ATS1346 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Pullback, Cadenza, Figured Bass
25 May 2018
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Week 7 – Exploring Improvising Music Cultures
The Term
• Improvisation: part of our musical imagination that is hard to imagine –
entered into use in the 19th century
• What was it called before then
o Modernity
o The enlightenment
o Continuo, figured bass, cadenza
o During Baroque period, scores were often more open to interpretation
and realisation in the moment – based on conventions, sensibilities and
idioms of the form
• First known use: 1826
• Now
o Use term in vague-ish, general sense to indicate some sort of
spontaneous creativity that occurs beyond a static pre-composed text
▪ Suggests a dialectic between two mutually exclusive opposites:
composition and improvisation
Creativity as a Cultural Construct
• Throughout histories, societies have held different views on the role of the
artist in the creative process and the sources of his or her inspiration
• In ancient Greece, inspiration was considered a form of guidance stemming
from external powers
o E.g. person’s own genius or attendant spirit and similarly in Arabia
• Plato: associated inspiration with literary arts, maintained that it was received
through emotional frenzy, supernatural possession and divine madness
• Europe’s 19th century culture: articulations of creativity and inspiration turned
away from external attribution and instead treated the artist himself as the
centre of attention and a source of clues to the creative process
o A composition acquired an economic value aligned with individual
property rights
• Industrial processes such as mass production of printed scores, contracts of
ownership created a necessary legal and economic differentiation between
composition and improvisation
Cultural Perspective on Improvisation in Music
• In all musical cultures there is music that is improvised
• Societies differ in several ways
o The degree to which improvisation is distinguished from
precomposition
o The nature and extent of musical material which improvisers use as a
point of departure or inspiration
o The relationship of written to oral transmission
o The relative social and musical vale assigned to improvisation,
compositions and musicians who practice them
Three Theoretical models
1. Composition – Improvisation Dialectic
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Creativity as a cultural construct: throughout histories, societies have held different views on the role of the artist in the creative process and the sources of his or her inspiration. Industrial processes such as mass production of printed scores, contracts of ownership created a necessary legal and economic differentiation between composition and improvisation. Three theoretical models: composition improvisation dialectic, canon creativity, seed idea growth expansion model. The challenges to improvisation in arabic music: modern arab world: ability to improvise modally is generally considered a trademark of good musicianship. Taqsim: = division, specific maqam, or melodic mode self contained, developed and resolved in accordance with an established modal plan. Tarab style: of eastern mediterranean world and egypt emphasizes live musical performance, treats music as an ecstatic experience, traditional performers maintain tarab process, requires the singer or instrumentalist to be rooted in tarab tradition.
