First Inaugural Conference:

            December 1-3, 2006,  The University of Michigan,  Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Time, Sound and Transcendence.
Forging a New Vision for Improvised Music
Pedagogy and Practice

Featured artists/clinicians:
Stephen Nachmanovitch, Janne Murto
Steve Coleman, Pauline Oliveros

                                                                                                    by LaDonna Smith

The conference call stimulated the response of a diverse collective of educators and artists, most all of whom presented. Hosted by the UM Graduate School, the facility was cozy
and intimate, and small enough that the participants were able to mingle and network freely
among themselves.    

Stephan Nachmanovitch,  philosopher, violinist, and author of the book FREE PLAY opened the conference with a sensuous and early morning musical meditation on his red e-violin and delay unit, that virtually echoed each phrase as he spun harmonious patterns to complement the sweet lines of his meditation, utilizing low and chorused effects and a contemplative rate of phrasing.   His lecture began, as many others throughout the conference, examining concepts of improvisation and critical reflection. His theme:  Improvisation as a Tool for Investigating Reality.

                 

Unfortunately, I had to exit all too soon, as it was time for me to prepare for my own hands-on workshop in the next hour with local Suzuki students from the Ann Arbor.  Clearly, with three events offsetting every hour, there will be no way to adequately cover all. Therefore, this report will include cameo photographs taken by myself and DeJuana McCary-special photographer for the improvisor (nothing says it better than a photograph) and other detail and points based on what I was able to observe, as well as mention, or catalog description, of that which went personally unobserved.

PRESENTATIONS:  Friday & Saturday

LaDonna Smith,  Improvisation as a Form of Cultural Recreation is one of my favorite themes. I believe that it would be great to educate the public to its potential as a national pastime, just as "baseball" has been unceremoniously dubbed as such, even though I have my doubts as to substantiation for the case of baseball. Given the example and permission to freely express on a musical instrument, anyone can improvise including amateurs and novices, students, professional musicians and virtuoso performers. Therefore, I proposed to work with a group of Suzuki Students, and sit-in with them, orienting them with musical games encouraging spontaneity, listening and compositional skills. They seemed to have a great time, and explored the act of making free music in the moment with great enthusiasm. All in all, a lot of fun, and I believe their parents and teachers were very pleased with the activity.

                    
              LaDonna Smith facilitates improvisation with local Ann Arbor Suzuki Students

      More workshops, papers and discussions...

In the afternoon, after a lunch break, a study was presented by Elina Hytonen, her ongoing doctoral project concerning the flow experiences occurring in jazz.  The flow refers to experiences in which things seem to happen as if on their own.  A person in flow can lose his sense of time and place and be so immersed in his activity that he is no longer able to perceive his surroundings. The study focused on altered states of consciousness and comparing it to meditation through meditation research and interviews with professional jazz musicians.

Music for People was represented by Eric Edberg, using approaches by David Darling and Arthur Hull in working with college music students in humanistic, pan-idiomatic improvisation, transcending classical perfectionism and fostering creativity. The session included music making and instruments were welcome. I really wanted to go to this one, but was away from the conference, hung up in parking permit issues with Traffic Control. I'm sure the techniques we were using were similar, inter-personal responses, timing, listening, directions, and punting.

Ed Sarath's Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness: Examining the Transformational Impact of Improvised Music traces the musical and cross-disciplinary development of the UM Creative Arts Orchestra, including integral basic musicianship class, the BFA in Jazz and Contemplative Studies curriculum, and the campus-wide UM Program in Creativity and Consciousness Studies. 

Lee Joiner presented Moving To and Away from the Score: Integrating Musical Study in the Applied Studio through Improvisation.  What begins as an exercise for identification and deeper understanding  may then become an avenue for unique self-expression as well.

Dominic Poccia  examined improvisation and creativity from many angles and fields of knowledge. In his first semester Seminar at Amherst, students read and write and discuss improvisation in practice, not limited to music or acting, but with perspective to many broader disciplines, and life.

 Thomas Buckner with guest Claudio Parodi.  
Singer Thomas Buckner gave a short talk about the evolution of his style, techniques and experience with improvisation using both electronic and traditional instruments, and demonstrates these ideas in a performance of Robert Ashley's The Producer Speaks, collaborating with Parodi, sharing views on how musical ideas are conceived and developed between partners. Here, he an Parodi are seen taking in a concert at the Canterbury House.

Alan Shapiro presents a paper on how improvisation puts together freedom and order, originality and tradition, thoughtfulness and intensity, and shows these are opposites that everyone hopes to compose in themselves.

