I am wrapping up this year's summer listening project by looking at two composers who have used improvisation as a primary method of expression in their work: Dominic Murcott and George Lewis. But, before I jump into their music, a brief discussion of my experience with improvisation as a performer, teacher, and composer.

The current trend toward improvisation in classical music is performer-driven. There are several factors at play. In terms of sheer numbers, there are many more performers than composers. Performers need music to play, and composers require financial compensation. Performing ensembles also need performances, and performances require rehearsal time (money) and practice time (time, which is money). An expensive learning curve for each new composition can be reduced when performers improvise during a performance. Not only is it a cheaper form of expression, but it also eliminates the need to share the production credit with another musician when a performer makes music for an audience directly, instead of serving as a medium for the musical expression of another mind. For those performers capable of improvising to a high degree of excellence, it can be an intimate and highly satisfying method of self-expression.

There were several moments of potential ignition for my composition pursuits. I dabbled with arranging things for my high school band as a student. As an undergraduate, I composed a three-movement duet for trumpet and trombone. I was dating a trombonist then, and she eventually became my wife, but certainly not because of the piece. As a band director, I arranged music for marching band performances. The spark that caught fire, though, started from an improvisation session in my office one day as I was fuming about some administrative task that needed to be done. I turned on my notation program and sat down at my MIDI keyboard.

I played without stopping and, more importantly, without self-criticism for more than 10 minutes. It felt great. I worked out a bunch of anxiety and emotions and felt much better afterward. I still had some time on my lunch break, so I opened another blank file and recorded another session. This one was faster, shorter, and more joyful. I came to what felt like a natural ending and then opened up a third blank file. This improvisation flew. I didn't care about wrong notes or messy rhythms. I just played what I was feeling in the moment. When I finished, I had three MIDI tracks of piano that ran for about 25 minutes. I had the software process the recording and spit out a notated version. Later, I orchestrated the material into a string quartet with only the slightest amount of polishing. That was 1994, and I've since removed the piece from my list of works, but I still look back on it with fondness and wonder. Did I "write" that piece? Why do I still consider it "less than" the other works I have toiled with? That early string quartet is the only music I have ever freely improvised to this day. A growing number of composers working today would consider that piece the most honest thing I have ever done and would encourage me to continue down that path. I'm not so sure. 

Dominic Murcott is a London-based composer, percussionist, and Head of Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. His music came to my attention through the nonclassical music label. His 2020 release on that label, 1:3:5:7 Improvised Duos, is a collection of freely improvised pieces with four soloists: a trumpet player, a pianist, a saxophonist, and a violinist. Murcott made four recording sessions with each player lasting 1,3,5 and 7 minutes.

The idea behind it was a simple question. If we know exactly how long the section is going to be, will it influence the material in each? For example, is the first gesture of a 3' improvisation different to that of a 7' one? Each of the collaborators has a very particular style and I adapted to each by limiting the percussion I could use for each one. For intimacy I engineered the sessions myself so only two of us were ever in the studio at any given time.—Dominic Murcott

Murcott's experiment is absolute music in its purest form. There is no explicit story being told here. No specific worldviews are being explored, no wartime experiences being reminisced, no attempts to ponder the existence of God, no apocalyptic visions, no false mirrors, or any other attempts to explore the physical properties of reality…other than time. I want to focus on one set of time experiments made with Murcott's colleague at the conservatory, the like-minded composer/improviser/trumpeter Laura Jurd. 

1' with LJ

This session generated an uptempo, rapid subdivision exploration of rolling pitches and phrase fragments in a singular harmonic setting that started in the low register in both the trumpet and the drums and progressed higher as the minute ticked by.  

3’ with LJ

For this session, Jurd switches to what I believe to be a bass trumpet. She begins alone with rising harmonic lip slurs and arpeggiated fragments. Murcott enters with a funky shifting drumset beat that speeds up and slows down, creating a jittery feel. Jurd's lip slurs and valve rips extend into the stratosphere, fall into the basement, and fuzz out into oblivion. Murcott's beat stops and starts. Cymbals rattle and buzz to match the distortion explored in the horn sound. I particularly like the parallels between the snare "buzz rolls" and the horn buzz. Both players give each other moments to explore the space alone. The ending is jittery and fragmented, with trade-offs that manage to find a satisfying tonal endpoint.

5’ with LJ

This session features a Harmon-muted trumpet with hand effects over the stem. The timbral shift in the horn is matched by the inclusion of the temple block on the drum kit. Murcott again uses a jittery beat with a lot of stopping and starting to match the fragmented phrasing in the horn. Jurd spits short bursts of material as she slowly removes the mute from the horn. About halfway through the allotted time, the transition to unmuted trumpet is complete. While the phrasing is still choppy and jittery, the dynamics are now shifted into a more quiet exploration. Murcott moves into a tom exploration while Jurd re-inserts the mute and brings up the dynamics of her phrases while continuing to play around with the transition sound of the muted and open horn. The session fades into an exploration of tom rolls and open horn trilling. 

7’ with LJ

Back to the funk and a more steady beat to begin. Jurd begins with trill figures and short phrase bursts. The extended time frame creates a tendency to elongate feels and phrasing. More time is allowed for ideas to linger. Jurd switches back and forth from the bass to the standard trumpet while keeping the same harmonic tonal center. There are lovely moments of drum soloing that set up entrances of a horn switch. It ends with the drums alternating between rolls and beats and the horn alternating between two different pitches.

Throughout the four improvisations, there is a notable lack of melodic development. Is this representative of the time restrictions put in place at the outset or a characteristic inherent in the performers. I often think in melody first, so my improvisational experiments quickly formed around melodic ideas. However, my improvisations were never focused on time restrictions and were always open-ended. Would a more melodic approach have appeared if Jurd and Murcott had agreed to turn on the recorder and go? Would I have attempted to formulate a melody if I had only set out to record a minute of sound? The entire album is worth exploring and was one of my favorite listens in 2020. The selections are intermixed on the album to allow for a more varied approach to the listening experience. By removing just the Murcott/Jurd collaborations and ordering them by time, I have distilled the experiment down to its essentials and brought a more explicit focus to the project's stated aims. This project has led me to want to seek out like-minded individuals locally for a similar exploration in improvisation, but, sadly, that has yet to occur. 

I'm still on the lookout, though.