Week 40 – Perimeter

In writing this composition, I decided not to write chord changes purposely. This gives the improviser the utmost freedom in a sense, hence the term “free jazz” or “avant-garde” which have been coined to describe this style. Without a harmonic structure the improviser must then create some shape on his/her own or by interacting with other musicians. Since the melody is comprised of mostly two-bar phrases, John made an interesting suggestion to improvise based off these phrases or two bar cells or cellular improvisation. By that I mean that the improviser is free to play these melodic fragments in any order or repeat them without rules. This shows the influence of twentieth-century classical music, but with the interaction aspect of jazz. This way of playing then defines the structure. We did three takes, all of which were quite different due to the open nature of the music, but the third one seemed to have the best interaction.