Improvisation

(Yid.)

A master of ceremonies at Jewish weddings or social festivities. Bad ḥanim often improvised poems and composed and performed their own songs. In eastern Europe they were also known as marshaliks or leyzim (sing. leyz) and performed at the almost obligatory traditional Purim celebrations, singing, dancing and acting in A ḥashverosh plays. Thus they were the real forerunners of the Yiddish theatre. These merry-makers, wandering actors and musicians performed in all Jewish towns and congregations. Elyokum Zunser (1840–1913), a bad ḥan from Vilna (now Vilnius), wrote about 600 songs, many of which were very popular and of strong Jewish appeal. Another very popular bad ḥan was Mark Varshavsky (1845–1907), a scholar and lawyer from Kiev; he was much influenced by the Yiddish writer Shalom Aleichem, and notated and published some of his own songs. His Alefbet (‘Oyfn pripechok’) is still sung in Jewish schools and homes, and in Hebrew translation in Israeli schools....

(b Vidin, Bulgaria, Sept 12, 1951). Bulgarian composer, conductor, and piano improviser. He was educated at the High School of Music in Sofia (percussion class under Dobri Paliev, 1965–71), and at the State Musical Academy in Sofia (1973–9), majoring in composition under Tsvetan Tsvetanov and Parashkev Hadzhiev, and orchestral conducting under Konstantin Iliev. He made his name as an active jazz pianist and composer, forming his own jazz trio and participating in several international festivals (in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Cuba, Romania, Germany, Portugal, and Yugoslavia). While a student he won the position of conductor at the State Musical Theatre (1977–86), bringing to the stage a number of classical operettas and contemporary musicals. His background also includes courses in conducting under Franco Ferrara (1980, Siena, Italy) and Edward Dawns (1981, Hilversum, Holland), and in composition with Anatol Vieru (...

(Arthur )

(b Kankakee, IL, March 22, 1942; d San Rafael, CA, Sept 25, 1996). American composer, trombonist, conductor, and double bassist. He attended the University of Illinois, where he studied trombone with Robert Gray and composition with Kenneth Gaburo, herbert Brün , and salvatore Martirano (BM in performance 1965). He studied jazz improvisation with lee Konitz and electronic music with richard b. Hervig at the University of Iowa (1970–71). He was a member of the Harry Partch Ensemble (1961–2) and the Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players (1963–6) and was an associate artist at the University of Iowa Center for New Music and New Performing Arts (1969–74). From 1974 to 1984 English lived in Europe, where he performed widely as a soloist and with jazz and new music ensembles, at festivals, and on radio. He collaborated with his wife Candace Natvig, a singer and violinist; in ...

A term used to describe melody that is ornamented, either written out by the composer, or improvised by the performer. It can apply to a single melodic line, or to polyphony. In the florid organum of Aquitaine in the early 12th century the upper part of the note-against-note counterpoint is embellished with melismas. The term is also used to describe the musica figurata of early Netherlandish composers such as Ockeghem, in which elaborate polyphony was created by combining a number of equally florid lines. Most often it refers to a profuse style of ornamentation running in rapid figures, passages or divisions, but it can also designate ornamentation in general. For example, P.F. Tosi’s treatise on improvised embellishment, Opinioni de’ cantori antichi e moderni, o sieno osservazioni sopra il canto figurato (1723), translated into English (1742) as Observations on the Florid Song, includes specific ornaments, such as trills and appoggiaturas, alongside various types of passage work....

(pl. flores) (Lat.: ‘flower’; Fr. fleuretis)

A species of vocal embellishment. Jerome of Moravia (late 13th century) gave this definition: ‘est autem flos armonicus decora vocis sive soni celerrima procellarisque vibratio’ – an ‘ornamental vibration of the voice, or a very rapid rippling of the sound’ – that is, a shake. He described three types of ‘flowers’: long, open and sudden. ‘Long flowers’ resemble a slow vibrato, taking the note a semitone above the note to be graced. ‘Open flowers’ are slow, taking the tone below. ‘Sudden flowers’ begin slowly and gradually gather speed, using the interval of a semitone. Describing these ornaments in connection with plainchant, the author warned against applying them indiscriminately. Five notes are singled out for embellishment: the first, last and penultimate notes to be graced with long flowers, the second note of the first syllable with open flowers, and the long plica with sudden flowers. Singers may insert several short notes between this ornamental plica and the next note ‘to make the melody more elegant’....

