Free Improvisation and Nothing: From the Tactics of Escape to a Bastard Science

Abstract

Beginning with the observation that many free improvising musicians employ the concepts of nothingness and negation of idiom to avoid rather than facilitate the description or representation of their work, the author considers some tactical and strategic motives for such negations. Concepts and metaphors of nothingness are considered, including space, emptiness and freedom. The problematic concepts of improvisation's "impossibility" (Derrida) and of its identification as a mode of variation (Landgraf) are critically evaluated. A series of alternative concepts are discussed, including itinerancy, co-determi­nation, friction and molecularity, which seek to emphasise improvisation’s potential for creating new and unprecedented forms.