>Improvisation as a Method of Comprehension
In improvisation as in composition, sounds/noises are explored, but the improviser is both producer and recipient of the sound object/music (and as such, on equal "hearing" with the listener). The object is communicated and researched together with other improvisers - likewise recipient/producers - thus the hierarchical nature of the production and perception process is removed; the (presumed) advance on knowledge that musicians have over the audience vanishes. The process steps or layers develop simultaneously and interwoven with one another. The composition = construction is made by a "working group" in which every member can maintain an individual position in a space defined by the idea of authorship on the one hand, and by the ideal position of the listener on the other. In this space, the material that emerges is analyzed, dissected, taken up, repeated, resolved, dissolved, accompanied, etc.- in other words, made "legible" (...as figure or pattern...) i.e. it takes on a form.
The risk of these processes escalating into a pseudo-complex noise in the sense of information theory must be counteracted with humility and discipline on the part of the participants. Improvisation can then become a (gratifying) method of comprehension for the inclined listener.
"Complex stocks (of data) can, however, be processed very economically when they are displayed as figures or patterns."
"Denken am Modell" (Thoughts on a Model)
Peter F. Stefan