[Jeremy Webster]

(b Heathfield, East Sussex, England, Feb 17, 1949). English guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and composer. He taught himself piano, studied violin, and sang in the church choir while at school. After playing guitar and electric bass guitar in various rock bands he founded the rock and improvising group Henry Cow with the reed player Tim Hodgkinson (1968). When the group disbanded in 1978 Frith established the Art Bears, a trio with the drummer Chris Cutler and the singer Dagmar Krause, which was active until 1981. In 1979 he moved to New York, where he formed a power trio (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums), Massacre, with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher (1980–82), Skeleton Crew with Tom Cora (1982–6), the sextet Keep the Dog (1989–92), and a guitar quartet (1992), with which, after having moved to Germany (1995...

Interactive computer network used as an extended musical instrument, played by a San Franciso Bay–area experimental computer network band also called The Hub. The band, founded in 1985 by Tim Perkis and John Bischoff, evolved from the League of Automatic Music Composers (1978–83). The concept of The Hub is to create live music resulting from the unpredictable behaviour of the interconnected computer system. The composer/performers consider their performances a type of ‘enhanced improvisation’.

Initially The Hub provided a custom-built central ‘mailbox’ computer and made use of a MIDI network providing communication between the composer/performers’ synthesizers. With the maturation of commercial MIDI equipment, the band shifted to using the Opcode Studio V multiport MIDI interface for their hub. Since MIDI is designed to allow one player or computer to control a group of synthesizers but not to allow a network of synthesizers to interact, band member Scot Gresham-Lancaster devised a way to program the system so the Opcode Studio V could route messages among all the synthesizers in the network....

The practice of improvisation is widely regarded as a prominent feature of American musical culture as well as a fundamental component of the international image of America’s music. While not present in all forms of American music, improvisation serves as a pronounced or even defining element of some of America’s best-known musical forms, including jazz, blues, rock, and bluegrass; some forms of American classical music, particularly since the 1950s, also incorporate performance and compositional practices that deploy improvisation.

Constructing a definition of improvisation was once considered a relatively straightforward matter. The Oxford Dictionary of Music’s pithy definition was typical, framing improvisation as a performance conducted “according to the inventive whim of the moment, i.e. without a written or printed score, and not from memory.” Ethnomusicologist Paul Berliner’s 1994 book on improvisation in jazz began to complicate this understanding, describing the practice as involving “reworking precomposed material and designs in relation to unanticipated ideas conceived, shaped, and transformed under the special conditions of performance” (Berliner, p. 241)....

(b Paris, France, Oct 20, 1950). American composer, keyboardist, electronic musician, and improviser of French birth; naturalized American; daughter of jazz pianist and drummer Errol Parker. She began studying piano and harmony at age 7 and composing at 12. Lauten received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Institut d’Études Politiques in 1971. The following year she relocated to New York City, where she participated in the burgeoning punk rock scene. Through guitarist Denise Feliu, Lauten met the poet Allen Ginsberg, who would have a significant impact upon her spiritual and musical life.

Lauten’s compositional and improvisational practice is exemplary of the musical aesthetics of downtown New York in the 1970s and 80s. A practitioner of both US popular music and European classical music, Lauten blended the two styles with minimalist experimentalism. Lauten’s studies in New York City brought her into contact with the varied denizens of downtown musical life. She studied Indian raga with ...

(b New York, NY, Jan 29, 1939; d Tijuana, Mexico, Oct 25, 2000). American jazz singer, lyricist, composer–improviser, multidisciplinary artist, and educator. During her 40-year career she performed internationally and recorded more than 40 albums, working with such artists as Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Enrico Rava, Andrew Cyrille, Roland Kirk, Jimmy Lyons, Archie Shepp, Sunny Murray, Cecil Taylor, and Reggie Workman. Her vocal style reflects the influence of early mainstream jazz vocalists, including Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington, and the intellectualism of postwar avant-garde jazz and experimental music. Starting in the 1960s Lee forged a new path in multidisciplinary performance that fused the aesthetics of modern dance, vocal improvisation and sound poetry (intonation, non-verbal utterances, and vocalizations), and visual arts (paintings, slide projections, and film). In the 1970s she established Earthforms Rituals, a nonprofit corporation that promoted concerts and educational programs. She also completed an MA in education at New York University in ...

(b Plovdiv, 19 Dec 1937). Bulgarian composer, pianist, conductor, arranger, and bandleader. He was internationally acknowledged for his innovative ideas, cross-cultural experiments, and contribution to the concept of fusion and free improvisation. Classically trained at the Bulgarian State Conservatory (1955–60) under Pancho Vladigerov (composition) and Andrey Stoyanov (piano), he is the author of numerous compositions in styles and genres including jazz, pop, symphony, chamber, film, and theatrical music. He conducted the Radio and Television Big Band in Sofia (1962–6) and led his own avant-garde quartet, Jazz Focus’65 (1965–8), which won the Critic’s Prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1967. In 1970 he left Bulgaria for political reasons and moved to the USA where he joined the Don Ellis Orchestra (1971–8), and later collaborated with the classical/jazz quartet Free Flight. He also played with outstanding jazz musicians including Art Pepper, Billy Cobham, and Dave Holland, among many others....

