Lukas Foss & Improvisation, part 2: Liner Notes

Here are three texts from the 1961 Studies in Improvisation record by Lukas Foss and his Improvisation Chamber Ensemble. We begin with the liner notes on the record jacket, then we'll go into the booklet accompanying the record.

(Here is part one of this blog series.)

Studies in Improvisation - Anonymous (1961)

The back cover of Studies in Improvisation,
RCA LM/LSC 2558 (1961)

". . . musical history in the making . . . a stimulating and live experience in musical spontaneity . . . the beginning of an inspired concept in instrumental music!"
-- Maurice Faulkner, Saturday Review

". . . one of the most notable feats of contemporary music."
-- Ernst Bacon

". . . extremely refreshing, truly fascinating and stimulating . . ."
-- Ernst Toch

". . . incredible delicacy, suggestive at times of the firefly imagery of Webern. And what virtuosity! Each of these men is a creative artist . . ."
-- Louis Biancclli, N. Y. World Telegram & Sun

Ideally speaking, an improvisation should not be recorded. It is music which, when heard live, varies with each playing. It is chance transformed into a moment of significance. The pinning down of the moment, the perpetuation through recording is in conflict with the very idea of improvisation. However, if one thinks of a record not as a perpetuator but as a means of making the new known and available, then the recording of these improvisations becomes imperative and all opposing arguments fade into the background.

Ensemble improvisation as attempted here is new. It is based on new premises. It is an informal, spontaneous type of chamber music, proposed not in lieu of traditional chamber music practice, but in addition to it.

The Improvisation Chamber Ensemble is a pioneering group of four, who believe in improvised chamber music: (1) as an essential new outlet for the many excellent performing musicians in the world; (2) as a new hunting ground for the composer; and (3) as a challenge to the musical curiosity of the listener.

Says Lukas Foss, composer, originator of the technique and pianist of the group:

"The music on this record is the result of extensive research and practice, of constant critical listening to one another, of developing from childish beginnings to the rather complex structures attempted on this record. I should welcome other musicians to follow suit, to form improvisation ensembles, to beuild on what we have accomplished, and to learn from our limitations and errors. It will take more than one approach to establish the art of ensemble improvisation as a way of making music. May this record make new friends for the art."

Lukas Foss has been a professor of composition and conductor of the university orchestra at the University of California at Los Angeles since 1953. He studied in Berlin and Paris before coming to the United States in 1937. He continued his studies at Curtis Institute, the Berkshire Music Center and Yale University. He has appeared as piano soloist and conductor with American symphony orchestras and in Europe. His diverse interests and talents are reflected in his compositions, which include three operatic works, two piano concertos, a symphony and other works for orchestra, chamber music in various combinations and several works for voices.

Mr. Foss' interest in the possibility of ensemble improvisation dates back to the spring of 1957 when , together with Richard Dufallo and Charles Delancey, he formed the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble. Howard Colf joined the group in 1959. A year later the ensemble went on its first national tour which included appearances with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The music of the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble is documented for the first time on this recording. 

Inside the jacket, you'll find a large booklet with more information. Here is an essay entitled 

Notes on Ensemble Improvisation - Lukas Foss (1961)

To the classically trained musician, improvisation means something makeshift, random, haphazard. Also, it invariably means solo improvisation to him, and he is likely to regard it as a form of self-indulgence. Let us make no mistake about it: solo and ensemble improvisation are two different procedures not to be confused with each other. In solo improvisation the artist is in full control, in ensemble improvisation he is part of the whole. In solo improvisation the artist is responsible to himself only, in ensemble improvisation he listens to his fellow players and plays accordingly. In solo improvisation, the artist need not adhere to any preconceived structural principle, in ensemble improvisation he must abide by melodic, harmonic and structural rules lest anarchy and chaos take over. Without order, direction and discipline, there can be no ensemble improvisation. In fact, ensemble improvisation is not possible unless specific ordering principles have been determined beforehand. This involves a study of musical freedom within a controlled field: a study of the predetermined coordination of non-predetermined musical ideas.

Our approach to the idea of ensemble improvisation is the result of research I conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles since 1957. It was in the spring of that year that I founded the first IMPROVISATION CHAMBER ENSEMBLE. This "founding" was at the time no more than a declaration of intent, an expression of faith in a possibility; the possibility of a procedure, of a skill which would enable musicians to literally "make (invent) their music as they make (play) music."

That musician and listener alike would benefit from this additional dimension to musical performance no one would deny. The question is: can one provide a technique which makes ensemble improvisation workable, without constant recourse to set tunes, set chord-patterns, set rhythm patterns, to given "entities" which already are music, thereby relegating improvisation to the sphere of variation and ornamentation? The question is: can one set up an order which will give the performer sufficient free rein for the flight of his imagination, and at the same time set up controls for keeping the musicians together? (An order of abundant horizontal leeway and some vertical control.)

Walter: "Wie fang ich nach der Regel an?" 

Sachs: "Ihr stellt sie selbst und folgt ihr dann."

