Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Guitar player Derek Bailey began improvising in the early 1960s. In writing about its
various forms he managed to describe improvisation and portray its ubiquity with
respect to individual performers; Improvisation enjoys the curious distinction of being
both the most widely practiced of all musical activities and the least acknowledged and
understood. While it is today present in almost every area of music, there is an almost
total absence of information about it. Perhaps this is inevitable, even appropriate.
Improvisation is always changing and adjusting, never fixed, too elusive for analysis
and precise description (Bailey 1992, p.ix)
In saying that improvisation is always changing Bailey focuses on its ability to be
unpredictable and fresh. The opening chapters of this book offer a concise analysis of
Indian music, Flamenco, Baroque, Organ music and Rock music. The chapters are
enlivened by conversations and interviews with musicians working within these idioms.
Jerry Garcia from The Grateful Dead offers his thoughts on group improvisation; the
sense of individual control disappears and you are working at another level entirely.
Sometimes this feels to me as though you dont have to really think about whats
happening. Things just flow. Its kind of hard to report on but its a real thing. I mean
weve checked it out with each other and after twenty-five years of exploring some of
these outer limits of musical weirdness this is stuff that we pretty much understand
intuitively but we dont have language to talk about it. (Bailey 1992 p.42)
Garcia represents an interesting case study for Bailey and for any reader on
improvisation because of his experience of Alzheimers Disease and his recovery. He
describes having to re-learn neural connections between his thoughts and actions. There
are many implications of this experience on his improvised music. Foremost seems to
be Garcias sense of a change of perspective. He states that he plays better than he used
to because of the more present need to readdress his musical position. The discussion on
how an improvising group remains fresh and unpredictable after years of playing
together, sits comfortably with points raised in other chapters. Particularly those points
regarding freshness and the immediacy of intuition. In the chapter on Baroque music
Bailey talks to Harpsichordist and ensemble director, Lionel Salter. Again Bailey
focuses on the intuition of the improviser(s) and publishes Salters comment on the
composer / performers relationship with the score / improvisation; When it came to
slow movements particularly, of course, you find that the notes written down represent a
very bare outline, and people who try to play lets say Handel sonatas, strictly
according to the text, end up with something, at which Handel would probably have
laughed uproariously, because he never expected it to be played cold-bloodedly, just
like that. In those days composers expected to perform their own works and sometimes
out of sheer lack of time they wouldnt write everything down on paper, theyd just put
a thing down to remind themselves that here they were going to do something rather
special. (Salter in Bailey 1992 p.20~21)
Baileys book on improvisation was originally published in 1980 and revised in 1992.
Bailey defines two main areas within improvisation. This helps classification of the
improvisers he discusses. I have used the terms idiomatic and non-idiomatic to
describe the two main forms of improvisation. Idiomatic improvisation, much the most
widely used, is mainly concerned with the expression of an idiom such as jazz,
flamenco or baroque and takes its identity from that idiom. Non-idiomatic
improvisation has other concerns and is most usually found in so-called free
improvisation and, while it can be highly stylised, is not usually tied to representing an
idiomatic identity. (Bailey 1992, p.xi~xii)
So what are the other concerns that Bailey is referring to? It seems that his musical
output is essentially concerned with free improvisation and his writing leads toward a
clearer comprehension that free improvisation can occur without the apparent clutter of
stylistic categorisation usually attached to idiomatic improvisation. Bailey
acknowledges that definitions of improvisation vary widely and he dissects his own
definition of it by overcoming the classification of idiom. His book on improvisation
leads the reader toward the view that only free (as opposed to idiomatic) improvisation
has the ability to: renew and change the known and so provoke an open-endedness
which by definition is not possible in idiomatic improvisation (Bailey 1992 p.142)
During his life Bailey became increasingly uncomfortable with the use of musical
systems for his own improvisations and I suspect that from John Zorns perspective
Bailey is an artist much like Bill Frisell who disengages from the tussle of Zorns games
but nonetheless plays intensively throughout. Derek Baileys participation in Cobra:
Game Pieces, Vol. 2 (Zorn et al 2002) in 2002 should be understood in comparison to
his collaboration with John Zorn and bassist William Parker on the three track
improvised recording Harras (Bailey, Zorn & Parker, 1995).
BAILEY, D. (1992). Improvisation: its nature and practice in music. London, British
Library National Sound Archive.
Posted by Phillip Henderson
Improvisao a natureza ea prtica na msica, por Derek Bailey - Phillip Henderson
Ento, quais so as outras preocupaes que Bailey est se referindo? Parece que sua
produo musical essencialmente preocupada com a improvisao livre e sua escrita
leva em direo a uma compreenso mais clara que a improvisao livre pode ocorrer
sem a desorganizao aparente de categorizao estilstica geralmente ligadas a
improvisao idiomtica. Bailey reconhece que as definies de improvisao variam
muito e ele disseca a sua prpria definio do que superando a classificao de idioma.
Seu livro sobre improvisao leva o leitor em direo a viso de que s livre (em
oposio a idiomtica) improvisao tem a capacidade de: renovar e alterar o conhecido
e assim provocar um carter aberto que, por definio, no possvel na improvisao
idiomtica (Bailey 1992 p 0,142)
Durante sua vida Bailey se tornou cada vez mais desconfortvel com o uso de sistemas
musicais para suas prprias improvisaes e eu suspeito que, na perspectiva de John
Zorn Bailey um artista muito parecido com Bill Frisell que desengata da disputa dos
jogos de Zorn, mas ainda assim joga intensamente por toda parte. A participao de
Derek Bailey na Cobra: Partes do jogo, Vol. 2 (Zorn et al 2002), em 2002, deve ser
entendido em comparao com a sua colaborao com John Zorn e baixista William
Parker na faixa de trs a gravao improvisado Harras (Bailey, Zorn & Parker, 1995).