Thinking about the subject, the questions that seem the most urgent to answer are not about the Arab avantgarde music movement itself just yet, but rather questions about how to have a discussion about Arab avantgarde music. In fact, the questions touch on some of the vague aspects of the term not necessarily in relation to Arab avantgarde.

To begin with, how do we distinguish between avantgarde and innovation that is a natural product of evolution over time of any cultural activity?

When does the avantgarde status of something expire?

And then what happens to it?

Why do we still use the term avantgarde to describe music that was so in the fifties, but can now be learned in universities? Doesn’t the possibility of getting a degree in an art form from a respectable accredited university mean that that art form can no longer be considered avantgarde?

In retrospect, can impressionism in painting considered to have been avantgarde? How about photography, when first introduced into the world of visual arts, was it considered avantgarde then? Should it have been? If not, when is a new art form considered avantgarde and not just simply, a new art form? When should a new way to practice an existing art be considered avantgarde?

Now more specifically to the subject at hand. Arab avantgarde is not the same as Arabic avantgarde music. Which discussion should we have? Arab avantgarde music discusses avantgarde music made by people of Arab ethnicity. Arabic avantgarde music, means, I suppose, avantgarde music made by practitioners of Arabic music, as departure from more traditional Arabic music. So in that respect, Arab avantgarde musicians have to be of Arab ethnicity but they don’t have to know anything about Arabic music nor be able to play any Arabic musical instruments. On the other hand, Arabic avantgarde music practitioners don’t have to be Arab but have to be trained in Arabic music.

We haven’t even begun to discuss geography.

In this new post series I will try to answer some of the questions above and, with some luck, find a way to discuss Arab and Arabic avantgarde music.

]]> http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/76/feed 1 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/19 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/19#comments Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:14:33 +0000 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/19 Fusion music, whether improvised or composed should sound different enough from the original idioms that go into making it to the point where it can not be considered to be within any of the idioms. At the same time, it has to have discernible characteristics of all of the original idioms that it can be heard as fusion of those idioms.

Each participant has to be aware of the overall sonic result and her part in it. This requires attentive listening. While listening is always crucial in performance, it tends to be a more complex activity in the case of performing fusion. The reason is that when playing within an idiom that one is trained in, the performer’s experience makes it possible to anticipate the overall sound without much effort. One is simply familiar with the different combinations of the instruments involved and how to influence them. Additionally, the traditional aesthetic of the idiom tends to define the role of each instrument and solutions to musical problems arising in an ensemble situation. There is no traditional roles, and no traditional aesthetic to fall back on in the case of fusion. Fresh solutions to these problems have to be invented. In the case of improvised fusion, these solutions have to be arrived at in real time. Listening, is more crucial and more difficult in the case of fusion than when playing within any particular idiom.

To reduce the complexity of the listening activity, the previous post proposed educating one’s self on the other idioms and the other participants which helps in providing assumptions about what to expect from the other players and making initial decisions that allow the performance to start well.

However, for the performance to evolve well, each participant must be testing and revising those decisions. The example in the previous post proposed one possible revision: leading the other performers to the discovery of characteristics of one’s own tradition. This, assumes that the other players are listening attentively to what you are playing. A performer should also invite the other participants to lead him into discovering things about their idioms that he can use. To do that, he must demonstrate that he is listening. How does one do that? Here are two fairly easy ways: restyling and reinterpreting. Restyling is taking a line from the other idiom and playing it in a style within your own idiom. Re-interpreting it as a melody characteristic to your idiom. The idea is very common in music. The western reader will probably be familiar with examples such as Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain” or Charlie Parker’s “Charlie Parker with Strings”. While neither of these works can be considered fusion, the idea of restyling and reinterpreting is prominent in both works. In fusion the same melody can be taken from one player to the next, exchanged and elaborated upon, perhaps played simultaneously etc..

Another possibility is to play responses to a phrase in another idiom, in ones own idiom. One thing that is already old over used is simple imitation. I would avoid trying to imitate another player, unless I use the phrase being imitated to take the piece in a new direction. In addition to creating confidence between players that everyone is listening, restyling, reinterpreting and responding also create relationships within the piece between the different voices. One of the first remarks in this series of posts was how common it is for fusion to sound cold and disjointed. One of the ways to avoid that is to create relationships between the different voices. That is another benefit of these three practices (restyling, reinterpreting, responding).

These are some thoughts on fusion that came up in my experience doing it. I would be excited to hear your ideas on the topic.

More on preconceptions

“Preconceptions” is not a neutral word. It implies prior knowledge that is not necessarily accurate, and the prefex “pre” somehow implies that the “post” might be different. Philosophically, one can argue that all knowledge is preconceptions waiting to be refined as we become more educated, isn’t that why universities never go out of business?

