cross out is to add; if I wish to erase what I have just stated, I can only do so by showing the eraser itself (I must say: ‘or rather…’, ‘I expressed myself poorly…’); paradoxically, it is speech, ephemeral though it is, that is indestructible. Speech can only add to speech.” (Barthes, 1975, p. 26).
Improvisation shares these characteristics with the speech described by Barthes. Unlike written text, speech, much like improvisation, possesses the quality of irreversibility: it reveals its ingenuity only from the present moment onward. Unlike other musical practices, in which the whole is conceived to organize the parts, improvisation assembles its moments and can only present itself as a whole once its indeterminate development concludes. In this continuous, fluid construction devoid of inorganic blocks, improvisation does not allow an improviser, in a state of regret, to retake what was played within the moment of creation, but only to encompass a deviation into another movement.
This indication of continuity beyond the expected and through the unexpected establishes the concept of play (or game) in Free Improvisation. As Rogério Costa argues in his thesis, Free Improvisation relates to the concept of the “ideal game” proposed by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze: “an ideal game in which what matters is the continuity of the game itself” (Costa, 2009).
“Thus, it seems that the ideal game is the playing itself, in which rules have not yet been formalized. It is, in Deleuze’s words, a primordial ritornello of territorialization prior to territorialization itself. In these terms, this appears to us to be the difference between idiomatic improvisation (a game with rules) and our proposal of non-idiomatic improvisation (an ideal game)” (Costa, 2009, p. 54).
Play is mimesis, functioning as a symbolic creation of an intuited, unverifiable reality, composed of the tensile forces that arise from human escapism in the face of the unpredictable behaviors of things. The rules of the game constitute a set of procedures that not only allow these behaviors to emerge but also provide pathways for escape with multiple solutions, guaranteed only by their correct application, which pertains as much to choice as it does to timing. Thus, “playing the game” is verified in the flow maintained by an alternating engine: the confluence toward an escape solution, apparent only in the present moment, and the revelation of these same unpredictable behaviors when resolutions are provided in the face of escapism.
The discernment regarding the precise moment to apply an escape solution in the face of unexpected behavior is what guarantees the momentary overcoming of a presented condition, thereby keeping the game “playable” within the group. Thus, there is no repair or blockage regarding the unexpected behaviors of things, precisely because their ontological quality does not permit it. Instead, there is escape, the breach, the opportunity, the deviation, the unexpected upon the unexpected: a rapid, deviant, and disruptive action that nullifies the direction of the unexpected behavior before it is fully finalized and constituted, thereby encompassing this behavior within the action of the other player. This is what we call a “move” (jogada). It only exists if the continuous flow of encompassing actions is sustained by the persistence of conditions that allow the emergence of the unforeseen. The solidification of unexpected behaviors paralyzes the game, just as the denial of their existence does.
In Free Improvisation, establishing articulations through play that foster continuity is a prerequisite for the very realization of improvisation. What characterizes play is flow, the idea of continuity. In play, as in the flow of speech, everything is apparent: there can be no overlaps that hierarchize other actions, but only the cunning to encompass, to agglutinate one moment into the next, thereby creating an idea of continuity through the rhythm of what we refer to as the speed dictated by the articulation from one element to another.
“We can only make ourselves understood (well or poorly) if we maintain a certain speed of enunciation when speaking. We are like a cyclist or a film condemned to move, to proceed if we do not wish to fall or get stuck: silence or hesitation in speech are equally forbidden to me: articulatory speed subjects every point of the sentence to what immediately precedes or follows it […]” (Barthes, 1975, pp. 26–27).
Free Improvisation is also “condemned” to always move forward. The speed at which events occur, serving as a descriptor of the property of continuity, is also what prevents an improvisation from becoming stuck in non-development. Calvino (1990) also highlights the importance of flow and continuity, recounting a tale by Boccaccio in which one of the lords among a group of ladies and gentlemen proposes to tell a story during a walk in the countryside. He extends the invitation to the story by stating that along the way, he could “carry us on horseback through one of the most beautiful stories in the world” (Calvino, 1990, p. 52). However, throughout his narrative, the lord continues to stutter and repeat words, mix up facts and characters, correct what he has already said, and mispronounce names. The narrative mishap is so severe that the group feels profound distress:
“Whereupon Lady Oretta, upon hearing him, felt time and again a cold sweat and a faintness of heart, as if she were sick unto death; and, unable to bear it much longer, knowing that the gentleman had entered a thicket from which he would never extricate himself, she courteously said to him: ‘My dear sir, your horse has a rather poor trot, so I beg you to let me dismount and go on foot’” (Calvino, 1990, p. 52).