-- RICHARD WAGNER [Die Meistersinger]

Our earliest attempts were built on the idea of skeleton compositions (some notes written down, others to be added at the moment of performance). This proved to be a failure. In fact, many of our earlier premises had to be discarded because they restricted invention, or did not guide invention properly, or would give us a freedom which we did not know how to use. Our present procedure is something we arrived at through trial and error. It does not claim to provide the complete answer to all questions and expectations. Rather, it lays a foundation, at this writing, the only one of its kind known to us, the only systematic attempt at organizing the materials of music for ensemble improvisation.

The new mode of music-making,-- which I do not propose in lieu of traditional chamber music practice but in addition to it,-- may best be understood as a classical counterpart to jazz improvisation, or to various oriental improvisational forms of ensemble playing. It can also be viewed as akin to the pre-classic practice of continuo playing (improvised harmony over a given base). Improvised ensemble music, music which is the result of diverse minds creating simultaneously, is of course vastly different from music carefully plotted by one individual, the composer, whose supreme effort goes into the producing of enduring work, or a masterwork. In our masterpiece-conscious time, one welcomes a musical expression which need not claim immortality in order to claim validity. While the virtue, the watermark of a masterwork is the measure of its durability and hence its repeatability, improvised ensemble music, on the other hand, derives its fascination from its ever-changing contours. It is unrepeatable. Listener and player alike become absorbed in a process wherein anything may happen any time -- and never again. Sounds may emerge unlike any that any one member of the group would have envisioned. Time and again we experienced that, meager though the individual contributions may be, they "add up" when part of a combined effort. (The total is more than the sum of its constituents.) Furthermore, gifted musicians will discover that any random note-group can be turned into a melodic phrase which makes musical sense. Mere chance formations can become the source for new musical ideas; new possibilities can open up, vistas of new musical simultaneities, answering the need, conscious or dormant in every artist, to experiment, to find a new approach, to make something new, surprising and enjoyable to ourselves and to others.

Seen in this light, ensemble improvisation is likely to stimulate composition. In fact, my own interest in ensemble improvisation is that of the composer first, the educator second and the performer third.

The basic conception, the planning of the structure, the "lucky accidents" which occur in abundance when we play, give the composer valuable hints and ideas for his own work and point toward areas worthy of his investigating powers, worthy of that curiosity which is at the bottom of the composer's need to compose . . . "The next work [in this period of exploration] . . . will mix composed with improvised elements."

 -- IGOR STRAVINSKY

 As to music education, it will have to take into account and foster the instrumentalist's capacity for inventing imaginative passages on his instrument. This capacity is hampered at present by the gaps in even the best performing musician's training. Many musicians who have attempted our ensemble improvisation have felt a shock upon realizing how unprepared they were to hear what need be heard, to find notes on their instrument, to assume the new responsibilities which come with ensemble improvisation. Solfege, ear training and general musicianship courses seem, in the light of our need, unimaginzative and inadequate.

A word about the audience. In our recitals we have had occasion to notice that the audience, after a while, adopts a new listening attitude which is in sharp contrast to the devotional listening rightfully customary at concerts when the music of the masters is played. I dare say that the listener will be in a better position to follow complex compositions if he has had the experience of the kind of "active" listening required from him at improvisation concerts. This active listening is a combination of curiosity and excitement similar to that which we feel when we watch a game or contest. (Peculiar to ensemble improvisation is the element of danger, of "hit-or-miss," which an audience is quick in grasping and enjoying.)

Finally, a word about ensemble improvisation and its function within contemporary music. To the historian, it will be significant that the recent renaissance of interest in improvisation has followed close on the heels of the discovery of electronic music. Both improvisation and electronic music have a vital stake in chance. Apart from this they stand at opposite poles: electronic music is produced directly on tape. Whenever the piece is played it will be identical in every detail. Improvised music, as we have seen, is ever-changing, unpredictable, unrepeatable, and should be heard "live." Electronic music eliminates the performer. Improvised music, on the other hand, allots the performer new responsibilities.

To the long conflict between composer and performer -- partners who, ideally speaking, should complement one another in a relationship built on mutual need (and who are separated today by the widest gulf) electronic music offers one solution: divorce. Ensemble improvisation offers another: it brings composition, or more accurately, musical invention, together with performance. In fact, the two become an undistinguishable process. Good therapy for a distinct marital problem.

At the risk of being proven wrong, I should like to predict that in due time, ensemble improvisation, in one form or another, will be studied in conservatories and universities.* String and wind groups, etc. that will try their hands at it, will play masterworks the better for it. Chamber groups of three to six players will spring up and bring informal, improvised concerts to the devotees of the new way of making music. Because: as a natural outlet, as a joyful exercise of one's musical gifts, as an education of musical spontaneity, alertness, sensitivity, restraint, and as a listening discipline few things can take the place of ensemble improvisation.

*Since these lines were written, a program charging the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble with the recruiting of other improvisation ensembles has been inaugurated at the University of California, Los Angeles under a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation. Also, in preparation: a text book on ensemble improvisation as practiced by the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble.