In my view, it is very important to know the musician(s) you are going to collaborate with and try to find out as much as you can about their idiom, the specifics such as their prior work and their influences, listen to recordings, and, if possible, educate yourself about the context and history of their idiom(s). Returning to the example in part 2, if none of the musicians knew about the music of the others, the decisions that helped in making it successful, time signature and modality, would not have been made. The performers would have spent a large part of the presentation discovering the parameters of the music of the other (which may be an interesting process in itself).

A note about free-improvisation: Brilliant musicians and thinkers in the free improvisation idiom question the necessity of prior knowledge and some go as far as seeing it as a possible handicap. There is merit to this thinking within the idiom of free improv. But free improvisation is an idiom in and of itself. It is not fusion. Considerations in the free-improv idiom are not necessarily applicable to other idioms, including fusion. Some are, of course, like the idea of listening to the other musicians and to the overall sonic result and making that an important factor in your musical decisions. But in the case of preconceptions and prior education, free improvisation is fundamentally different from fusion..

In addition to knowledge, the three other necessary components in a successful fusion type collaboration are: listening, being open minded to revise your assumptions and preconceptions, and intending from the beginning that the sonic result has to be a new music that is not within any of the original idioms, is not about any one performer’s ego, and is not possible to predict ahead of time. Those three components will be examined in part 4.

For today, I will end with a few words on ego. The great musicians that I had the pleasure to meet, and if I was lucky also study with, were always open-minded and well educated about the music of idioms outside their own. Perhaps the best lesson I have learned from them is that a confident musician is always open minded. Rumi’s words come to mind, that violence is the other side of impotence. Closed-mindedness, after all, is a form of intellectual violence.

Decision # 1, dealing with preconceptions about the music of the other

A while back I saw a concert by two great Hindustani musicians visiting from India and a great local jazz Saxophonist. The first part of the concert was a presentation in the Hindustani musicians. Their playing was magnificent in every way. The second part was a presentation by the jazz saxophonist. His solo was captivating. The third part was a jam.

The first thing that was noticeable about the jam was that the rhythm that the tabla player chose. It was a 4/4. While this may seem like an arbitrary decision, it is not. Their first, Hindustani, set was in 18. The choice of 4/4 was intended to make the life easier for someone from outside the tradition, who might or might not be accustomed to playing such long cycles. This decision was, in my view, sound.

The jam was structured in such a way that, at any given time, one musician was in the foreground, while the other two played softly in the background, something to compliment or accompany the foreground. In the case of the tabla player, when he played in the background, he kept a strong sense of the rhythm cycle while embellishing the pattern he was playing.

When the sarodist was improvising, the saxophone player reacted to his playing by holding notes and/or repeating phrases that the sordist played, and, at times, played responses to them. In short he created a canvas underneath the painting that the sarodist was making. The saxophonist stayed within the mode as, traditionally, Hindustani music does not modulate. Although he tried to be merciful, the sarodist occasionally played phrases that were not in four or any single digit time that I could hear. In those cases the saxophone player played a long note, or a long rest.

When the saxophonist was improvising, the sarodist mostly played C major arpeggios (The whole concert was in C since Hindustani instrumental music tunes their tonic “Sa” to C).

The performance was beautiful but felt held back and did not soar to the skies that it could have soared to. With three top notch musicians who are all masters of their craft, one has to wonder what decisions were made prior to the joint performance and how did they affect the sonic result?

For one, it was clear to anyone familiar with both idioms that both the Hindustani players and the jazz player tried to keep their music accessible to the other. They were extremely generous, and neither tried to leave the other(s) behind. They were interested in making music that made sense together. That was clear in the rhythm cycle and the phrases played by the Hindustani players, and by the lyrical, modal, non-modulating lines played by the jazz player. But, in my view, preconceptions about the music of the other still limited the sonic result.

Perhaps, it would have been more interesting for the jazz player to modulate constructively. Constructively meaning to modulate while creating a clear path to the new mode that the non-jazz player could have followed. That would have taken the sarodist outside of his traditional practice but in a way that his musicianship would have kept him feeling safe and included. In other words, the Hindustani player was not trained in jazz but the jazz player could have helped him discover it and play with it using his own, traditional, sensitivities and training.

On the other hand, the choice of 4/4 as a starting rhythm pattern is wise. But perhaps the sarodist could have led the jazz player to the discovery of more advanced phrasing by making the building blocks of 2, 3 and 4 be more clear in the initial statements of the long phrase cycle. The tabla player could have helped with that as well.

In short, generosity produces music that is nice. But more can be achieved by musicians who take chances, and trust the other’s ability to venture outside of their safety zone.

Part 3 discusses more decisions and offers alternatives that produce richer fusion music.