I've been composing for as long as I've been playing. I can remember trying to write music for the first group I ever played with ‚ a trio that played fusion music. From then on I was always interested in writing for the various groups that I've been in, both my own and those of other people ‚ sometimes to their annoyance! I'm now in a position where I write music for both jazz and classical ensembles and I'm a strong believer in the importance of the act of composition for the improvising musician, and the act of improvisation for the composer.

As a composer who works in both disciplines, I have had to give a lot of thought to the nature of improvisation. For me, the process of composition and improvisation are essentially the same. The same concerns regarding such elements as form, contrast, motivic development, texture, harmony, melody, and rhythm are equally important, whether I am writing a piece of music, or improvising in a group situation. The essential difference between composition and improvisation is the speed at which they take place.

To my mind, the performance of a pre-composed piece of music is like the deliverance of a prepared speech, in which every nuance has been pored over at length by the composer, in order to best communicate the musical message he or she wishes to put across. An improvisation, on the other hand, is more like an off-the-cuff speech, which depends for its success, not only the subject matter of the speech itself, but also on the ability of the speaker to spontaneously use and develop the basic material in such a way as to capture the audience, and deliver the desired message at the same time.

The attitude towards composition and improvisation in the jazz and classical worlds differ widely.

Improvisation

In the world of jazz, improvisation is of course alive and well and the ability to improvise is not only considered desirable, but is a sine qua non for all jazz musicians. Classical music, on the other hand, has evolved a world for itself in which an inability to improvise is not a disadvantage, as all of the music for the performer is written down in explicit detail. It could be argued that the real difference in the aesthetic of jazz and classical music is that in classical music the composer is God, while in jazz it is the performer who fulfils this role.

Composition

The attitude towards composition in jazz and classical music also differs widely. Obviously in classical music the composition is everything ‚ it provides all of the material for all of the performers. It is pretty much viewed as a sacrosanct text that cannot be altered without the express permission of the composer, or a lot of academic explanation and justification if the composer is dead, and can't be asked his or her permission or opinion.

In jazz however, the composition is often seen only as a necessary evil, something that will provide the necessary framework for performance, and something that can be disposed of as quickly as possible in order to get on to the REAL business of the performance ‚ improvisation. In jazz, compositions are often rudimentary - a melody and some chords that provide a good basis for improvisation ‚ a springboard for the performer.

Because classical and jazz musicians rarely perform together, this disparity in the aesthetics of the two musics are possibly not so obvious to the casual observer. But when one writes a piece of music which involves musicians from both disciplines, and which includes both extended composition and improvisation, then the potential problems and incompatibilities become more evident.

As a composer once you decide to include improvisation as part of your composition, you immediately surrender to the performers some of the responsibility for the success or failure of the piece. Once the performer begins to improvise, the composer loses control over that section of the music each time it is played. Personally this doesn't bother me in the slightest, but I could see other composers balking at the prospect! Classical composers rarely write pieces which involve improvisation as part of the overall work, but many jazz composers have written pieces which while using improvisation extensively, also involve large amounts of notated material.

Considerations when combining improvisation with extended composition

One of the real challenges in using improvisation in a composition is in trying to integrate the improvisation into the overall fabric of the piece. Too often the few people who do use improvisation in their compositions do so in such a way that the extemporised sections, instead of being an organic part of the piece, sound like they've been stuck onto the written sections as an afterthought. I always try to write the music in such a way that it is difficult for the listener to discern which passages are written and which are improvised. My role models for this would mostly come from the world of jazz - Duke Ellington, George Russell, Charles Mingus, and one contemporary classical composer- Claus Ogerman.

One of the advantages these great composers had when writing their pieces is that they knew the personalities of the improvising musicians they were writing for. In the pieces I have written in extended form, which involve improvisation, I have been very familiar with the improvising abilities of the performer to whom I assigned the extemporised sections. Thus when I am writing the piece, I can picture in my inner ear the general direction the improvisation is likely to take and try to hear that in the context of the overall composition.