What is reflected here is an issue that pertains neither to the logic of the story being told nor to its message. The narrator’s flaw, which causes such distress to the listeners, lies in disrupting the rhythm of enunciation; that is, failing to establish a flow through the articulation of elements, which ultimately fails to generate a sensation of continuity or fluidity. Thus, even young children, who do not yet possess an accurate vocabulary or a strong intuition for grammatical rules, remain attentive to reproducing the same rhythmic flow of speech as the adults around them.
For Free Improvisation, the flow established by the articulation of sonic elements, driven by the interactions between musicians, is fundamental. This property of continuity does not aim for perfection in the transmission of content in syntactic and semantic terms, but rather serves as a condition for establishing play and articulations; that is, sonority cadenced by itself. In idiomatic improvisation, which presents more established formulas, the establishment of flow is deeply embedded in its practices and rules. In Free Improvisation, where there are no predefined rules to orchestrate actions that initiate and maintain flow, the articulation provided by play and, consequently, the idea of continuity, are elements that the improviser must conceive.
In idiomatic improvisation, the rules themselves act as the trigger for flow and continuity, as these actions are anticipated within their formulas. However, to achieve this, idiomatic improvisation always departs from, refers to, and evokes its own rules, thereby performing a kind of meta-improvisation:
“Let us consider the communicative dimensions of idiomatic improvisation: within it, there is a dominant level of signification resulting from a process of collective enunciation, alongside a level of subjectivation. Thus, idiomatic improvisation occurs within a context of redundancy that refers to language (grammaticality) and, therefore, to intersubjectivity, as well as a level of resonance where subjectivities (or ‘indisciplines’) emerge” (Costa, 2009, p. 38).
This aspect of duality, positioned between rule and its deviations, cannot be indiscriminately applied to every modality of improvisation. In Free Improvisation, there is no right or wrong regarding rules; rather, there is flow achieved through interaction via listening, or else a complete lack of element concatenation: a sort of “listen or die” scenario. Thus, the notion that there are no rules in Free Improvisation cannot be considered in such absolute terms. While it certainly lacks the same formulas and procedures as other modalities of improvisation, one can outline specific modes of operation that characterize Free Improvisation. Often, idiomatic improvisation presents itself with a rigid formulation that conditions the improviser, severely reducing, at least initially, other forms of articulation.
“Generally, the stereotype is sad, because it is constituted by a necrosis of language […]. And then, it is to stand apart from the mechanistic reasoning that reduces language to a simple response to situational or action stimuli; it is to oppose the production of language to its simple and deceptive use […]. The stereotype is, at its core, an opportunism: it conforms to the reigning language […]” (Barthes, 1975, pp. 37–38).
Bebop, as the reigning language of jazz improvisation, acts as the improviser’s insurance policy. The prodigy of this modality lies in its ability to present itself in any situation, always “tailor-made”: it can transition from classical to free while wearing the same “garment,” virtuously remaining always appropriate. However, this condition stems from rigid discipline and oriented observation of actions: the language of bebop is fully established and cataloged, and to utilize it, one must submit to its rules. It is clear that we are establishing a hypothetical framework here, as it is possible to observe artists who consistently transcend these rules and concepts.
This “opportunism,” to which Barthes refers, may appear innocuous when faced with Free Improvisation. Within it, rules are incapable of establishing flow, because in Free Improvisation, flow is established by the very interaction between participants and their desire to create music. Interaction does not occur through hyperstructures, but rather through minimal common elements: in this case, sound itself. “Opportunism” does not take hold because Free Improvisation constantly welcomes, encompasses, and “anthropophagizes” sounds within its play.
