Taking Sides: Composition vs Improvisation

Why do I have to pick? Best stuff is always a combination of planning and happy accident -- overdetermined, no less.

I generally don't like recordings of improvisations. I think they are better live, where I get to see it happen.

theoretically- improvisation. It most approaches the democratic ideal in terms of artistic input. practically- composition. Composition is much better for a pop tune, how many John Zorn tunes can you hum?

They both have their place, of course. They say that improvisation is spontaneous composition, but I've always preferred to think of composition as slow-motion improvising.

Improvising also has the potential to include more people at once (and hence more possibilities?).

Generally, composition.

there is a lot of supergood improvised music around these days that made me fall in love again with this practice , i'm referring in particular to "intimate"improvisers such as mats gustaffson taku sugimoto nakamura etc.. etc... cuz I think that european politically oriented improvisation had reached a dead end with all those boring festivals where everyone knows what all the others are going to do next..... tyler :zorn has a lot of written music difficult to hum : )

i was thinking of the zorn/frith album in particular. boy, that's a great album.

Feel free also to discuss Cage's contention that improvisation is never really free and ego-less since it relies too heavily on the improviser's own background/knowledge/habits/tastes/... and Frith's response that free improvisers perform a head-cleaning process similar in effect to what Cage tried to do in his compositions. And whether this is even important, whether an ego-less music is worth striving for.

What I always wonder is how you know if a piece of music is improvised or composed. Do you just guess based on typical characteristics of each? My gut feeling is that whether or not a piece is improvised is the performer's business and not mine. Sometimes I think musicians say "This was improvised" so that listeners will apply a more forgiving standard to the end result. We don't expect improvisations to be as tuneful or engaging as careful, studied composition.

There are some very impressive examples of composition masquerading as improvisation. Steve Howe's solo in the middle of Yes' "Sound Chaser", so sloppy- and amorphous-sounding, is actually deliberately and tightly composed. Also Crimson's "Fracture" (the basic part right before they break into the climactic ending)--sounds so loose and similar to their actual improvisational material at the time, that you can't tell the difference.

I think there's something to be said in Keith Emerson's saying that there should be some "landmarks," generally, in a song that the audience can identify, or else one runs the risk of losing them (and maybe their interest) quite rapidly. You can still have these in largely improv'd material.

What I like about improvisation is that it often (when done well) brings out the characteristics of the performer (even more than compositions), I wouldn't nessicarilly want the pieces to be ego- less. And also it's sudden music, and the bad effects of over- analyse are not present.

And also I have a comment about Cage. I like his works, because they are examples of music that is not as good because it is too pure. I think music is better with some impurities in it.

This is a big subject, that only a mid-term thesis would probably do justice to. However...

It's important to remember that even within composed pieces of music there is scope for interpretation, notably playing about with tempi, but also sometimes with instrumentation (e.g. the whole 'authentic' movement in baroque and early classical interpretations vs. the trad. symphony orchestra). And, to state the obvious, most jazz starts from a basic theme/chord progression around which improvised solos are then performed. So it's not black and white (but you knew that).

If you are asking about 'free' improvisation with no score at all vs. composed music, then I instinctively would prefer the former, since it is more likely to get to new sonic combinations. Composed music is more likely to 'play safe' by sticking to the tried and tested. On the other hand, from an aesthetic viewpoint free improv more often ends in failure than success - as I know from having done it a lot in my youth. You pays your money...

I generally don't like recordings of improvisations
There is a POV that says free improv can only exist in the moment. But recording it and subjecting it to repeated playback is interesting in itself, because its character changes. It is no longer improvised, in a sense. Through precise repetition, it becomes "composed", a sound source that can inspire other compositions.

Finally, to bring the subject around to pop, as I always like to do: a lot of the best pop records derive from improvisation - using the recording studio as an instrument, fucking about with sounds - taking a basic musical idea and manipulating the timbres or frequencies or juxtaposing composed passages in different ways, then using what works, ditching what doesn't.

I have a pony. His name is Tickle.

John's recent thread on Free Jazz made me think of this one & that my question was never answered...so, as a listener, why do I need to know whether a piece of music is improvised?

You don't unless you're interested, as a listener, as how the music was made. Composition and improvisation are just two forms of process, after all.

Maybe it's something like knowing if you are witnessing a real conversation or watching My Dinner With Andre.

also, this:

Sometimes I think musicians say "This was improvised" so that listeners will apply a more forgiving standard to the end result. We don't expect improvisations to be as tuneful or engaging as careful, studied composition.

is completely disingenuous.

Well, my reference for this is not music but dance. My wife is a choreographer & I go to concerts w/ her & sometimes the program mentions that a specific piece is improvised. She & I got into a discussion about this (Why does the choreographer tell us?), and I wonderd if perhaps it was mentioned on the program so that the audience might have a different experience. And it seemed at least possible that sometimes performers wanted the audience to be more forgiving. Same w/ Groundlings & improv comedy -- "It wasn't really that funny" counterd with "Well, it was improvised."

ppl who haven't heard abt improvised music before and then go to it without knowing much abt it are more willing to accept failure than when dealing with other branches of experimental type musics.

I can only imagine Mr. Keith Rowe saying "I'm improvising this piece on guitar, so if it sucks like, yo, it's cool and all, y'all can just be kinda condescending about it later."

That's so ridiculous.

yeah I know. he's never say something like that...and I don't think he's evah use 'yo' in a sentece, too.

Well, of course not, that's a joke, yo.

I think that most of the time (although I can't speak to dance or comedy since I'm not as familiar with their programmatic traditions but then again this isn't I Love Dance or I Love Music either) musicians let the audience know when the music is improvised to let them in on the process, not so they can just go "oh, well that's nice" when it's a dud.

Not all improvised music (or composed music with elements of improvisation, 'cause hey it's not always one or the other) is non-melodic, either. I mean, hey what is free jazz then? Does anybody really think they can't hum Ayler? 'Cause I sure can.

Different modes of listening. Listening to improv can be like watching an instant message conversation as opposed to reading a book or an article. You're paying attention to things happening real-time, how people react, trade ideas with each other, and develop them. It's less about lax standards when listening and more about being rewarding in different ways than fully composed music.

oh yeah, it is I Love Music, just not I Love Comedy. Whoops.

''Not all improvised music (or composed music with elements of improvisation, 'cause hey it's not always one or the other) is non-melodic''

Lol coxhill to thread!

I'm definitely not saying improv is a crutch as a rule, especially considering that musicans build their professional lives around it. Mostly I am curious about the differences w/ respect to how listeners process the musical information in the improv setting & how their expectations differ while keeping the process in mind.

well your statement just seemed naive and condescending to me. I mean:

Sometimes I think musicians say "This was improvised" so that listeners will apply a more forgiving standard to the end result.

this is totally insulting in that it assumes that improvisors don't want to be taken seriously by their audience. That somehow they want to be held to a lower standard than composers (although don't a lot of improvisors want to place improvisation back in its place as being equally important? Have you ever read Derek Bailey's book Improvisation, 'cause that seems to be a part of his project?). Hey, some do, some don't, some don't care, whatever.

and this:

We don't expect improvisations to be as tuneful or engaging as careful, studied composition.

completely ignores the fact that there's plenty of improvisation that's tuneful and engaging (I was in a group once that made it a point to be tuneful and engaging, while improvising), or that there's plenty of "careful, studied composition" that's neither tuneful nor engaging.