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Improvisation, Heterophony, Politics, Composition

2007; Perspectives of New Music; Volume: 45; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/pnm.2007.0009

2325-7180

Christian Wolff, Larry Polansky, Kui Dong, Christian Asplund, Michael Hicks,

Musicology and Musical Analysis

Improvisation, Heterophony, Politics, Composition Panel Discussion with Christian Wolff, Larry Polansky, Kui Dong, Christian Asplund, and Michael Hicks The following is transcribed and edited from a panel discussion with Christian Wolff, Larry Polansky, Kui Dong, Christian Asplund, and Michael Hicks, before a group of students and faculty in a library auditorium at Brigham Young University on the evening ofMarch 8, 2006.l Wolff, Polansky, and Kui?all of them Dartmouth faculty at the time?had come to BYU for "The Music of Christian Wolff: A Sympo sium," a three-day event organized by Asplund (Hicks's colleague at BYU), atwhich the three guests performed improvisations as a trio and joined with BYU student and faculty performers in performances of some of Wolffs Exercises.2 134 Perspectives of New Music Hicks: The National Association of Schools ofMusic recently reaccred ited BYU's School of Music. But one of the things for which they criticized us?they say it every time?is that we don't have enough improvisation in our program. The official, orthodox answer to that is always: "Well, we have a big jazz program. What do you mean?" My less-orthodox answer has been: "Every student inmy classes knows all about improvisation: take a look at their test performances." [Laughter] But I frankly don't know what improvisation is anymore?or if there everwas such a thing.What is "improvisation" inmusic to you? Polansky: I think Kui should answer that because she's the newest arrival to the idea and her answer may be themost interesting. Kui Dong: My background is: I came from a conservatory, basically a Russian system where we would write what our teacher taught us to write, like Tchaikovsky. Everything thatwe would write was very con trolled, every single note, every single aspect. Then I went to Stanford University where I got to write computer music. Then, when I joined the Dartmouth faculty, I started complaining about how controlled I was as a composer. There was a period of time where I'd get frustrated and not know what to write. It's too controlled, I thought, it doesn't really have the freedom anymore. And then one day I complained to Christian a lot because?I don't know why?he's always there forme. I said, "I can't compose." He said, "You will do it." "But I can't com pose." And one day he just said, "Why don't you play with Larry and me?" I guess he knew that I could play piano. Wolff: During her interview she played the Liszt Sonata. Kui Dong: So I said, "Play what?" "Well, just play." And the first ses sion I just refused to join them. "Well, why don't you play?" And I would just sit out. And then Larry said, "If you don't play, we don't play." So I was kind of forced to join them. Although it took a long time, forme itwas the discovery of a new dimension. Because I never think of music thatway as a composer. When I compose, always, every single note is inmy control. But once I started playing with the trio, I realized that improvisation is ratherfreeing. Itmight be the same idea as composition, except that you're making each decision as as you're play ing. In composition my normal process is that you have an overall structure and then make your decisions. But improvisation is that you play along and, as you do, you make your decisions. That means listen Improvisation, Heterophony, Politics, Composition I35 ing carefully to other people, sometimes compromising, and sometimes taking the lead. I think it's a very intuitive, almost spiritual thing. Wolff: There is your "jazz" response, of course, Michael. But there are different notions of improvisation. There's structured improvisation, which is basically what you have in jazz, at one end of the scale. Then at the other end you have completely free improvisation, which iswhat we do. So the first thing to be clear about iswhat kind of improvisation you mean. Do you want a definition? Hicks: Yes. Wolff: Well, you have to break itdown?which I don't particularly want to...