Charity Chan discusses how improvisation enables one to explore and discover the meanings and repercussions of a society that has as its fundamental decisive source, collective individualism. Consequently, Chan believes that sounds of improvisaton are the sounds of "the individual citizenry acting as a whole.

Michale Heffley presents a retrospective of audio and video recordings from two decades of ethnomusicological fieldwork and research selected for the ways the crossed and transcended culture, genre, time, place, race, class, gender, politics, and mundane consciousness, and how he incorporated similar improvisational strategies into his own work.

O.K. that was a sample of some of the themes that participants were working with. Now here is a nice shot of  ISIM Director, Ed Sarath, speaking with Professor Emeritus Pauline Oliveros moments before her evening presentation.

    
 Ed Sarath and featured artist and bard, Pauline Oliveros 

Keynote Guest: Pauline Oliveros    
As the Friday evening event featured esteemed keynote artist, Pauline Oliveros who asks, 
"What could be more transcendent than an improviser
who is living in Beirut improvising with bombs?" Her eyes search the audience, who sits comtemplating the question, with a glazed silence.
She tells of the grass roots improvising scene in Beirut, and indeed all over the world, there are young people engaging in free improvisation. "It's grown so amazingly," she says. She tells the story of the amazing Mazen Kerbaj (extended techniques-trumpet) sitting on the front porch of his flat improvising to the distant (and not so distant) sound of bombs during the Israeli invasion of his city. She plays the clip and asks students from the Creative Arts Orchestra to pick up on the feelings and sensations of this music and imagine for themselves to be sitting on your own balcony while your neighbors are being bombed.  She invites the audience to also be thinking "What would I do?" "What if this were my situation?" "How would I respond?" Could I transcend this moment of fear and unknown and respond in a creative way?"   Would I be able to capture the message embedded in the soundscape, and transform the situation into one of connecting with the sound?

After performing on her grande Titano accordian, Pauline Oliveros gives us a short history of her involvement with early collaborators Terry Riley, Stuart Dempster and Loren Rusch at KPFA in Berkely when there were only reel to reel tape machines in the 50's, soundtracks were being made for film, and they would meet at KPFA, improvise together, and develop the process.  For her, the signature of the 20th century is recording, being able to track and listen to what you do, and you get immediate feedback.   She began to use improvisation as a way to teach musicianship.  "Friends you make in the interesting discovery process are quite wonderful!  Long musical friendships are a profound and wonderful part of my life!"  She attributes a dynamic change in musicianship to technological development. 

Back to the bombs, Michael Bulloch posts an mp3 clip of "Starry Night" by Mazen Kerbaj, the Lebanese improvisor (trumpet).  We listened to this Israeli bombing taking place, as he was sitting on his balcony during the incident. The next night, he improvised with the bombs. This is an example of the "transcendence" theme. You can hear this music for yourself on Kerbaj's site http://crackle.org/mazen.htm  Mazen's mp3 exerpt is here .

Pauline's next subject was the Sonorus Festival in Mexico City, where she was working with the theme "Sounding the Borders" referencing all the news that has been pertaining to the border between Mexico and the U.S.A.  She speaks of direct music making such as body lapping, voice, hand clapping, and bone flutes stating that "bone flutes is a technology."  The air stream is removed and distant from the body.  As with any instrument, you can explore the distancing that has developed.

"We are in an era in need of an exponential rise in technology, all of which has distanced us from the body.  People are more and more quiet. It's hard to get them to use their voice! The Silence response is very loud, and is related to this distancing.  In bone flute, there is a border that is crossed to make sound that is not coming from the vocal cords.  Music from electronics was more related to my central nervous system, but again in instruments, there is a distance."  Ask yourself, "What part of your body is this an extension of?"  And so, feel that relationship. 

She told us a story of "Playing the Wall" in which Glen Whalen went to Nogales in order to amplify the wall between the U.S.A. and Mexico, to make the border a musical instrument! Of course the officers showed up, wanting an I.D.  and wanted to know "what you are doing?" He told them.  The Border Patrol was very interested and decided that Glenn would make it famous!  Instead of representing separation, the music of the wall could become a metaphor for unification. He changed a lot of minds!

So Mazen Kerbaj and Glenn Whalen represent improvisors taking a pathway, taking something we really love, and changing the world.

She then asked the students of the University of Michigan Creative Arts Orchestra to play your impression of the borders, and see if you can change the border into something that is unifying. This was an amazing experience we all witnessed, as we tracked the subtle changes in the music.

