Living Music by Rod Paton
Extract from ‘Living Music’ Part 3
Improvisation Project 4: Time Holes
Introduction And Objectives
The title of this project is borrowed from Frank Zappa whose entertaining autobiography includes a section entitled “Let’s All Be Composers”. Zappa does not provide any useable ideas about compositional technique but he does establish a strong sense of the purpose of a piece: in other words he is thin on detail but strong on intentionality. This is what he writes:
Just follow these simple instructions:
(1) Declare your intention to create a composition
(2) Start a piece at some time.
(3) Cause something to happen over a period of time (it doesn’t matter what happens in your ‘time hole’-we have critics to tell us whether it’s any good or not, so we won’t worry about that part).
(4) End the piece at some time (or keep it going, telling the audience it is a work in progress).
(5) Get a part-time job so you can continue to do stuff like this.
From ‘The Real Frank Zappa Book’ (1989, Picador)
The “time hole”, as Zappa describes it here, is the period which elapses between the moment we decide a piece is to begin and the point at which we decide it is going to end, i.e. the period of intention. There are echoes of John Cage in this, particularly the endlessly discussed composition titled “4 minutes 33 seconds” in which neither the composer nor the performer intervenes in any way to determine what might happen within the chosen moment of duration. To those who believe that music must be fully determined, preferably by a composer of genius, in order to qualify as a work of art, Cage’s (and Zappa’s) position might appear absurd. But this would be to miss the point, which is to emphasise the indeterministic quality, the chance events, which contribute to the inception and realisation of all music and that such events are not meaningless but derive their strength of meaning from the quality of attention and intention which we attach to them (see “General Principles”). Improvised music also emphasises this quality of significant chance and, since all composed music begins with improvisation, we can see that chance plays a major part in the creation of even those works which appear to be fully determined.
This project also draws directly upon the work of John Stevens whose imagination has had such a profound influence on the development of community music making.
Thus we begin with nothing more than “purposeful durations” and then show how these may be used to generate improvised pieces. It is to be hoped that it also encourages a sense of empowerment and trust alongside some useable compositional principles.
Participants will…
- Develop a sense of duration
- Learn to make decisions about beginnings and endings
- Learn to listen with sensitivity
- Develop a sense of responsibility for the duration of a piece
- Be empowered within the group to provide musical ideas
- Be responsible for the duration and the development of the piece
- Interact and converse with a variety of musical phrases
- Develop longer musical structures through interactive improvisation
Suggested Activity
Making “time holes”
Say ‘click’ and then, after a few moments say ’stop’. This is a time hole. Nothing is done or said or played or sung during the time hole at this stage of the process. Experiment with time holes of varying duration.
Listen to the spaces.
Any participant may create a time hole simply by saying ‘click’ and, after a pause, ’stop’. No one may start a fresh time hole until the previous one has come to an end. The result should be a series of time holes of varying length created by group members.
Once a time hole has begun, with a “click” that person is entirely responsible for its duration.
Filling the time holes with sounds
The next stage in the process is to fill the time holes with intentional sounds. Use percussion instruments, tuned and untuned, or any other instruments available, to make one short sound per participant per time hole. If time holes are short, not everyone might get the chance to play their sounds in each hole. If they are long, most sounds might already be made near the beginning of the hole, leaving a significant period of silence at the end. As the process continues, groups will find their own way of balancing, listening, judging and creating playful sound worlds in this way
Increase the number of sounds each person plays within each time hole. Give one player the responsibility for the time holes (saying ‘click’ and ’stop’) thereby allowing the rest of the group to concentrate on playing their chosen sounds. Also restrict the numbers of sounds which each player makes within the time hole (limitation principle). One method which works well is to restrict players initially to ’single clicks’ (one short sound at a time); then, once any player decides to make a ‘double click’ (a duplet or two paired short sounds) ALL may then follw suit using single or double clicks at will; this can be followed by ‘triple clicks’, introduced in the same way and this in turn might then develop into a free improvisation.
At each stage of the process, allow pauses for discussion and reflection. Draw attention to the importance of listening.
Patterns and Sequences
Allow patterns to emerge. These may be sequences of clicks (or double or triple clicks) which recur, setting up musical dialogues within the group. And allow fixed pulses to be set up which will probably emerge spontaneously.
Increase the length of the time holes until they last as long as ten or fifteen minutes. Provided that this point has been built up to in stages, the sense of a single span of time and the kind of musical structures which will work within it will be maintained.
At this stage, the group might wish to record or notate some of the musical ideas and structures which have been created. Or they might wish simply to continue improvising freely in the spirit of the exercise, going back to stage one perhaps and revisiting the whole process.