Fairhall, AL., 2018.

The Instrumental Impulse: Developing an Improvising Vocabulary for unconventional Keyboard Instruments

Adam Fairhall

The Instrumental Impulse: Developing an Improvisation Vocabulary for Unconventional Keyboard Instruments

Abstract

In his 2000 article The Art of Improvisation and the Aesthetics of Imperfection, Andy Hamilton notes that instrumental timbre and technique are "non-standard and more individual" (174) among improvisers in comparison with 'classical' musicians, and invokes both the jazz musician's drive towards individuality of tone and the free improviser's fascination with the affordances of their instrument (what Derek Bailey terms the 'instrumental impulse' [ibid]).

Regarding the piano, it may be noted that many of the 'grand gestures' in the modification of instrumental tone and technique have now already been made; methods of preparing the piano's insides have been thoroughly absorbed into the lingua franca of free improvisation, and the break by jazz musicians from the 'singing', legato style of classical performance that comes from 'correct' arm weight technique and methods of touch have developed into a tradition of percussive playing that no longer seems unconventional. Of course, an individual tone is not necessarily the same as an individual 'voice', in which aspects of phrasing, vocabulary and behaviour in an ensemble setting may also mark the performer's individuality. It should also be noted that the instrumental impulse that Bailey and Hamilton observe may not be synonymous with ideological imperatives of newness and innovation, but may simply be a turn towards the affordances of the instrument as a means of inspiration. It may also be the case that new or surprising timbres are still possible via new methods of preparation. Nonetheless, the instrumental impulse among improvising pianists, although still much in evidence in, for example, the prevalence of new prepared piano recordings, may now be more clearly seen as part of a network of similar practices in which intertextual connections, and even shared idioms, are formed.

This chapter provides an account of my own attempts, as a pianist, to re-invigorate the sense of discovery that accompanies the instrumental impulse by developing an improvisation vocabulary for 'alternative' keyboard instruments that remain relatively rare in either jazz, free improvisation or both. Instruments I have explored over the past several years in performance and recordings include a prepared electric tine piano, a prepared Dulcitone, an Indian harmonium, toy pianos, a modified free bass accordion and a Hammond organ (the latter, although commonplace in jazz, is rare in free music).This process has yielded insights and questions regarding the dynamic between unconventional instrumental vocabularies and the established techniques and histories of the instrument, and the web of competing cultural values an improviser may choose to negotiate when using an instrument 'against type'.

Reference:

Hamilton, Andy. The Art of Improvisation and the Aesthetics of Imperfection. British Journal of Aesthetics 40, no. 1 (2000): 168-185.