There was time for discussion and dialog. The students expressed their discomfort with the suggestion, yet the transformative experience of doing the exercise.  Mark Dresser instigated a very lively discussion over the authenticity of the Beirut clip. With Pro Tools anything can be done. Does this devalue the it? The discussion followed a heated path in favor of the authenticity of the life experience vs. creating and fabricating in the studio. Mention was made of the work of Jon Rose bowing the fences in Israel. The Police also came. They weren't as friendly. You can read more about Jon Rose and some of his experimental fence performance by clicking here. 

Finally, Oliveros closed the two hour session with a "Tuning Meditation" which utilized the entire audience, an interesting piece for exercising the intuition, getting centered, relaxed, breathing with and listening to the whole field of sound. "We tune in many ways. Tuning is metaphorical. We tune to our environment. We tune in many ways. Turn your attention inward to find your own tuning. Tune to the whole field, going from focused attention to global attention to the whole field. Listen inwardly and listen to everyone else. The tuning Meditation is an important metaphor for negotiations and understanding differences. She is telling us about a huge tuning meditation involving many countries and people that she is planning for 2007.  Go into analysis of this activity and feeling, and sensations of this activity."  Much on the life and work and news of Pauline Oliveros to be found here.

                                           
                                             Pauline Oliveros on Titano  

On Saturday, the keynote session opened with Janne Murto,  special guest from Sweden, and ISIM featured presenter:  Sound & Silence - Calming the Mind with the Effects of Sound.
Murto contends that for an improviser, it is essential to stay fully in the present moment when performing.  In the middle of a jazz solo, there is no room for the mind to wander.  Intuition, creativity, leadership and listening skills are also needed.  With meditation and simple Art of Living practices, it is possible to calm the mind and tap more into the creativity within. It's a pity that I was late, and walked in during a silent group meditation, to which I carefully slipped right back out the door, and proceeded to try to resolve another parking issue, waiting until the next session to "arrive".

       Shortly thereafter, I was able to have a mini-impromptu musical session with Stephen Nachmanovitch and Thomas Buckner in the Assembly Room.  Two violinists, a vocalist, and for a while, a percussionist (please identify yourself) too.  It was one of those rare spontaneous moments, that we've spent practically the entire conference talking about. Seizing the moment and making a personal connection in musical terms.
                                 
                               Violinists LaDonna Smith and Stephen Nachmanovitch
 
At 11:00 I had to make a difficult choice between David Borgo, where many composers and musicians were gathered to hear Sync or Swarm: An Ecological Approach to (Improvised) Music. The program states that "Our ways of investigating music in the past have often neglected its performance, reception, and ultimately its meaning. Borgo wryly comments, "The score is no more the music than a recipe book is a meal." In his presentation, he references the contemporary scientific and cultural paradigm shift and argues for an ecological understanding of music  that refuses to separate it from its temporal, embodied, social, and cultural dimensions. 

I went instead to witness Eric Barnhill demonstrate the Dalcroze Pedagogy: Breaking Out of the Classroom Box Through Improvisation in Rhythmic Movement, Solfege, and Piano. For me, as a teacher of violin to young children, this was a fascinating and inspiring study that I had not previously been exposed to.  A musical subject was taught through  rhythmic movement and solfege rhythmique. The same subject was then taught as though to a class of four year olds, using the same Dalcroze Methods.  The eight or so participants had a blast, learning in children's shoes. It was fun.  It was challenging. It stimulated us.  We even got to dance! Barnhill was an excellent facilitator and instructor and inspired me to learn more from the Dalcroze techniques.
                     
                           Dalcroze clinician Eric Barnhill with UM Dean Betty Anne Younkers

Panel Discussion:  Alan Bern, Karlton Hester,
Maud Hickey, Betty Anne Younker,
Moderator: Ed Sarath

Another highlight of the Conference, for me, of which there was far too little time, was the panel discussion at noon on Saturday. Each panelist began with introductions that led to pressing issues of their own, dealing with improvisation. 

Moderator, Ed Sarath began with a comparative metaphor of the effectiveness of Calcium and Music Education. That Calcium without phosporus, zinc and magnesium is not well absorbed. Music Education without an equal part of improvisation leaves us with very little support for the creative side of the musical experience.  I thought that was a great analogy!

