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Looper's Delight
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It is an interesting article. This is the second or third I've seen on this topic. Actually, the factors compared in the experimental aren't really satisfactory to me. Enough literature has been written on different types of improvisation that I would have like to seen several experiment groups compared. Compared to someone playing straight, I would have liked to seen the results of a) a jazz musician improvising over a traditional jazz structure (the more "idiomatic" form of improvisation), b) a jazz musician improvising in the "free" format, with no idiomatic structure over which he improvises, and c) a non-jazz musician also playing free (genre neutral). I'm sure others might arrange varying differences as well, not like mine. Although I like and can play jazz, the fact that they selected jazz players somewhat taints the results for me. I would have preferred someone in the modern creative or free genres. Jazz players bring a whole lot of baggage with them when play according to their idiom...a lot of memorized, but forgotten clichés, runs, motifs, etc...all of which they are used to applying over idiomatic jazz structures. The fact that they use the term "jazz" in "free jazz" has implications and a degree of predictability that is, historically speaking, out of date, relative to the really cutting edge creative music coming out of major creative music university programs today. Anyway....really long and complex topic. I knee deep in it right now, with a reading list of 15 books looming over my head. I'm reading "As Serious As Your Life" right now. Read Derek Baily's improv book a while back. Have many others on my "to do" list, like Forces in Motion (Locke), Arcana I and II (Zorn), Jazz Among the Discourses (Gabbhard), Northern Sun Southern Moon (Heffley), Blues People, Sink or Swarm. Free Jazz (Jost), etc, etc. Man...fascinating stuff, especially on the interpretations of improvisation history by afro-American and European sources. Anyone read the George Lewis' "Improvised Music after 1950"? Unbelievably earth-shaking, pivotal, and paradigm shifting work in light of the history of improvisation....recommended reading to me by Jeff Kaiser. I have a PDF copy for anyone interested. ...but it's pretty damn cool that science is starting to show that us improvisers having something unique going on in our brains when we play. Kris ----- Original Message ----- > Hi folks, > > This may be of interest to some of you. > > http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080311/NEWS07/803110344 > -- > " Practice makes perfect, imperfect is better." -- Paul Bley > > Emile Tobenfeld, Ph. D. > Video Producer Image Processing Specialist > Video for your HEAD! Boris FX > http://www.foryourhead.com http://www.borisfx.com >