Challenging dynamic of multivocal poetic improvisation

Improvisation in Multivocal Poetic Discourse (Part #10)

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There is an intriguing dynamic to be explored between "multivocal", "poetic", and "improvisation" -- and with their contraries "univocal", "unpoetic" and "patterned".

Extremely valuable points are succinctly made by Vinko Globokar in discussing the role of the performer and interdependence with that of the composer (Reacting, 1970), notably:

• We would like him to engage himself totally, not just use his technical proficiency about the work but also his capability of inventions, his ability for decisions and more or less spontaneous reactions, in one word - his "psychic contents".
• Nevertheless, we would like to preserve the possibility of being able to "conduct" - to canalise - the different forms of this participation.
• We have already made an experiment: the more we are transferring the responsibility of composing to the performer, the more we run the risk of creating musical situations which will jeopardise our aesthetic view.
• This is why we are looking for some technical means which primarily stimulate the performer to an extremely engaged participation and which at the same time eliminate this most frequent fault: the use of personal clichés which he puts into play as soon as you appeal to his invention.
• On the other hand this technique must allow for a dynamic change back and forth between those situations having a maximum of responsibility from the side of the performer and those in which the performer does nothing but reproducing a totally fixed/composed music.

Globokar's approach experimented with inviting the performer to choose between a number of possibilities. He concluded however that that this leads in most cases to a demonstration of open disinterest by the performer in the offer to participate in choice of the composition:

The act of choosing is above all an intellectual operation. Experience has showed us that the performer is especially interested in those operations which are more directly musical, more interested in tasks putting him directly into contact with the sounding material and thus excluding operations based on decision, choice or a reasoning which has been pushed too far.

In continuing his response to this challenge, Globokar presented his conclusions in an extremely valuable study, enhanced by an unusual proportion of diagrammatic presentations of the improvisation process in terms of "models" (Individuum-Collectivum, 1986). His use of model is understood more generally here in terms of pattern.

The question is how to reflect the dynamics between the normative/prescriptive role of a self-selected composer with that of the performer/interpreter encourage to engage fully in the creative process. As Globokar recognized, this challenging dilemma is fundamental to governance of society at this time and provides a remarkable metaphor of that challenge. Understanding of it has long been cause for reflection, as noted in the compilation by Sigrid Müller and Cornelia Schweiger (Between Creativity and Norm-Making: tensions in the early modern era, 2012). It is of course echoed in the challenge of any more radical thinking to the norms upheld as "normal" by conventional modes of governance (***).

In developing the argument here, it is vital to avoid premature closure on conventional categories, notably those inspired by binary logic. There is therefore a case for switching to the tetralemma, notably articulated by Kinhide Mushakoji (Global Issues and Interparadigmatic Dialogue: essays on multipolar politics, 1988; Scientific Revolution and Interparadigmatic Dialogues, 1979). The latter notes the contrast with the holistic insight of non-western scientific traditions, as articulated by Keiji Yamada (Patterns, Recognition, and Creation: the intellectual climate of Chinese science, 1975), through which an effort was made to grasp the network of meaning of the totality of the objective world -- not through a theoretical system but through a classification of the types of transformation of a few basic patterns into their variants.

On this basis. Mushakoji contrasts: "A", "not-A", "A and not-A", with "neither A nor not-A". This device may be used to suggest the need for more subtle approaches to the dilemma -- and notably with respect to governance. If "A" is the proposal of the governors (or the condictor/composer), "not-A" is too readily framed as a threatening alternative -- recalling the much-challenged slogan of Margarest Thatcher: There Is No Alternative (TINA).

The tetralemma can be used to enrich the discussion through the following 3-fold "decomposition":

Use of Lauburu to map 3 variants of 4-fold distinction

The issue is then how to interrelate these complementary patterns, recognizing that any meta-pattern raises even greater challenges to comprehension. It is very possible that these can only be resolved through the integrative potential of aesthetics -- requiring their cognitive embodiment in some way. Diagrams are merely indicative of this possibility -- although there aesthetic properties may facilities this.

In the following, the 4 modes indicated in the 3 diagrams above are configured in the 12-fold dodecahedron below. The suggestion being that, in addition to alternation within the 4-fold pattern of the Lauburu above, there is a need to alternate within the 12-fold pattern. The argument with regard to that configuration is further developed below in relation to the 5-fold dynamics of the Wu Xing. The issue is how these distinction could be most meaningfully mapped.

Mapping of 3 variants of 4-fold distinctions onto 12 faces of dodecahedron
Unfolded version	Folded version
Prepared with features of the Stella Polyhedron Navigator software package

The properties of the dodecahedron in relation to other patterns can then be exploited to facilitate imaginative engagement with the 12-fold cognitive content. However, to what extent can such visualization elicit creative imagination, rather than the kind of rejection so significantly noted by Globokar?

Mapping of 3 variants of 4-fold distinctions onto 12 vertices of icosahedron (dual of dodecahedron)
Faces transparent	Augmented variant
Prepared with features of the Stella Polyhedron Navigator software package

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