Download or read book A Listener s Guide to Free Improvisation written by John Corbett and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-03-13 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first book of its kind, John Corbett's A Listener's Guide to Free Improvisation provides a how-to manual for the most extreme example of spontaneous improvising: music with no pre-planned material at all. Drawing on over three decades of writing about, presenting, playing, teaching, and studying freely improvised music, Corbett offers an enriching set of tools that show any curious listener how to really listen, and he encourages them to enjoy the human impulse-- found all around the world-- to make up music on the spot.
Download or read book A Listener s Guide to Free Improvisation written by John Corbett and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-03-13 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Hyper-insightful and . . . thoroughly entertaining . . . an essential read for anyone interested in the complex yet accessible world of musical improvisation.” —Glenn Kotche, drummer and composer, Wilco Improvisation rattles some listeners. Maybe they’re even suspicious of it. John Coltrane’s saxophonic flights of fancy, Jimi Hendrix’s feedback drenched guitar solos, Ravi Shankar’s sitar extrapolations—all these sounds seem like so much noodling or jamming, indulgent self-expression. For these music fans, it seems natural that music is meant to be composed. John Corbett’s A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation provides a how-to manual for the most extreme example of spontaneous improvising: music with no pre-planned material at all. Drawing on over three decades of writing about, presenting, playing, teaching, and studying freely improvised music, Corbett offers an enriching set of tools that show any curious music lover how to really listen, and he encourages them to enjoy the human impulse to make up music on the spot. Providing fundamentals as well as advanced techniques, listening exercises to hone musical attentiveness and lists of accessible resources, this concise, humorous and inspiring guide will help transform one of the world’s most notoriously unapproachable artforms into a rewarding and enjoyable experience. “Corbett [combines] deep musicological knowledge, heavy-lifting reportage, and crystalline prose of Peter Guralnick with the unbridled passion and joy of Lester Bangs.” —Jim DeRogatis, cohost of Sound Opinions “This book is a small marvel. . . . immensely readable, enjoyable, and practical. . . . an excellent, accessible introduction.” —David Grubbs, author of Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording
Download or read book Improvisation written by Derek Bailey and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1993-08-22 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Derek Bailey's IMPROVISATION, originally published in 1980, now revised with additional interviews and photographs, deals with the nature of improvisation in all its forms--Indian music, flamenco, baroque, organ music, rock, jazz, contemporary, and "free" music. Bailey offers a clear view of the breathtaking spectrum of possibilities inherent in improvisational practice.
Download or read book Reshaping Youth Participation written by Gráinne McMahon and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-14 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reshaping Youth Participation reframes discussions around youth political, social, civic, and cultural participation. Drawing upon insights on democracy and citizenship, self-organising and protest movements, and arts activism as engaged social activism, chapters consider the spaces in which young people find voice and action.
Download or read book The Art of Becoming written by Raymond A. R. MacDonald and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time of unprecedented interest in improvisation across the arts, The Art of Becoming boldly asserts that everyone can and should improvise. Drawing on emerging psychological literature as well as their own research with musicians, authors Raymond MacDonald and Graeme Wilson - both music psychologists and renowned performers in their own right - propose new ideas on what defines improvisation in music. MacDonald and Wilson explore the cognitive processes involved, the role of specialist skills or knowledge in improvised interaction, and the nature of understanding between improvisers. Their investigation lays out how we develop as improvisers, alongside health benefits derived from music participation. The Art of Becoming is a vital resource for courses on improvisation in contemporary practice, and for those applying musical improvisation in community and therapeutic contexts, setting out a framework based on psychological findings for understanding improvisation as a universal capability and an essentially social behavior. With suggestions for approaching this practice in new ways at any level, it demonstrates how improvisation transcends musical genres and facilitates collaboration between practitioners from disciplines across the artistic spectrum. Putting forward important implications for contemporary artistic practices, pedagogy, music therapy and the psychology of social behavior, The Art of Becoming provides fresh and provocative insights for anyone interested in playing, studying, teaching, or listening to improvised music.
Download or read book Free Jazz and Free Improvisation 2 Volumes written by Todd S. Jenkins and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The free jazz revolution that began in the 1950s has had a profound influence on both jazz & rock music. Widely misunderstood & even reviled by critics, free jazz represented an artistic & sociopolitical response to the economic, racial, & musical climate of America.