Maude Hickey introduced herself as a "recovering improvisor" and preceded to support the previous metaphor with another question, "What if we taught visual art in public school like we taught music?"  Would it not be very much like paint by number? The National Standards for Education now instruct that improvisation should be a mandatory part of the education syllabus. Children should be able to create melodies, make an accompaniment, etc. Her question is, "Is it an IT, or is it a process". Should we be grading IT, or creating with the process? Language turns the world into "things". We all know the world is not "things". Then what is "IT"?  So, what is "skill" in improvisation?  Is it "No child left untested?" Is it to be victim of the same reductionism as half notes, quarter notes, rests? Look at a beginning Band book. Hot Cross Buns? How do we deal with good and bad? How can we help the student to get better at it? Should students get better at improvisation? Jazz? But what about free improv?  It is a real way for students to play music. It is high risk, but yes, high risk can be high yield. Improvisation needs to be in the curriculum. What about now? Maude Hickey concludes and challenges all of us, "Knock on the door! Do more workshops!"

        
         Panel:  Alan Bern, Ed Sarath, Maud Hickey, Karlton Hester and Betty Anne Younker

Karlton Hester  "Music is a mirror of society and environment. The question is, "How far do we have to go to get back to living naturally?  There's so much cancer, so many barriers. What about introducing the notion of improvisation into analytical thinking, rather than the current notion that it is unrelated to analytical thinking.  Life is poly-dimensional. Are we breaking down the barriers so life will flow more naturally?  There's nature's forest and pygmies and their life style reflects where they come from. The western environment we live in, we reflect that. It's a complex issue. If you measure things according to the influence they have, it's not that simple. Jazz is a music that came out of a situation of oppression, but with it came freedom.  "Jazz is blues, Beethoven is free, there's free everything! Humans have different backgrounds, different coping methodies, so it will take a variety of approaches.  In the 60's perspective was more open, but later things began closing off again.  What's the music of the last 25 years?  In the early 20th century, styles were designations for types of improvised music. There was ragtime, swing, bebop, but at 2000 there's a change. There's no name for the music. There are so many variants now, all individual voices."

Betty Anne Younker Dean at the University of Michigan, introduces herself as a classical flutist, with no experience with improvising until now. She raises many questions.  "How do we do this differently than 40-50 years ago?  We know the arts cause us to experience things through feeling and on a subjective level that evokes affect.  When are the students the facilitators and when are we the learner? We must be more responsible as to when we are shifting in that role.  She brings up more key points that get in the way:
1. Control is the challenge. Power. Flip the coin.
2. Packaging  Pick a method of music education. Orff, Kodaly, Dalcrois, Band Method, Suzuki.
We pick a package to make it easy. The real area should be gray. Can improvisation be a link to that?
3. Lack of Faith that students think they can construct something musically.  We get in their way too much. When do we provide guidance, and when do we step away? Not like we currently do it:
The "How to-gotta do this" syndrome:  making a checklist of criteria based on technique, history, etc.
4. The Conservatory Model is strong is music, theater and dance. There's the academic, teacher trainees, forms and conventions. Then what do we do?  We let in the Jazzers! Then the electronic musicians! Then technology!  Then the free-jazzers and free-thinkers! Wooooo!  Now what? 

So in Music Ed, maybe there's room to improvise here, with curriculum.  There are a lot of boxes.
We have to share each others intentions.  Effective pedagogues have faith and trust in their students.
We must also have faith in a new paradigm, and a new process.

Alan Berg Why Improvise? What is improvisation? It is carbon.
In contrast to notated music (a representation of sound) the notated music is a map. It is never to be confused with the territory.  Never be confused that a notated score is music. So we make a catalog of musical gestures. What can you do?  Develop a symbolic system of notation for this?? Can you scratch the string? Can you bow long? We understand the world representationally.  A photograph of the Eiffel Tower in Paris from the classic long view doesn't tell you anything about the experience of being on the Eiffel tower, the nuts, the bolts, the sensation of height when you are at the top looking down, the feeling of the wind creaking and swaying the tower.. We are "endangered" for accepting the world through representation! Catalogs, ads, articles, etc. capitalistic points of view...notation, publishing! Only after I was "post-literate" did I understand what I was missing.   Berg questions the rise of post literate musicianship, and writing for people who you know.  And asks us "How do we do this? To recover our morality in a nuts and bolts kind of way with literacy, and the dominance of literacy in all our musical relationships?  I believe, improvisation is recovering the territory of music.  Having recovered the territory, one can approach the maps to the territory.  If we want to turn out individuals, we have to get back to the territory, not the maps. That is crucial." 

