On the Aesthetics of Improvisation

What part of improvisation can we hear? If it is granted that music performance with improvisation involves some structure, and foreknowledge, what is the element that is improvised--and how is it perceived?

Improvised music is often said to be legitimate by virtue of the process that go into making it. These processes are valued because the music they produce is thus original, authentic, democratic. Its creation is truly "creative" in some special or multifaceted way.

When the performance is apprehended, by the audience, by other musicians, by consumerrs of recordings, even in close, expertly trained analysis, it makes sense that they would value the product because they are aware that the production of this music followed these principles. But they can not be merely abstract conventions, distinct from the act of hearing and interpreting the music. They must be perceptible to be truly valued.

I believe improvisation can if fact be perceived. Insofar as an improvised performance involves indeterminacy, i.e., lack of prior determination, that element can be heard in the music. After all, randomness, or "pure" indeterminacy, can be heard; listen to wind chimes as a song. Greater degrees of prior determination of music, such as twelve-tone composition or total serialization, can also be heard. So why should the element of creation in the act of performance not be perceptible?

I submit that the listener finds originality, authenticity, democracy in the music because, even if passive, he or she is in some sense participating. They are more or less able to sense the unstructured, or unplanned elements insofar as they are more or less familiar with the structure or a priori decisions in the music. It is easy for a well-versed listener to hear what is truly unique in a Dexter Gordon solo insofar as they are familiar with the structure Gordon agrees to and the material he tends to identify with as his own (his "licks"). But free improvisation--that is, the improvised part, can also be perceived.

The perception of improvisation depends on familiarity with the individual composer's prior intentions, decisions, boundaries--with their identity. So the exact nature, not just the exact profile, of each improvisation, is unique. The element of improvisation that is heard depends on the improvised.

The listener may feel, and value, these qualities of originality, authenticity, and especially democracy, insofar as they have the sense of participating in them and that they are meaningful. He or she may even perceive that it is beautiful because randomness and indeterminacy are facets of real experience, often welcome in the face of oppressive determinacy.

Pace Fred Lerdahl: we actively construct music as listeners in order to make meaning out of it. And we do so when we hear improvisation.