I was asked to contribute an essay to the 50th issue of the Serbian journal New Sound. And also because my wife is Serbian I decided to write a sonic postcard from Belgrade in which (Serbian) sounds, sound art, and musics converge. See: http://www.newsound.org.rs/pdf/en/ns50/21.M.Cobussen.pdf
Finally it is there, my e-pub on improvisation and complex systems. And … thanks to Leiden University Press and the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, it is for free as well.
Download for free:
E-PUB: http://hdl.handle.net/1887/52784
E-PDF: http://oapen.org/search?identifier=637220
The central aim of this e-pub is to present a new approach to “the field of musical improvisation” (FMI), a theory which understands improvisation as a nonlinear dynamic and complex system. The study provocatively argues that during an improvisation more actants are “at work” than musicians alone: space, acoustics, instruments, audience, technicians, musical and socio-cultural backgrounds, technology, and the like all play a significant role. However, not all of these actants determine every improvisation to the same extent; some are more prominent and active than others in certain situations (periods, styles, cultures, as well as more singular circumstances). Therefore, the FMI theory will prove to be more than a theory dealing with improvisation “in general.” Rather, FMI emphasizes singularity: each improvisation thus yields a different network of actants and interactions, a unique configuration or assembly.
It is startlingly original in so much as it brings a philosophical/social understanding to the field of musical improvisation. I’ve not really encountered a work that does this so imaginatively and thoroughly. Indeed – reading the work – I think the whole manuscript is one wonderful set of improvisations – and as such works very well. Michael Bull Professor of Sound Studies at the University of Sussex
Marcel Cobussen offers a concise and compelling account of musical improvisation that spans – and at times transgresses – conventional notions of musical genre and academic discipline. A wonderful approach that leverages the multimodal aspects of improvisation and of learning in general. Bravo! David Borgo Professor of Music at UC San Diego
… more good news … after the launch of “my” MOOC Music & Society a couple of days ago, today I found on my doormat the paperback version of “Music and Ethics”, the book I wrote with Nanette Nielsen. 35 GBP instead of the 95 GBP for the hard cover. IOW, affordable for more people!
Just published in Revista Musica: a dialogue between myself and a good friend of mine, Brazilian composer/improviser and Professor of Music, Rogerio Costa. Although the dialogue has as its main topic (the borders of) musical improvisation, it also touches on issues of identity, (Brazilian) politics, and educational systems. Here’s a link to the article.
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Perhaps not with the most well-known artists, but certainly one of the nicest sound art festivals in The Netherlands, at a beautiful spot and in an interesting building: the PNEM Sound Art Festival in Uden.
Special references: great improv performance by the French cello player, Soizic Lebrat; the presence of the grand old man of Dutch sound art, Willem de Ridder, and the accessible “In-formed Music” by Alan Courtis for 15 players and piles of newspapers.
vs. Interpretation. Bit of a strange title for a really interesting conference on improvisation I’m currently attending in Prague. Very nice mixture of paper presentations, workshops, and concerts. Today (July 17) great lecture-performance by violinist Mary Oliver, actually a homage to Misha Mengelberg. Also a great concert by George Lewis (electronics, trombone), Pauline Oliveros (accordeon) and Joelle Leandre (double bass). At a certain moment the concert connected to a text I recently wrote for my forthcoming book on improv, complexity, and singularity. The text is about the relation between improv and play and one of the characteristics of play is, at least according to Johan Huizinga in his Home Ludens that it is disconnected from “real” life. However, in this venue where the temperature reached some 35 degrees celcius, Joelle suddenly added her voice to the music, singing the words “It is hot”. In that very moment she broke the disconnection between play and real life – IOW, real life entered the improvisation, if only through text.
Tomorrow a keynote by Pauline and performances by Jef Goldberg, Phil Niblock, and Iva Bittova (among others).
The Improvising Across Borders Conference will take place on July 17-19, 2014, throughout downtown Prague.
Keynote speakers: George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros, and Dana Reason.
I will present a paper on the role of technology in the field of musical improvisation. Central question is if humans are indispensable for improvisation. I will argue that, although human input might always be present in any improvisation, it can be a minor actant in certain occasions; sometimes, technology is the most important (f)actor in an improv event.
You can find more information on the conference (though not really a lot) on http://agosto-foundation.org/iab/
To end 2013 here’s some nice guitar music by Macedonian musician Vlatko Stefanovski. I will dedicate some pages to his “interpretations” of the famous Macedonian folktune “Jovana, Jovanke” in my forthcoming (e-)book on improvisation, complexity, and singularity which I’m hoping to finish in 2014. Next to that I will be working on a Routledge sounding art companion which I’m editing with Barry Truax from Vancouver and Vincent Meelberg, my colleague at ACPA and co-editor of The Journal of Sonic Studies
DARE 2015
Thinking Sounds 