Following the stimulating introductory rounds, there was little time for discussion, a pity, because there were many hands raised to follow! THIS could have truly been a two hour session, as the many dozens of hands flew up, and there was no time left!

Next,  I will try to detail an amazing presentation on Saturday that was just outstanding, and
most inspiring of all to me. Presented by Karlton Hester,  Hesterian Musicism was a spellbinding and fascinating exploration of music as a minute reflection of the universe and spontaneous composition as an opportunity to examine the functions that govern the universal order.  With beautiful power point examples from his upcoming book from Binghamton Press (a must have), Karlton Hester examines natural cycles, patterns of evolution, and the potential relationship between all universal phenomena. That which is continuous contains all forms.  He quotes from The Mysticism of Sound and Music: The Sufi Teaching of Haszrat Inayat Khan, "Music is Life itself." 
    According to Hester, "Improvisations, or Creations become Spiritual Rituals.  "Ritual" itself is a word also contained in the word "spiritual". There are both ancient and modern transcendental aspects of the physical and spiritual worlds.  Rituals have become absent from the approach to musical teaching.  Energy is continuously expanding and contracting in motion.  There are both the Big Bang and the Steady States Theories of the beginnings of the Universe.  The secret of composition lies in sustaining a tone as solidly and as long as possible through all it's different degrees. The Cleansing Breath is when breathing gives a psychological releasing of all that hangs on us.  Musical Interaction is like experimentation with particles in science. Particle spin, also in Music, there is ensemble and partial (or spin) and it will effect what everybody else plays. Energy moves form just as Musical Partners.  Throw one pebble in the lake, and it sets up concentric rings. Throw another pebble into the lake, and it acts on the patterns of the first pebble, and on it goes. There is a quality produced by the vibrations affected.
       African Music is based on Tonal Languages and that's why the drums came about.  Drums are not the dominant force in African music. Language is.  The drums are imitating the language.  So Blacks modified traditional musical instruments in the United States so they could talk more. They came up with mutes, slides, the banjo.  European instruments became modified and extended to
accommodate a poly-dimensional Afro-centric musical language. 
       The 21st century musician inherits an exciting world of direct access to an unprecedented amount of interesting, ancient, traditional and new music.  More than we can assimilate! But in current educational practices, NOT before establishing one's own style, students must first examine vast and varied legacies of music and study, assimilate and digest, and finally in the 12th grade, maybe get around to your own music?? What's me?  This is too long a process!
       Children blend into multiplicity. They learn through repetition. It's more analog than digital. But as in the law of nature, there is infinite variation. Nature produces not symmetry, but more variation. How many snowflakes are alike? How many fingerprints? Blues changes are changes.  Every player changes differently.  The Creators patterns of vibrational and mathematical proportions are closely related to the overtone series (the microcosm) and parallels mathematical systems and distances in astronomical phenomena. Pi, the Fibonacci Series, the Golden Mean, are all seen in nature as flexible balance.  
      We try to theorize about the essence of life, but such theories remain as far removed from absolute proof, just as music can be analyzed into systems, but it's power cannot be explained. The math we use is to get a grip on the cycles of life, calendars, clocks, time-space, but why do we have to have a leap year?
      Tension and release and consequent creation in Nature is reflected in music as tension and release. Breathing in and Out. Intestines push the food forward.  Polar opposite forces move in a way to propel things forward.  Harmonic-melodic-rhythmic are systems of tension and release. We have a history of music that is Euro-centric, African or twenty first century.  Tension and release:  Spirituals are loose, ragtime is tight, blues is loose, swing is tight, bebop is loose, cool is tight, free jazz and on and on... The Rosicrucians saw the Universe as a whole with infinite subdivisions.  We simplify by tracking the similarities of things.  What is motivic development: tracking an idea, giving compositions an organic unity, reflection learning by repetition, but there is variation within a whole. Look at the Circle of Fifths, for example. Again, variation within a whole.
     For expression, you have to keep it open.  What's the most important thing to do in life?
To be!   In music, just reflect whatever you live!   To be in the moment, you have to be yourself.
Theory always follows practice".
                                                 

SUNDAY begins with the inspired performance of
    Gene Nichols, Duane Ingalls and Les Trois Etoiles . . .

     
These freewheeling improvisers manifest the spirit of make-do-for-oneself-with-what-you-got.    Musical representatives of down east rural Maine, and their menagerie of found objects
and instrumental home-mades in a soire that  rocks the room.  Originating in 1985, homegrown improvisational activites/potluck/rural therapy, these sessions are an example of what can happen.
        Les Trois Etoile's found objects, miscellaneous instruments, toys, home-mades and uh...rubber chicken!
 