Barthes presents us with the “necrosis” of constructions: speech that does not invent itself, that merely repeats a discourse, is dead. However, this should not lead us to believe that creation in Free Improvisation is devoid of rules or requires no prior preparation that could constitute a construction. Just as in idiomatic improvisation, it is possible to delineate the modes of operation in Free Improvisation. The difference lies in the fact that, in Free Improvisation, the musician constructs a kind of atelier, uncommitted to the format of the final result; whereas in idiomatic improvisation, the construction of skills and acquisition of content is objective and aimed at an ideal outcome.
Within the construction of this atelier, the steps and moves required to establish interactions—which are so crucial to maintaining flow—are also anticipated. To achieve this, improvisers must distance themselves from manipulative or polarizing actions. A melody can be polarizing, as can a harmonic cadence, because they direct listening toward a predetermined path that presents an established way of interacting with them. There is a law to which the improviser will tend to either submit or deny. Utilizing Barthes’s (1975) concept of speech, interlocutors must be benevolent. However, we will defer this analysis for now, as it is first necessary to present the aspect of interaction in Free Improvisation.
The process of interaction between improvisers occurs through an inherent physicality: the presence of the body and the instrument. This idea can be understood as the sensation of an urgency, a need embodied in sounds. When improvisation is collective, the improviser also generates sounds with the intention of provoking an alteration in the sonic flow. This alteration is often achieved by presenting ideas to other improvisers and seeking to suggest them, thereby obtaining a sonic result indirectly.
“Proficiency for an improviser must include the musician’s ability to react to an auditory stimulus and contribute their own ideas and sounds, considering the complex range of possibilities presented by the group of musicians and instruments. The experienced improviser generally performs musical gestures with the intention of directing the outcome of the musical performance by altering the sonic texture and suggesting actions to other members” (Burrows, 2004, p. 8, our translation).
In this process of listening and sonic action, wherein participants find themselves in a state receptive to suggestions and influences, it becomes necessary to dismantle polarizing hierarchies. In idiomatic improvisation, conversely, the improviser who manages to approximate the ideal model more closely would orchestrate more interactions. The same game of proposing ideas, absorbing the interlocutor’s idea, stimulating it, mitigating it, or reversing its meaning, gives us a sense of the proximity between the interactive play in Free Improvisation and conversation. For Costa,
“conversation—which can also be conceived as a kind of game—generally occurs in a non-hierarchical, non-deterministic, and non-dualistic manner, presupposing two interconnected, simultaneous, yet distinct moments: the moment of thought (considered here as a line of force), which is internalized, and the moment of expression, wherein interaction takes place. Here, language particularizes the content of thought. In improvisation, everything unfolds like a conversation in which various subjects emerge depending on the improvisation script or the mode of play that has been created, and at the mercy of constant acts of relating among various elements and components. It is a highly complex and diversified agency. A network of relationships, a cartography, a geography drawn by two or more hands within a plane. In a process of this nature, the integral engagement of individuals potentiates the process. Similarly, a conversation unfolds in a more instigating, profitable, and fecund manner—it is successful—the more interested and committed the ‘conversers’ are. Interest and commitment depend on there being ‘success’ in the conversation. This success is defined to the extent that the action/intervention of each participant in the conversation/performance becomes a significant force within the general fabric of the conversation: establishing exchanges, influencing, undergoing, and causing transformations within this fabric” (Costa, 2009, pp. 55–56).
For Barthes (1975, p. 58), a gathering of interlocutors cannot be entirely devoid of certain aggressivities in speech, but it should be permeated by benevolence. According to this author, the first violence would be a cultural lie: “courtesy,” that is, the mythification arising from a space devoid of differences that purports to allow dialogue between equals. However, we know that true equals do not exist, not even in a Free Improvisation session; rather, what exists is the establishment of a state of equals. The second would be conflictive speech, which suggests a desire for de-oppression; here, the very freedom contained in the name could be used to trigger such an intention. The third would be polemics, generated by the fragmentation of discourse that brings contradictions to the surface; an improviser may question the meaning of their freedom, given that they are bound to their musical biography. It would be simple to extend this exemplification of violence to an improvisation session. Although they do not explain much about the flow process, we can understand Barthes’s space of benevolence as a distancing from two discourses the author considers violent: the terrorist and the repressive.