One final thing that needs to be taken into consideration when writing music that contains improvisation as a part of the compositional structure, is the probability that, because of its spontaneous nature, the quality of the improvisation will vary from performance to performance and what effect this will have on the overall piece. Once again I must say that not only does this not bother me, but that I actually find it an extremely attractive proposition. If one is looking for the freedom and spontaneity that improvising can bring to a piece, one must also be prepared to accept that sometimes the performer may not do him or herself justice because they are tired, or just a bit off form for whatever reason. This is human nature, and what is music if it is not an expression of our humanity? To my mind music is essentially an aural distillation of our experiences as human beings. As human beings we perform better at sometimes than at others, and I find writing a piece of music that can demonstrate this fact to be a very satisfying undertaking.

I believe that there has never been a better time for collaborative projects between improvising, (mostly jazz), musicians and classical musicians. Historically, and principally because of their very different backgrounds, jazz and classical musicians have made very uneasy bedfellows. This is mainly because the rhythmic languages of jazz and classical music are so different. Although this is still true, there has been one important development which has changed the landscape irrevocably as far as these collaborative projects are concerned, and that is the rise and development of the jazz education system.

As jazz has evolved over the course of the past century it has absorbed many elements from contemporary classical music while at the same time a formal education system for the music developed which included twentieth century harmony as part of its curriculum. Consequently contemporary classical music is a language that most jazz musicians born after 1955, and many born before that, are very familiar with.

Nowadays when one writes a piece which requires a musician to improvise in a setting in which most of the material is pre-composed, it is usually not too difficult to find a jazz musician who is quite capable of doing so, whether the setting is tonal or otherwise. Jazz today demands that musicians be able to improvise on the basis of texture, rhythm, and atmosphere as well as in the more orthodox harmonic and melodic areas. Jazz pieces today are often so harmonically and rhythmically complex that even asking a jazz musician to improvise over a 12 tone row in 7/8 should present few problems.

Final thoughts

I firmly believe that both jazz and classical music have still a lot to learn from each other.

Classical music, especially in the world of contemporary composition has, in my opinion, lost far too much spontaneity, and has divorced itself far too much from the audience that it should speak to. Composers' lack of understanding of the nature of performance ‚ so few nowadays ever perform ‚ mitigates against them communicating with the people who come to hear their music. Their musical concerns ‚ which will often be involve arcane and labyrinthine structural issues ‚ usually have no meaning for an audience that understands music, (as most people instinctually do), as a form of human communication. Too often composers see performers as obdurate obstacles to people hearing their pieces properly - as rebellious drones who must be bent to the will of the composer. Hence the often strained relationship between composer and performer, and the concomitant lack of belief in the piece by the performer ‚ with predictable results ‚ the alienation of performer and audience alike.

By including improvised passages in their music, composers can create a bridge between themselves and the performers, and by extension, the audience. They will involve the performers in their music in a very personal way, and the audience will sense the spontaneity of the music, which will become all the more human and approachable as a result. Thus the dead hand of academia and intellectual process can be lifted from the music and allow it to breathe again.

I'm not advocating that all pieces of written music must have improvisation in it as a matter of course, but I do think it would help the cause of contemporary music if composers were to include it in their work from time to time.

As to jazz, my feeling is that the idea of composition as being merely a skeletal framework over which improvisation happens is long out-dated and long overdue for a re-think. With jazz improvisation being over a hundred years old now, there is a real danger of the music becoming fossilised due to the by-rote repetition of the same tired cliches by virtually all soloists. Jazz needs all the variety it can lay its hands on, and the use of extended compositional devices and ideas is a wonderful source of musical interest - one often ignored by jazz musicians, especially in a small group context.

Changes in tempo within one piece, textural alteration, motivic development, contrasting dynamics, varying the combination of instruments in the ensemble within one piece ‚ these are all devices which have been in use in classical music for hundreds of years, yet which are rarely heard in small group jazz. Jazz seems reluctant to let go of the idea that all pieces must follow the same dreary pattern ‚ horn solos followed by some rhythm section solos. But there is no reason why this should be so ‚ if jazz musicians took the time to explore the structural possibilities of extended compositions, the music would be much healthier for it.

Contemporary classical composition needs to look at jazz and learn from it, and jazz needs to learn from classical music. If composition students were given instruction in jazz practice, (and maybe even encouraged to perform!), while jazz students were given instruction in composition techniques, students of both musics would, I believe, find that their ability to keep their music alive and vital would be greatly enhanced. And wouldn't we all ‚ audiences and musicians alike ‚ be grateful for that?