In the West Room, Mark Miller presents Something from Nothing, A Buddhist Inspired Approach to Teaching Improvisation. Buddhist inspired training in improvisation is the foundation of the performing arts curriculum at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. This training is guided by three tenets of Zen Practice: Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action.

      
      Music Director Stephen Rush at the Canterbury House     Father Hamilton

Stephen Rush and Father Reid Hamilton discuss the "Jazz Mass" that is presented each Sunday at the Canterbury House, co-creating liturgies from free improvisation, using music by Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock and other jazz artists as an integral part of improvisational worship. They bring up the Christ-ian aspects of music of these matters mentioning Lori Anderson and the role of Silence (Cage) and acceptance, compare Billy Budd to Jesus, guru of modernism and point out a limitation of identity. They show us that Ayler, Alice Coltrane (Hindu), and Sun Ra (who was really out there) are practicing religions and spirituality in a beautiful way. As Ornette Coleman creates "Harmelodics" or the idea of a cosmic unison. We are all part of the unison, not the parts. Harmelodics inspires the art of preaching. Jazz Preaching at the Canterbury House is the practice. A liturgical service is a chart. To take a scripture and ideas about a Saint and then improvise the message, responding to both the music and the worshippers to be "in the moment".
 

Paul Bendza runs an interactive workshop for working on technical and interpersonal skills necessary for making good chamber music, to encourage and develop individual and collective sensitivity, communication, and rapport among the members of an ensemble, and provide an effective environment for exciting and inspired performances to a receptive audience.
1.   He begins by passing a large ball around a circle of participants. It represents our energy, in passing around, inhale to receive and exhale when you pass it. Never receive in the gut, but keep passing the energy, representing dynamics and other motivic musical elements.
2.   Pass spoken word or sonic vocal gestures, include hand gestures, facials and body language.
3.   Notice that in good improvisations there is a.) shadowing-one player or singer leads, and the other shadows right on your tail  b.) pass and switch roles sonically and vocally or c.) shift leadership right in the middle.
4.   Soloist and accompaniment:  a.) vocalese  b.) and somewhere in the middle switch roles,to keep the energy moving  c.) can do in threes, two people accompany one solo, which will give a more complex dynamic  d.) or two people start, and a third enters and then one drops out, so the duet can          Paul Bendza
move around in a circle.
5.   High level contrasts, loud and soft, and then at the center would be the same dynamic. Making a piece in the shape of an X.  The person who starts loud ends soft, the one who starts soft ends loud. Maybe use with fast and slow, high and loud: soft and low, variations.
6.   Imitation: Beat Box:   Put together a little band. Do a little loop, next imitates first one, teaches a new one to the next person, then go back and do your own. Go round in the circle, loops adding up..
b.)  Then add a soloist, someone jumps to the center.  c.) you could turn the circle outward and it would be less apparent it were a circle.
7.   Put someone at the piano. Put a card on the piano making a suggestion, such as
      "Sunrise" or  "Evening",  "Clusters", or make up titles like "Street Talk" or "Magic."
8.   Then introduce Graphic Scores which move toward Improv Class where...
9.   Suggestions follow like maybe, "enter without beginning" or "exit without ending"...
10. Exercise to relieve stress, like the effect of using the ball.
11. Learning to phrase on one breath (or one bow), or do as much melodically as you can
on one breath.
12.  Get the picture? 

Simultaneously, North Carolina jazz scholar and free music enthusiast, Mark Medwin elaborates on the work of Bill Dixon, trumpeter and composer. I heard part of this. Medwin is a true music aficionado and expert on this neglected artist. He explores pedagogy in two of Dixon's 1970's ensemble pieces and their place in the current history of improvised music. He is assisted by
Ian M. Davis, producer and proprieter of Assembled Sound, also from North Carolina, plays the sound cuts for the comparative study. 

At some point, I cut out early to go over to the Canterbury House, to help Pauline pack up her stuff for the airport, and was able to hear the last part of her concert & discussion with Thomas Ciufo on Just Intoning, a graphic score written  for Oliveros and computer mediated instruments in an improvisational context.