Download or read book Philosophy of Improvisation written by Susanne Ravn and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-05-31 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives on improvisation. The contributions connect the theoretical dimensions of improvisation with different viewpoints on its practice in the arts and the classroom. The chapters address the phenomenon of improvisation in two related ways. On the one hand, they attend to the lived practices of improvisation both within and without the arts in order to explain the phenomenon. They also extend the scope of improvisational practices to include the role of improvisation in habit and in planned action, at both individual and collective levels. Drawing on recent work done in the philosophy of mind, they address questions such as whether improvisation is a single unified phenomenon or whether it entails different senses that can be discerned theoretically and practically. Finally, they ask after the special kind of improvisational expertise which characterizes musicians, dancers, and other practitioners, an expertise marked by the artist’s ability to participate competently in complex situations while deliberately relinquishing control. Philosophy of Improvisation will appeal to anyone with a strong interest in improvisation, to researchers working in philosophy, aesthetics, and pedagogy as well as practitioners involved in different kinds of music, dance, and theater performances.
Download or read book Extended Play written by John Corbett and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Extended Play, one of the country's most innovative music writers conducts a wide-ranging tour through the outer limits of contemporary music. Over the course of more than twenty-five portraits, interviews, and essays, John Corbett engages artists from lands as distant as Sweden, Siberia, and Saturn. With a special emphasis on African American and European improvisers, the book explores the famous and the little known, from John Cage and George Clinton to Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. Employing approaches as diverse as the music he celebrates, Corbett illuminates the sound and theory of funk and rap, blues and jazz, contemporary classical, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. Using cultural critique and textual theory, Corbett addresses a broad spectrum of issues, such as the status of recorded music in postmodern culture, the politics of self-censorship, experimentation, and alternativism in the music industry, and the use of metaphors of space and madness in the work of African American musicians. He follows these more theoretically oriented essays with a series of extensive profiles and in-depth interviews that offer contrasting and complementary perspectives on some of the world's most creative musicians and their work. Included here are more than twenty original photographs as well as a meticulously annotated discography. The result is one of the most thoughtful, and most entertaining, investigations of contemporary music available today.
Download or read book Get Shown the Light written by Michael Kaler and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-13 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the musical developments of rock in the 1960s, one in particular fundamentally changed the music’s structure and listening experience: the incorporation of extended improvisation into live performances. While many bands—including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Velvet Underground—stretched out their songs with improvisations, no band was more identified with the practice than the Grateful Dead. In Get Shown the Light Michael Kaler examines how the Dead’s dedication to improvisation stemmed from their belief that playing in this manner enabled them to touch upon transcendence. Drawing on band testimonials and analyses of early recordings, Kaler traces how the Dead developed an approach to playing music that they believed would facilitate their spiritual goals. He focuses on the band’s early years, the significance of their playing Ken Kesey’s Acid Test parties, and their evolving exploration of the myriad musical and spiritual possibilities that extended improvisation afforded. Kaler demonstrates that the Grateful Dead developed a radical new way of playing rock music as a means to unleashing the spiritual and transformative potential of their music.
Download or read book Vinyl Freak written by John Corbett and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-18 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From scouring flea markets and eBay to maxing out their credit cards, record collectors will do just about anything to score a long-sought-after album. In Vinyl Freak, music writer, curator, and collector John Corbett burrows deep inside the record fiend’s mind, documenting and reflecting on his decades-long love affair with vinyl. Discussing more than 200 rare and out-of-print LPs, Vinyl Freak is composed in part of Corbett's long-running DownBeat magazine column of the same name, which was devoted to records that had not appeared on CD. In other essays where he combines memoir and criticism, Corbett considers the current vinyl boom, explains why vinyl is his preferred medium, profiles collector subcultures, and recounts his adventures assembling the Alton Abraham Sun Ra Archive, an event so all-consuming that he claims it cured his record-collecting addiction. Perfect for vinyl newbies and veteran crate diggers alike, Vinyl Freak plumbs the motivations that drive Corbett and collectors everywhere.
Download or read book Thinking in Jazz written by Paul F. Berliner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-10-05 with total page 904 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark in jazz studies, Thinking in Jazz reveals as never before how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner documents the lifetime of preparation that lies behind the skilled improviser's every idea. The product of more than fifteen years of immersion in the jazz world, Thinking in Jazz combines participant observation with detailed musicological analysis, the author's experience as a jazz trumpeter, interpretations of published material by scholars and performers, and, above all, original data from interviews with more than fifty professional musicians: bassists George Duvivier and Rufus Reid; drummers Max Roach, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Akira Tana; guitarist Emily Remler; pianists Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris; saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Lee Konitz, and James Moody; trombonist Curtis Fuller; trumpeters Doc Cheatham, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, and Red Rodney; vocalists Carmen Lundy and Vea Williams; and others. Together, the interviews provide insight into the production of jazz by great artists like Betty Carter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, and Charlie Parker. Thinking in Jazz overflows with musical examples from the 1920s to the present, including original transcriptions (keyed to commercial recordings) of collective improvisations by Miles Davis's and John Coltrane's groups. These transcriptions provide additional insight into the structure and creativity of jazz improvisation and represent a remarkable resource for jazz musicians as well as students and educators. Berliner explores the alternative ways—aural, visual, kinetic, verbal, emotional, theoretical, associative—in which these performers conceptualize their music and describes the delicate interplay of soloist and ensemble in collective improvisation. Berliner's skillful integration of data concerning musical development, the rigorous practice and thought artists devote to jazz outside of performance, and the complexities of composing in the moment leads to a new understanding of jazz improvisation as a language, an aesthetic, and a tradition. This unprecedented journey to the heart of the jazz tradition will fascinate and enlighten musicians, musicologists, and jazz fans alike.
