Making a start. Sort of.

While I’m writing this I’m listening to a piece by an ensemble called Skogen. The hour-long composition is called: Ist gefallen in den Schnee (Fallen in the snow). It is a composed piece, compared by some to the sparse compositions of Morton Feldman, but you’d never guess. The parameters within which each particpant contributes are created by the composer whilst the result has been described as both “semi-composed” and “semi-improvised”. Essentially, what the composer, Magnus Granberg, has done is to create a performance environment within which the ensemble of nine members is given a very loose set of instructions (possibilities) within which they may create their sounds whilst acknowledging the contributions of their fellow performers.

Granberg describes the process as follows:

… all players are provided with more or less specified materials and suggestions on how to treat them and are also encouraged to choose how much they would like to adhere to them and how and when to deviate from them. The players all make different choices at different times, all in accordance with their personal inclinations as well as how the music is shaped through the dynamics of group improvisation.

There are inspirations for the composition—one is a song from Schubert’s Winterreise and the other is a jazz standard, the name of which the composer cannot recall. No matter. For the purpose here it matters only that there was a starting point from which a unifying idea emerged. A lot of trust is involved here and the trusting has, most probably, taken some practice. Again from Granberg:

Perhaps one could say that I provide a potential which could be realized in innumerable ways, but the actual realizations are always the result of what decisions the musicians make throughout the piece; formal differentiation occurs spontaneously as a result of an improvisational process.

A few posts ago Nick Scammell suggested a model of proceeding in The Wing Assignment. Ingrid Newton reacted positively to this model and I asked her if she would receive from me a package in the posts with an invitation to respond to the contents in ways that are entirely of her own choosing. Over the next few days I will create the ‘collection’ which Ingrid will ‘curate’. The contents will exist only in the package and will not be reproduced by me for any other purpose. Ingrid can manipulate the contents (individually or collectively) in any way of her choice. What emerges from Ingrid’s process of response will represent a new piece which itself cannot be reproduced.

More follows.

John Levett