Mark Baszak and Napoleon Maddox   At the Crossroads of Jazz, Rap, and Hip-Hop
examines music pioneered by African Americans, fusing elements of jazz and hip-hop, with a look to the origins and practices. Hip Hop is now the most popular and influential music in the world, yet many are just beginning to understand its cultural and artistic significance, Bazak claims. "Hip-hop reflects the world around us by honoring music of the past-using instruments of technology to sample and combine bits and pieces of older music to create something new.   Baszak poses the question,
"Is free style rapping the equivalent to jazz improv? Mentioning Wallace Roney, states that it is alike compositionally, but does jazz improv require more virtuosity?   But, lyrical virtuosity is also a fact.  Heavy literature with the impact of Shakespeare in his time, can be found.  Charley Parker is recognized to be at the highest level of musicianship.  You are dealing with components in Hip Hop that use a narrow range of melody, whereas Parker used a higher range of melody, but Emcees are dealing with a lot of information, delivered very rhythmically and very quickly.
Quoting from hip hop artist Russell Gunn, "Hip hop is not just rap, it's improv over rhythm.  Jazz musician's can improv over hip hop rhythm. Freestyle rappers is to Hip-hop what free improv is to jazz,"  Napolean Maddox chimes in, "...without validating one music over another.  In many ways, we devolve both of them.  There's a great social relevance to how Charlie Parker played. He was from his time.  As a technique that is shared with jazz, is that people are organizing literature with a musical base. You have to listen for the improv of the text., but also the improv of how it's delivered. No two performances will ever be the same. Each time can be different..  to change a word in free style, can make a huge difference. There are different ways to improvise within the moment."
          Napolean Maddox               
Baszak plays examples of  Miri Ben-Ari, the hip hop violinist (Universal 2005) and Doug E. Fresh (beatbox).  I am amazed by the virtuosity. "There is potential in where we haven't gone to, taking advantage of the marriage of the two, jazz and hip hop.  We don't have solid relationships. What makes music great is collaborations and musical relationships. Sure, there is attitude, but then, it is still very experimental, not yet long-term, but there's good chemistry, and interlocking relationships over the years.  People need to develop relationship that lasts long enough to take the music to a new level.

Other notable examples cited were The Life We Chose, by Iswhat (Hyena, 2006) with Jack Walker(talk-rap) and Napolean Maddox (verses/beatbox), Jac (tenor sax),Daniela Castra(verse), Chris Comer (keys), Casual T (cutting and scratching). Krunk Jazz with Russel Gunn and Bionic has jazz improv soloing elements. (CD Baby) and a track from Sonic Trance "Shabba Unranked" has hip hop artists sampling artists and musicians. Niki Giovanni is one of the women. There was a set in 1980 with Max Roach was a true meeting of expressive art, rather than fusion, or trying to blend styles.

Many PERFORMANCES hidden in the days:

The Canterbury House across the street behind the Rackham Building hosted performances throughout, as lectures were held on the 4th floor of the Graduate School, so a choice of lecture or performance was always having to be made. Among the Canterbury performances included the sonic textures and rhythmic structures of Backgammon.  The members are Jonathan Kirk with Casey Farina, Thron Humsiton, Steve Syverud, Mathew Golimbisky and Caroline Davis. From the vintage Arp Odyssey to contemporary laptops and saxophone the ensemble seeks to embrace the legacy of electronic music.  This Little Abomination of Ours includes Michael Nickens, Chuck Navyac and Ross Huff.

Opposite my lecture on Friday, (which I clearly was not present for)  was a performance of 
Alan Bern and the Cincinnati Composers Group, as well as a performance of Loop-Based and Digital Musical Production with Paul Scea (laptop & woodwinds) and Arthur White (guitars and saxophone). Other performances of the day included The Art of Taking it Out by Dom Minasi and Ken Filiano, a solo acoustic bass piece by Michael Bullock, and solo piano improvisations by
Michael Jeffry Stevens.
 
  Michael Jefrey Stevens         Sarah Weaver                        Michael Bullock                          

         Ken Filiano                            Andrew Bishop                           James Ilgenfritz

Also performing in the Canterbury House, James Ilgenfritz Trio featuring Stephen Rush and Andrew Bishop, LaDonna Smith solo, Paul Scea and Arthur White. Michael Bullock

         
Claudio Parodi, Eric Barnhill, LaDonna Smith             Thomas Ciufo explains

Claudio Parodi  presented one hour sound journey on a self- modified electronic instrument, utilizing old equalizer sliders, old multi-effects racks, frequencies and cracks caused by the rust of the rack knobs, different impedences and other on-off adlimentation. 

Joe Giardullo presented The Great Rift, exploring the multiple qualities of the soprano saxophone.

Gojogo- Sarah Jo Zaharako features music combining western sounds of classical and jazz with the rhythmic traditions of India, blending and incorporating global musical styles. 

