Using the Lauburu to frame the challenges of multivocal improvisation

The dynamics and roles in this fourfold pattern are central to the dilemmas of improvisation given the conventional understanding that the performers should interpret the creative insights of the composer under the guidance of a conductor -- for the appreciation of the audience.

The pattern is clearly characteristic of many understandings of the governance of society at this time.

This understanding is variously challenged. In relation to improvisation, it is fruitfully challenged by Bruce Ellis Benson (The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: a phenomenology of music, 2003). He asks:

-- what takes place when a composer creates a piece of music?
-- to what extent is a performer part of the creative process?
-- does the distinction between "creation" and "reproduction" reflect the reality of practice?

And how active is the audience in this process?

The challenges can be represented otherwise in the light of the various biases towards text, imagery, sound, or embodiment in movement. Clearly the predominant mode in governance is text, equally characteristic of academic presentations and publications. Articulation in poetic form is readily considered questionable -- except in some contexts, or in reframing textual preoccupations succinctly to communicate the most fundamental insights.

Use of visual imagery and sound is problematic in governance and representation of its insights and directives. These modes are much favoured by the "governed" -- the citizens of society. Movies, videos and the web make extensive use of "special effects".

Of special interest, however, are the cognitive implications of embodiment in movement, as notably articulated by The role of aesthetics in understanding is central to the argument of Mark Johnson (The Meaning of the Body: aesthetics of human understanding, 2007). However, cognitively, the emphasis is placed on an understanding "through" the body and its dynamics by both Johnson and by Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (The Primacy of Movement, 1999; Movement and Mirror Neurons: a challenging and choice conversation, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2012).

Prescription, through its imposition of a pattern, is the dominant paradigm -- characteristic of much discourse in governance, where texts are read by figures of authority. It is of course the predominant mode in the performance of music previously composed, whether for a solo or a multipart choral performance.

Improvisation in the moment is recognized as a particular speaking skill, although the form and content may be otherwise appreciated.

Clearly a solo performer can more readily shift between reference to any pre-defined script (however articulated) and improvisation. Multivocal articulation depends to a much higher degree on prescription -- although this may be far from the case in a duo in which each engages with the other (as in the skill of the bertolaria ***). A group may however offer themselves a degree of order, a method obviating the need for any detailed script. This is a primary characteristic of improvisation by a jazz group. It is also evident in team negotiation where each has recognized roles in developing the presentation.

More challenging and intriguing is the possibility of multivocal improvisation in the absence of any guidelines.

Irrespective of the form, there is the challenge of the meaning of the content in engaging those involved.

A primary focus may be on attracting attention and gaining recognition in consequence. This depends in part on the creative originality and the interest it evokes. This may however only be momentary. It is strongly related to that of eliciting participation on the part of others -- whether other performers or any audience. In marketing terms this engagement is expressed as "buy-in".

The longer term challenge is achieving memorability of a pattern, possibly a melody or a theme. How is any interesting articulation to be expressed sufficiently succinctly to be memorable.

These issues are equally evident in the extremes of conference speaking, religious homilies and in competitive mega-events like Eurovision.

Rather than theorize and speculate about what renders engagement attractive and memorable -- whether pre-scripted or improvised -- a far more fruitful approach is to recognize the clues offered by familiar modalities which are a focus of much attention.

Especially obvious is game-playing, most notably ball-games. Here the focus of attention is on movement and control of the ball between team members -- whether or not this results in scoring a goal. In practice this is exemplified by skills with respect to a set of passing patterns -- the focus of research and analysis in games like football and basketball (Marcus DiBernardo, Professional Soccer Passing Patterns and Cognitive Soccer Passing Patterns, YouTube, 2014; Don Herlan, Passing Patterns). These figure otherwise, and more evidently, in "passing" amongst a group of jugglers (illustrated in animations by Wikipedia).

In principle dialogue embodies complex sets of passing patterns, of which people are typically unconscious -- as detected in transactional analysis (Eric Berne, Games People Play, 1964). Here the point of a discussion may be understood as the "ball" variously passed between those partcipating.

Both game-playing and discourse may be understood more generally as involving patterns of "intercourse". The most familiar of these is of course sex which is potentially characterized by a wide set of patterns, of which creative use may be spontaneously made (or not). Articulations of such a set are offered in illustrated "sex manuals" such (Alex Comfort, The Joy of Sex, 2008) or in classical texts like the Kama Sutra.

Whatever the form of game-playing or intercourse, much meaning and interest is derived from the interplay between competition and cooperation.

Clarification as to how participants, using different instruments, might improvise together within a group is offered in a key text by Vinko Globokar (Reacting: role of a performer, 1970).

Imitation: After a variable lapse of time, a performer reproduces exactly what is heard. This being the most direct and instinctive mode. Clearly, the spontaneity as well as the quality of the response will depend on the contents and character of the pattern, on the degree of its complexity and on the degree of its perceived difficulty.

Integration: Rather than imitation, it is possible for the performer to integrate into material serving as a pattern, to follow it, to embody it, to move in the direction it suggests. The performer can always find a possibility of doing so one way or the other, and so the degree of complexity of information does not play a decisive role.

Hesitation: This is the mode tending most to create distance and disengagement. Starting from being "tied" to a particular pattern, the performer reaches a mode of actively creating pauses -- extremely alive and tense. Parts of the pattern are taken and positioned in time, transformed subjectively. This may produce an inner tension in the performer which complete prescription would probably have been incapable of provoking. Idleness in music, which otherwise makes for a dead situation, then becomes extremely "constructive".

Countering: Contrary to the above, doing the opposite from might be expected by any pattern, the performer rapidly analyzes the situation to determine an alternative. Ultimately, he does not "choose" but reacts. A pattern characterized by maximum loudness, static, in a deep register, will be "opposed" according to the individuals in one, two or even all three parameters at the same time

Implied by the modes above is some qualitative finality.

Most obviously, however subtle the experience, this may be recognized as enjoyment, perhaps understood as recreation. Both lend themselves to re-cognition of "re-creation" and "en-joyment" (En-joying the World through En-joying Oneself: eliciting the potential of globalization through cognitive radicalization, 2011).

A particular pleasure may be sought in the processes of possession and exclusive ownership as this relates to intellectual or cultural property. This may be understood as a celebration of heritage or a concern with legacy and making one's mark.

A profound sense of absence may be a feature of finality -- of what has been lost, or is missing -- as framed in nostalgia and the pathos of things, namely by saudade or mono no aware. Conceptually any such sense of the missing is now recognized as vital to transformation, as argued by neuroanthropologist Terrence Deacon (Incomplete Nature: how mind emerged from matter, 2011; Symbolic Species, 1997).

The sense of participative transformation potentially association with multivocal poetic improvisation may proves to be especially associated with the subtly elusive experience of duende, as may be variously discussed (Daimon, Djinn, Muse and Duende: variations on a timeless experience, 2007; Dreamables, Deniables, Deliverables and Duende, 2015).