The terrorist discourse, according to Barthes, is the field of stereotypes wherein one can enforce the power of myths, “this odor of seriousness that rises from the commonplace” (1975, p. 42). Various viewpoints on improvisation can be aligned with this statement; however, the one that interests us is what we shall term “distorted heritage” and its effects on the establishment of flow in Free Improvisation.
What we call distorted heritage is the common-sense understanding of the aesthetics of the mid-20th-century artistic avant-gardes. This superficial idea generally conditions perception and, consequently, action as well. In our practical experiences at various moments, we noticed that, even among those who already possessed some experience in improvisation, the idea of freedom in the artistic field was mechanically related to this avant-garde-associated common sense. Up to a point, it is possible to understand why this relationship is established, given that the concept of freedom was so prevalent in the discourses of that era. However, it may seem naive to transpose aspects and concepts from different eras without seeking to understand each specific context. And certainly, the context of the “revolutionary avant-garde,” which has transformed into a cliché—or at least, what has been gathered in the present to reference it—is, in many aspects, already quite distant from the postmodern world in which we live.
The last century was the scene of two world wars and a harbinger of a third, the Cold War, which dictated the division of the world into antagonistic stances. The figures of freedom and revolution were vividly stamped into history through their various examples within the collective imaginary of an era. The avant-garde currents in the arts were formed by individuals immersed in this environment of oppression and instability; their artistic endeavors could not be disconnected from this context. Observing the production of an era and immediately framing it by the historical events that the present has elected as most significant can foster a shallow and stereotyped perception.
This is a discourse considered terrorist by Barthes, or at the very least, it resembles schizophrenic or misinformed thought. In various improvisation sessions we observed, the climate of “breaking the rules” was recurrent across the most varied manifestations. Aggressive timbres, lack of listening, noise, purposeful and aimless departure from technique beyond aggression itself—in short, all manner of primitive actions. This also occurred in the forms of interaction, wherein appearing aggressive and chaotic seemed more important than establishing articulation, listening, and attention. The improvisers were reproducing what, according to the common-sense imaginary, could be related to freedom: expressiveness, atonality [3], protest, revolution, rule-breaking, and a lack of content. Thus, action is not taken into account as the focus of the process; rather, a stereotyped representation is desired. This is an expression that proves itself decontextualized, a terrorist discourse that inhibits tranquil speech and benevolence, and thereby the articulation afforded by interaction between interlocutors. Here, we notice only slogans in a diffuse chorus.
The repressive discourse, for Barthes, is the discourse of the Law. It can manifest in a way that does not bring apparent violence, unlike the case of terrorism. The discourse relative to the Law even suggests an invitation to actions that reestablish balance: “a balance is postulated between what is forbidden and what is permitted, between the recommendable meaning and the improper meaning […]” (Barthes, 1975, p. 52). The highly proficient improviser in a specific idiom remains in a state of constant vigilance. This vigilance is characteristic of the violence of the Law. It is clear that idiomatic improvisation can utilize this discourse of Law to establish its boundaries. However, this does not seem to preclude the flow of interlocution; rather, the issue is that the Law does not preclude flow, but freezes it in a circle upon itself. Free Improvisation, conversely, does not project flow; it is a direct action.
The solution pointed out by Barthes for this difficult task of avoiding violence is not to combat or deny these forces, but rather to disorient such discourses. The author suggests that all forces are present; however, consciousness of them can help chart a path that does not venture down these trails, but which, given the inevitability of proceeding, may avoid naively immersing itself in the game of discourses: “everything is there, but let it float” (Barthes, 1975, p. 61). This floating relates to our practical proposal in Free Improvisation. In this proposal, the negation of idioms that may form part of each improviser’s musical biography does not need to be policed or vetoed. Floating over what is predicted is also a refusal to submit readily; it is a deviation. Floating allows an improviser to avoid being detained by violence and laws, thus allowing branching interactions to continue articulating their elements.
Initiating and maintaining flow through the articulation of elements is the sine qua non condition of Free Improvisation. This flowing designates a specific practice, as we have presented, but it also finds a complementary meaning related to the desire to improvise and to continue improvising. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [4] presents a theory he termed “Flow,” wherein he argues that a person engages in an activity and sustains it for pleasure if it presents an optimal balance that challenges their capacities and skills.