Composer Rocco Di Pietro's The Lost Project  is a series of works based on the musical monograms of lost children. Performed by Larry Marotta, David Reed, and Derek Zoladz.

                           
                              DSS: Drake, Streb, & Stearns at Canterbury House
I was impressed with a young group from Los Angeles, California that interested me with their live FM radio transmission of electronically altered violist Cassia Streb by two DIY electronics wizards Philip Stearns and Aaron Drake. Each member can affect the timbre, amplitude and internal processes of the other players, and broadcast their transmissions , collectively know as DSS.                              

Other notable sets were performed by Matt Endahl and Symbology, the Ann Arbor pianist and composer's new group, improvising with explorations of states of mind.  Golden Age, an improvisational hip-hop troupe from Madison, Wisconsin and Everyone a Pope, a jazz fusion ensemble  fronted by trumpeter Ross Huff and featured some of Ann Arbor's most enthusiastic improvisers.

I continue with just a listing of the other significant conference performances in the Assembly Room and Amplitheaters.

AACM Creative Youth Orchestra founded and lead by Nicole Mitchell features Chicago based musicians betwee 13-22 years old.  As a new program of the AACM School of Musicc, the AACM Creative Youth Orchestra provides young musicians the opportunity to develop a diversified approach to learning ensemble and improvisational skills, which include jaz, classical and creative music concepts. The orchestra ranges in size between 15-20 students and a variation of instrumentation.

Walter Thompson and Sarah Weaver demonstrated Sound Painting, the universal live composing sound language created by New York based composer, Walter Thompson for musicians, actors, dancers, poets and visual artists working in the medium of structured improvisation. Mark Dresser, James Ilgenfritz, and members of the Chicago-based Weave Soundpainting Orchestra served as the demonstration ensemble.

Jane Ira Bloom soprano sax & live electronics and bassist
Mark Dresser teamed up to perform compositions from Bloom's recent Artistshare CD "Like Silver, Like Song" in which the sax and bass use live electronics as part of their improvisational sound palette.

Wojciech Konikiewicz, is joined by percussionist Michael Gould and bassist Pat Prouty in a mixture of performance, workshop and spoken manifest, including poetry, discussing his personal concept and philosophy of improvised music in the twenty first century.

Saturday evening's featured guest artist, Steve Coleman (saxophone) & Five Elements, performance of Coleman's musical meditations based on the belief that each Soul has it's basis in Spirit, an enormous two hour work utilizing the UM Creative Arts Orchestra.

           
              Steve Coleman's Five Elements performed by UM Creative Arts Orchestra

Cornelius Dufallo,  Realeyes scored for violin, electronics, and hemispheric speaker system was a thirty minute meditation on the search for peace. Exploring concepts of destruction, absence, and transcendence, juxtaposing hypnotic "sound breath" with moments of harsh dissonance, improvisations and extended techniques.

Jeff Morris demo of his own software tools for improvisation including Elektrodynamik-couterpoint inspired by the implications of the Special Theory of Relativity Gamepad-a sampling instrument based on a gamepad controller.

Ken Filiano, Connie Crothers, Andrea Wolper -(bass, piano, voice) performed in the Assembly Hall, experimenting with the sonic capabilities of their respective instruments.

Nicholai Zielinski guides the University of Michigan, Creative Arts Orchestra through  The Holsum Family Fiscal Planner, a modular composition consisting of musical and textual ideas cued in differing combinations to make a "living" piece of music.

   
    E3Q, is comprised of cellist Katri Ervama, drummer Michael Gould and trumpeter- 
    eclectronicist Mark Kirschenmann, all are on the faculty of the University of Michigan.

Sylvia Smith (percussion-voice) and Carrie Rose (flute-dance) gave a trans media performance including props, dance, sound, and humor of Transitions and Leaps from an ideographic notated score by Stuart Saunders Smith.

To finish,  there was the final Canterbury performance (although we were all invited to the Jazz Mass that would commence after the conclusion of the conference) was with Thomas Ciufo and Pauline Oliveros, mentioned earlier, of which there are great pictures of the discussion.

In conclusion,

"Call down the water for the corn.

Create flow and Spirit.

Call down the rain.

Music flow."

 ~ Remember the present~

                                                                                                  LaDonna Smith
                                                                                                                                12/26/06

                            
                                Gene Nichols applauding at finish of conference

for more information on the International Society of Improvised Music,
please visit:   http://isim.edsarath.com/