I’m a
questioner, always have been, probably always will be, but I’m not really looking
for answers. I’m also not just trying to be contrary, but there are times when
answers do not have that so-called ring
of truth for me—do not leave me satisfied.
And so, I
sometimes end up stopping others in the course of their explanations to
question one or another of the assumptions upon which their explanations are
constructed.
A good
example is the numerous assumptions about what constitutes improvisation in
music. The general thinking is that most classical music is not improvised and
that most jazz and blues is.
Fair enough,
until we dig a little deeper. Yes, classical music is written down and
classical players play what is written. Jazz, on the other hand, is often based
upon a form—a harmonic or melodic progression, or a tune—upon which the player
is free to, so to speak, change it up
and find places within the forms to create their own mini-creations—like solos.
Again, all
well and good, but only until we begin to ask some of those inconvenient questions like—is a
classical musician just some kind of machine, like a CD player, that reads the
information on the disk—in this case the musical notation or the music played
from memorization—and then, via the body, convey that information into sound?
Studies have
shown that different areas of the brain are activated when musicians are asked
to play a scale or a melody from memory and then asked to improvise on that
scale or melody. Specifically, an area of the brain involved with the process
of self-monitoring is deactivated
during improvisation. But my own experience of playing memorized music and
improvising shows me that the situation is not quite so simple—not quite so
black and white.
What I observe is that when I play a piece of
music, whether I am improvising or playing from memory, the music never comes
out the same way twice. When I’m playing well and I'm in control of the piece, it
comes out differently depending on my mood, the acoustics of the room, the
instrument I am playing, and also what music and musicians I have been
listening to recently.
So the
question is this, if I really know the
music and am not thinking about how
to play it, but what I want to hear,
and in the here and now of the moment
I am intentionally projecting my
vision, am I not improvising?
But perhaps the answer depends on one’s
definition of improvisation. If you think improvisation is only that which
creates new melodies, chords, and chord progressions—new notes and different
rhythm—then what I am describing is not improvisation. Again, all well and
good, but personally, I am not satisfied.
Why not?
Because I begin to question what is this new
stuff that the improviser is improvising? Where does it come from? How did
it get there? And is the improviser
channeling something beyond himself—something from the Universal Mind, or God
or the cosmos?
Most jazz
musicians will tell you that what comes out in an improvisation is what is
already inside of them—is stuff that
they have in their minds and have already programed into their bodies—the so-called
muscle memory. How it comes out, when it comes out, and why it comes out is sometimes
a mystery, but there does always appear to be some cause and effect at work in
the process. Elements that I described that impact my expression of classical
music seem remarkably like the elements that influence the improvisation of a
jazz or blues musician—elements like the musician's mood, the room, the energy
of the room, etc.
In other
words, it is my experience that when classical musicians play a piece of music that
they have fully internalized and when jazz musicians improvise, there is not as
much difference as is sometimes assumed. Of course, the deeper question for me still
remains—how does either of them do it in the first place? Where is the line
between musician and machine, or is the inconvenient truth that there is really
no distinction all? Without the machine
of the body and the impressions stored in the mind, neither the classical
musician nor the jazz musician could play their music.
And so, I
wonder, is the musician—is man—really a kind of sophisticated cyborg—not just in music, but on the whole
vast field of life itself, running and being run by their impressions—their physical
and mental programing?
My coffee
cup sits near me next to my computer; I reach for the cup and take a sip. What
just happened? Mind, monitoring my senses, becomes aware of the cup and
desiring the experience of the coffee commands the body to do my mind’s will.
The body is programed for the task of picking something up and moving it, in
this case, to my lips to taste—to experience—the coffee.
But where am I in all of this? Who am I in all of this? And am I ever even here at all? One thing I
know for sure, it is in the act of playing music that these questions are
raised to a level beyond the theoretical and the abstract and in their
contemplation I experience a unique joy and happiness—and can I ever ask for
more?
© copyright Michael Kovitz 2016