“‘Flow’ tends to occur when a person’s skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable. […] If challenges are too high, one may become frustrated, then worried, and eventually anxious. If challenges are much lower relative to a person’s skill, they will become relaxed, and then bored. But when high challenges combine with high skills, it is likely that the profound involvement that flow provides beyond ordinary life will occur” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997, p. 30, our translation).
Despite the different connotations between sonic flow and Csikszentmihalyi’s flow, we know that what leads an improviser to engage in Free Improvisation is the knowledge that they will face an unknown challenge, upon which they must formulate solutions and propose ideas without the guarantee of the pre-conceived solutions found in idiomatic improvisation. The flow encountered in each type of activity can be entirely different because it involves distinct refined skills. A skilled idiomatic improviser may feel bored or anxious in a free improvisation session, wherein their most refined skills for idiomatic improvisation will not be utilized. Similarly, an idiomatic improviser fully skilled in a specific language may no longer find a challenge to their capacities within this activity, rendering the task of idiomatic improvisation tedious. It is not difficult to find examples of this, such as the American saxophonist John Coltrane, who, after mastering the ability to melodically outline chords and cadences at great speed and in all manner of circumstances and variations (a major challenge of the bebop style), set out in search of a freer style of improvisation that would challenge him in other skills. The desire to engage in an activity of one kind or another can, therefore, be related to this fine balance between the challenges presented and the skills required.
To find this flow in Free Improvisation, it is necessary, above all, to be engaged in listening. However, listening also reveals its limits. Listening in Free Improvisation does not occur solely on the plane of analytical listening, in the sense of observing the morphological qualities of sound. Listening also involves a field of intentions and interactions among improvisers, and none of this translates into exactness or unequivocalness. The perception and interpretation of sonorities, despite certain conventions and agreements being stipulated within a Free Improvisation group, remain susceptible to multiple forms of understanding. Thus, it is possible that an improviser does not find flow merely through listening to direct their action, but also by projecting their ideas to others, in order to construct an environment wherein their skills can reach their peak.
What makes Free Improvisation an activity capable of generating interest, and therefore flow, is the fact that we are potentially liberated to deploy a high level of challenge and utilize skills to their extreme, such as the immediate need to create sonorities that have not been studied throughout an improviser’s musical history. It is possible to find flow in other musical activities, such as, for example, in Choro: technical skill, melodic memory, interaction with other musicians, and the limits of variation between improvisation and melody recognition can be highly challenging for a musician. The difference is that the musician is not proposing these challenges to themselves, but rather accepting the challenges of a tradition.
In Free Improvisation, this flow occurs through an activity we can consider creative, which we indeed classify as such because it depends on a creative process. The creative process for Free Improvisation, as we experienced it in the present work, involves the construction of an environment, an atelier. It is within this atelier that improvisers will experiment, gather information, conduct testing, expand their skills, explore interaction, and assemble a series of skills and procedures to perform an improvisation. Play, conversations, and modes of interaction are equally tools of this creative process. By placing elements in exchange and transit, flow is constituted.
In our work, we seek to understand how to utilize certain strategies that could promote creative actions, thereby allowing this flow. Among these experimented strategies, we focus on the use of the word as a means to create challenges in order to engage improvisers, prompting them to present new responses to the same model of creation. The word was experimented with the intent of avoiding the stagnation of certain procedures. This intrusion of the word into the Free Improvisation process ultimately created a need to orchestrate new elements in distinct ways; it also promoted a deviation from known and stagnant actions, avoiding the recurrence of the same play, the emergence of laws, or reliance solely on stereotypes or formulas. Thus, this strategy of the word led the improvisers to a state of flow and floating within their creative process.
Notes
1. We will see later that the complexity of the proposals holds greater details. For the moment, the comparison is sufficient.
2. The album is available for free download at: http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xnotes.html#plunderphonic (Accessed in March 2009).
3. It is worth mentioning here an encounter with a music student from the Pedagogical and Technological University of Tunja (UPTC) in Colombia, where we gave a lecture. In an improvisation session, the student could only understand that if a piece of music could not be analyzed by the rules of the tonal system, then it must fatally be considered atonal; thus, he concluded that Free Improvisation could be nothing other than atonal music.
4. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a professor of psychology at Claremont Graduate University and the author of books on creativity.