A slightly different version of this essay (dated 1958) was included in Karen Perone's "Lukas Foss: A Bio-Bibliography", Greenwood Press, 1991, pp. 12-16.

Finally, here is the first page of notes detailing the process behind Foss's ensemble improvisation.

Studies in Improvisation - Lukas Foss and Richard Dufallo (1961)

The music on this record is not composed, not the result of random ad-libbing, not jazz. It falls into the category of what might be named: SYSTEM AND CHANCE MUSIC. A specific formal or textural musical vision is committed to paper. Instead of traditional musical notation, the paper contains instructions set down in symbols, letters, numbers. Example: S1 -----> HL (signifies: supports player 1 until ready to lead the harmony). The musicians, as they play, translate the symbols into sound. They do not stake their hope on the element of chance and its capacity for yielding interesting musical results, - they do not put their trust into the order, the system, which coordinates the chance happenings. System and chance form the basis for ensemble improvisation, but the performer holds the reins. He does not passively translate his symbols into sound, he listens critically and plays accordingly. His task is to find the appropriate note, rhythm, phrasing, dynamic, register on his instrument, and at a moment's notice. He corrects chance rather than surrenders to chance - chance controlled rather than chance in control.

The resulting music sounds at times as contrived as a written-down composition. Advance planning, ordering, is responsible for the "composed" effect. Actually it is the rigid planning which makes spontaneity, improvisation possible.

The Theory

It would be presumptuous as well as impossible to reproduce the technical procedure here in toto. We shall limit ourselves to such theoretical data as are essential for those who wish to follow the score (the charts) while listening.

Guide-Sheets Each musician has a guide-sheet in front of him on which his tasks are listed. The guide-sheets are like individual parts extracted from the score (the charts).

Guide-Tones - predetermined, appear on the guide-sheet. They are used only in pieces (or parts of pieces) where tonality is desired. Guide-tones usually consist of easily memorizable four-tone patterns. (Example: F Eb Bb F) These may be rigidly transposed to the degree of the second or third note. (Example: Eb Db Ab Eb - Bb Ab Eb Bb) Or inverted. (Example: G A D G)

Guide-tones are not themes, not even musical motives. They are points of reference, helping the musicians stay together; sometimes they are "roots," sometimes just a degree of the scale on which to form the "preferred-intervals series."

Preferred-Intervals Series Over a given guide-tone the musician has the choice of a major second, minor and major thirds, the fifth, the minor and major seventh. These intervals are the least likely to undermine the supremacy of the guide-tone. Their use is therefore safer for vertical (harmonic) control than the use of the remaining five intervals. Naturally all existing intervals may be used wherever it is possible to arrive at a choice of note by way of "listening." The restriction to preferred intervals is recommended only when such listening is impossible (for instance, when a chord is struck by all, simultaneously). When the guide-tone shifts, the preferred-interval series is transposed accordingly.

Duration of a guide-tone, or of a particular area, is sometimes indicated on the individual player's guide sheet in terms of bar numbers, but more frequently it is not fixed in advance: an area, or guide-tone duration will be shorter or longer depending on the moment of entrance of the subsequent leading instrument.

The Roles*

Melody or Theme - usually the leader unless otherwise indicated.

Support This is the most characteristic role in ensemble improvisation: the critical listening to another, and playing accordingly.

Harmony, when called for on the guide-sheet, usually stands for chords, struck on cue from either the melody player or harmony leader.

Counterpoint A line, resulting from the interplay between three instruments who keep "out of each other's way." Each of the three usually has a specific part of the bar assigned. If guide-tones are in effect the counterpoint players will adhere to the preferred-intervals series.

*Only the four basic roles are listed here. The chart will reveal many subsidiary roles.

The Practice

No matter how often the musicians play from the same guide-sheet, the music emerges changed: "We try to remember the good notes, forget the bad ones. We work toward a goal, the realization of the basic, initial, musical vision. The piece changes, grows in unity and clarity as we keep playing it. We do not play 'anything that comes to mind,' rather, we play 'anything that comes to mind within a pre-determined, limited sound-conception.' After we have performed a piece a dozen times, it usually emerges a new piece, one in which the first attempt can barely be recognized. In a word, we evolve our pieces through the process of improvisation. Even when we feel that a piece has been achieved, even then we do not memorize. We cannot; since one of us will invariably inject an unexpected element which forces everyone to change his course. Only when a player is on a solo, may he end up by repeating, memorizing his improvisation (example: the pizzicato cello-solo in Air Antique). Short themes, motifs, might be remembered, spontaneously altered, exploited. Then comes the point when the musicians feel the need to improvise new themes, or abandon the piece altogether, discard that particular guide-sheet. Improvised pieces seem to have their own life-span. The basic vision which prompted the piece may yield so much and no more. Other pieces stay, as it were, in the repertoire, yielding ever new ideas for improvisation.

The rest of the booklet consists of the guide-sheets used on the recording, along with some text explaining what is going on. The guide-sheets were copyrighted by Foss and Dufallo and I will not include them here, unless I am given permission to republish them. So, that's it for now.... part 3 will be posted soon.

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