The late 1950s and 1960s saw the formation of groups of musicians devoted to free improvisation. These groups deliberately excluded pre-existing musical idioms and focused on the nature of improvisation and the processes involved in... more
The late 1950s and 1960s saw the formation of groups of musicians devoted to free improvisation. These groups deliberately excluded pre-existing musical idioms and focused on the nature of improvisation and the processes involved in spontaneously inventing music and interacting as a group. The history, recordings, and writings of this free improvisation movement is a valuable source for prospective improvisers and demonstrates that free improvisation can be a serious discipline capable of developing meaningful and powerful musical discourse. The techniques that its practitioners developed to stimulate innovation and to explore the interactive possibilities of group creativity can be used in many musical and interdisciplinary applications. The interpretation of indeterminate graphic scores is one such application. Classical musicians are particularly suited to meeting the interpretational challenges of these works, and an openness to improvisational approaches has the potential to re...