Download or read book Making It Up Together written by Leslie A. Tilley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-04-03 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most studies of musical improvisation focus on individual musicians. But that is not the whole story. From jazz to flamenco, Shona mbira to Javanese gamelan, improvised practices thrive on group creativity, relying on the close interaction of multiple simultaneously improvising performers. In Making It Up Together, Leslie A. Tilley explores the practice of collective musical improvisation cross-culturally, making a case for placing collectivity at the center of improvisation discourse and advocating ethnographically informed music analysis as a powerful tool for investigating improvisational processes. Through two contrasting Balinese case studies—of the reyong gong chime’s melodic norot practice and the interlocking drumming tradition kendang arja—Tilley proposes and tests analytical frameworks for examining collectively improvised performance. At the micro-level, Tilley’s analyses offer insight into the note-by-note decisions of improvising performers; at the macro-level, they illuminate larger musical, discursive, structural, and cultural factors shaping those decisions. This multi-tiered inquiry reveals that unpacking how performers play and imagine as a collective is crucial to understanding improvisation and demonstrates how music analysis can elucidate these complex musical and interactional relationships. Highlighting connections with diverse genres from various music cultures, Tilley’s examinations of collective improvisation also suggest rich potential for cross-genre exploration. The surrounding discussions point to larger theories of communication and interaction, creativity and cognition that will be of interest to a range of readers—from ethnomusicologists and music theorists to cognitive psychologists, jazz studies scholars, and improvising performers. Setting new parameters for the study of improvisation, Making It Up Together opens up fresh possibilities for understanding the creative process, in music and beyond.
Download or read book Listener s Guide to Musical Understanding written by Leon Dallin and published by WCB/McGraw-Hill. This book was released on 1982 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Listeners Guide to Musical Understanding written by Leon Dallin and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts written by Alessandro Bertinetto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 1133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last few decades, the notion of improvisation has enriched and dynamized research on traditional philosophies of music, theatre, dance, poetry, and even visual art. This Handbook offers readers an authoritative collection of accessible articles on the philosophy of improvisation, synthesizing and explaining various subjects and issues from the growing wave of journal articles and monographs in the field. Its 48 chapters, written specifically for this volume by an international team of scholars, are accessible for students and researchers alike. The volume is organized into four main sections: I Art and Improvisation: Theoretical Perspectives II Art and Improvisation: Aesthetical, Ethical, and Political Perspectives III Improvisation in Musical Practices IV Improvisation in the Visual, Narrative, Dramatic, and Interactive Arts Key Features: Treats improvisation not only as a stylistic feature, but also as an aesthetic property of artworks and performances as well as a core element of artistic creativity. Spells out multiple aspects of the concept of improvisation, emphasizing its relevance in understanding the nature of art. Covers improvisation in a wide spectrum of artistic domains, including unexpected ones such as literature, visual arts, games, and cooking. Addresses key questions, such as: - How can improvisation be defined and what is its role in different art forms? - Can improvisation be perceived as such, and how can it be aesthetically evaluated? - What is the relationship between improvisation and notions such as action, composition, expressivity, and authenticity? - What is the ethical and political significance of improvisation?
Download or read book Geosonics written by Joshua Dittrich and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2024-08-08 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do we listen to the earth? That is the central question posed in Geosonics: Listening Through Earth's Soundscapes. Working across sound studies, media theory, and environmental media studies, Joshua Dittrich explores the material and metaphorical geology of the sonic environment. In an epoch of climate crisis, environment is no longer a neutral background, site, or simple “surrounding”: environment is immanently implicated in the chains of mediation that make up the material and imaginative infrastructure of our lives. The analytical task of Geosonics is to tune into that infrastructure through sound. Drawing on influential work in sound studies around the concept of transduction, this book explores how listening does not take place in a pre-existing soundscape, but rather makes place by etching out a mediated, mutually constitutive set of relations between listeners, media, and environments.
Download or read book Living with Music written by Ralph Ellison and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2002-05-14 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Ralph Ellison became one of America’s greatest writers, he was a musician and a student of jazz, writing widely on his favorite music for more than fifty years. Now, jazz authority Robert O’Meally has collected the very best of Ellison’s inspired, exuberant jazz writings in this unique anthology.