(It.: ‘licence’)

(1) In the 17th and 18th centuries a passage or cadenza inserted into a piece by a performer.

(2) In the same period, an epilogue inserted into a stage work (opera or play) in honour of a patron’s birthday or wedding, or for some other festive occasion. This usually consisted of recitatives and arias but choruses were sometimes included. The ...

An instrumental genre specific to the periya mēḷam repertoire, performed in south Indian (Tamil) Brahmanical temples. In performance practice, a mallāri consists of three parts: the alārippu (‘opening’), a short rhythmic improvisation played on the drum (tavil) and based on a quintuple subdivision of the beat (khaṇḍa gati); the rāgam (or ālāpana, ‘discourse’), a modal improvisation in free rhythm, performed by the leading shawm (nāgasvaram) player; and the mallāri itself, a pre-composed melodic-rhythmic theme developed by the whole orchestra according to a principle of rhythmic augmentation and diminution called trikāla (‘three speeds’). While a mallāri, by convention, must be played in Gambhīra-nāṭa, a melodic mode (rāga) based on the pentatonic scale C–E–F–G–B, it can be rendered in any metric cycle (tāla), thus allowing musicians to explore unusual combinations and demonstrate their skill in the rhythmic domain.

Most mallāris are performed at the beginning of deities’ processions and named after the ...

Experimental electronic performance ensemble. Formed in 2003 by Laura and Mark Cetilia, a wife-and-husband team, Mem1 creates original music for cello and electronics, as well as video and installation art. Based in Los Angeles, California, and Providence, Rhode Island, Mem1 owns and operates Estuary Ltd., a record label dedicated to experimental music and sound art, and organizes CTRL+ALT+REPEAT, a performance series for new music programmed annually in Los Angeles. The duo has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, and has collaborated with Steve Roden and the Penderecki String Quartet, among many others. In addition to several albums dedicated to the duo’s original music—including Alexipharmaca (2006), Stationary Drift (2009), and Tetra (2010)—Mem1 has released an album of collaborative works, titled +1 (2009), and an album-length collaboration with Stephen Vitiello, Age of Insects (2011).

A Mem1 piece is typically an improvised, collaborative birthing and nurturing of a singular yet texturally complex sound. Spontaneously but carefully and gradually, the sound may begin as the breathing of the cello, played by Laura. In the opening of “Somniferum” (...

(Fr.: ‘unequal notes’)

A rhythmic convention according to which certain divisions of the beat move in alternately long and short values, even if they are written equal.

As it existed in France from the mid-16th century to the late 18th the convention of notes inégales was first of all a way of gracing or enlivening passage-work or diminutions in vocal or instrumental music. As styles changed and the figurations born of diminution entered the essential melodic vocabulary, inequality permeated the musical language. Its application was regulated by metre and note values; it always operated within the beat, never distorting the beat itself. (An anomalous instance of alteration of the beat appears in Gigault; see §2.) The degree of inequality (i.e. the ratio between the lengths of the long and short notes of each pair) could vary from the barely perceptible to the equivalent of double dotting, according to the character of the piece and the taste of the performer. Inequality was considered one of the chief resources of expression, and it varied according to expressive needs within the same piece or even within the same passage; where it was felt to be inappropriate it could be abandoned altogether unless explicitly demanded....

(Lat.)

In 15th-century keyboard music, a form of conclusion consisting of formulaic counterpoint over the long-held final note (ultima) of a section of the cantus firmus, before reaching a closing consonance. Octaves and 5ths frequently constitute the salient features of the figuration. This procedure was a part of organ-playing practice in the 15th century, the most extensive collections of examples being in Conrad Paumann's ...

(Fr.: ‘carrying of the voice’)

In Baroque vocal and instrumental music, an appoggiatura, particularly one that resolves upwards by a tone or semitone. Deriving from late 16th-century Italian improvisatory practice – Bovicelli's Regole, passaggi di musica, madrigali et motetti passeggiati (1594/R) contains written-out examples – it became one of the most important graces of French Baroque music. In France it was rarely printed before the late 17th century, but was left to the performer to add extempore. Bacilly explained in his Remarques curieuses sur l'art de bien chanter (1668/R, 4/1681; Eng. trans., 1968) that the accessory note anticipated the beat and took value from the preceding note. Perfection, he continued, lay in its also taking ‘some of the value’ of the note of resolution, as this enabled one to linger on the accessory note.

In his Méthode claire, certaine et facile pour apprendre à chanter la musique (...