The Composer's Ego -- Structured Improvisation

Composing is an immensely ego-gratifying process. I remember the first time I conducted musicians playing my music, and it really was extremely fulfilling to hear everything that I had spent so much time on come off the page and move with its own life. Suddenly, the worlds I had only imagined were manifest in this world. Exciting!

However, I also derive a great deal of pleasure from improvising, and especially from playing with other improvisers. The thrill of the perfect collective improvisation rivals that of composing, although there is a very different process going on. Whereas writing builds up my ego, in a group improvisation the ego is relinquished to the whole, each individual musician sacrificing their own personal expression to that of the collective.

Things get really sticky when one enters the area between the two - structured improvisation. Although the term may sound contradictory, there is a sizable body of work in this category, including jazz tunes, post-Cagean conceptual and graphic pieces, and many different genres of classical "world" music, including Indian, Indonesian, and African traditions. The degree of strictness in the parameters of these improvisations varies, but the idea is the same - to lead the musician into the most successful musical expression possible.

Therefore, it is necessary to combine the two worlds of improvisation and composition, and consequently use the ego in an "egoless" way. This is difficult thing to accomplish, to balance the line between the decision-making of the composer and the decision-making of the improvisers. I have found in listening to structured improvisations that the most interesting pieces allow the musicians to transcend their own limitations and create something that otherwise wouldn't have been possible. It is easy to fall into traps like composing improvisations for "effects" (something I have fallen into more times than I'm willing to admit). Although in and of itself there is nothing wrong with this, it's not the best balance between the two worlds. The job of the composer in this situation, as Anthony Braxton said (somewhere), is to establish new structural realities and new landscapes for the players. Basically, it is important to give musicians stable parameters -- in the form of melodies, rhythms, harmonies (changes), formal structures, lyrics, performance instructions, graphics -- which enable them to realize themselves to the fullest. Easier said than done.