Improvisation vs. Intuitive Music

Exchange of ideas

A letter with an answer, by Emilia Sintoni (dancer) and Markus Stockhausen

Emilia Sintoni wrote on April 19th, 2010:

Dear Markus,
ciao!
...
I have also a little question:
If you had to explain to a non-musician (like me!) the difference (for you) between intuitive composition, free improvisation and improvisation..what would you say? I ask this not in order to have established settlements or "labels", but to understand better, to start to bring near all of this also to dance.

For me it would be very interesting to know something more about your approach in conducting your class about intuitive music. Do you start from some kind of structures and then step by step, gradually, the process leads to de-construct these? Or the most important thing is the feeling of the moment, the circumstances of the experience (own and other feelings, characteristics of place and time etc...)?

Do you use some kind of stimulus or work on music elements? Do some of them remain, in order to experiment creative and individual flow? I know that all of what happens during this process and the most beautiful thing is that we don't put any limit, any boundary... but what I'm curious about is the point where everything starts, and what is the development.

This also to think to my work in an organic way with yours, I'd like to...
I experienced several kinds of impro, like improv. technics of William Forsythe, with stimuli from symbols and more intellectual matters like personal reprocessing of their significance (forms, colours, sounds, numbers, lettere...) and also objects of art or of everyday life, I used the chance, Haiku...objects, 5 senses...

I prefer this kind of work, more than using categories from movement like space, time, directions.
I'd like to provoke a really human experience, not connected with techniques or rules of the impr. starting and trying several kinds of impro, and then free everything – not for chaos, but to find a personal harmony.

I like to share these thoughts and reflections with you, now when they are growing in my mind... even if we'll have more time to talk about this, and certainly it's not urgent!
...
A presto! Emilia

Answer by Markus Stockhausen:

Dear Emilia,

thanks for your beautiful ideas and questions.
...

Improvisation is for me playing with known languages or forms.
Intuitive it becomes when there is no known material beforehand, when everything is created in the moment. The line between the two is of course fluent. There is no good improvisation without the use of intuition, and no good intuitive playing withoiut the use of improvisation techniques and experience.

So I teach improvisation skills, technically, with scales, rhythms, melodies, harmony, just as music is always constructed. The student has to be able to move freely in many styles and languages. Only then she / he can free himself.

But the principles of intuitive playing can be applied right from the start: to listen to oneself, to express what is felt inside in the here and now, AND, – if performing with others – perceiving everything that is happeneing around oneself.
In music this means if possible ALL parameters like pitch, harmony, rhythm, register etc. It is a lot and one can endlessly learn. It is a way in itself.

So there are two main areas: one working on the individual skills of expression, second the perception of everything around and communication. Both should ideally be equally strong developed. So far I have not worked with external stimuli.

You may have noticed that I don't use the word "composition". Being the son of a composer probably this term is engraved in me for "sitting down and writing". But I know well the term "instant composition" (the first one I heard it from was the bass player Gary Peacock, with whom I played free). Well, I do it all the time with others...

In my teaching I always have to start with what the individual participants know, what they are able to do, and go from there. It can be very challenging to combine people with a lot of experience with more or less beginners in improvisation. But it has worked many times.

Usually I work more technically in the mornings and more creative in the afternoons. But there is no plan, no concept when I start. I try to feel everything necessary in the moment, intuitively, if you wish. My start is emptiness, observation, and every time I am amazed how things evolve naturally just by themselves. That's my fun in this work also.

I don't know if I have answered all of your questions.
...
Stay well, with best wishes,

Markus