10 Musical improvisation and flow field
In this section, I will set aside consideration of the three practices.
10.1 Improvising to cope with changing circumstances
With regard to the relationship between silent street music and musical improvisation, I initially thought I would be able to train myself to improvise by coping with changing circumstances.
The major difference between silent street music and standard musical performances is the 'flow wherein someone or no one listens.' I am not able to know when an audience member will put on wireless headphones and take them off. To cope with such changing circumstances was an initial aim.
10.2 The JASMIM roundtable on silent street music
I made a presentation on silent street music during the latter half of the roundtable at the third annual meeting of The Japanese Association for the Study of Musical IMprovisation. JASMIM, which was established in September 2008, has members who are interested in musical improvisation and involved in a variety of musical forms. One of the reasons why I started performing silent street music was that the question of what musical improvisation is had been on my mind since the establishment of the association.
(Quote from the website of the association and translated: the author's questions)
(reference JASMIM 2011.09.17 roundtable Toshimori)
One of the aims of the improvised performance was to cope with a variety of circumstances. As such, the current questions under consideration - being listened to or not being listened to; seen or not seen; to practice or stage - are considered as differing circumstances. To cope with such different circumstances is one of the aims of the improvised performance, isn't it? (End quote)
At the roundtable, to which I was invited by Mr. Daisuke Terauchi who himself presented Ear Music(reference JASMIM 2011.09.17 roundtable Terauchi )(reference Terauchi), I did not reveal an answer to the above question. I thought more deeply about the issue after I received the attention of other participants while on stage during the discussion. Let us proceed while holding back the answers.
10.3 Making a flow field
It results in thinking of how to pursue the flow of the field itself. I will now focus on how to make a flow field (defined in Section 4.4).
10.4 Changing the field itself
September 18, 2011, on the second day of the meeting, during the lecture "'Ritornello' and 'Equality' in Improvised Performance," Mr. Yoshihiko Ichida (reference Ichida), the lecturer, mentioned the following as a concrete method for improvisational performers.
(Quote from the website of the association and translated)
(reference JASMIM 2011.09.18 lecture Ichida)
Mr. Ichida: I would hope that improvisational performers would choose an environment by themselves and that they would pursue how to start improvising, taking account of the environment and how to change the field itself. Ultimately, they should go out on the street. As the police will immediately appear, improvisational performers will inevitably have to be revolutionary.
(End quote)
I was encouraged by the comment of Mr. Ichida "You should go out on the street." However, with regard to my silent street music, the police do not immediately appear - they understand the practices of non-noisy (explained in Section 5.1) and non-occupying (explained in Section 5.2) and pass by with just a nod.
During my performances of silent street music, one of the aspects that I feel is a will to dissolve my internal regulation that prohibits me from performing in an inappropriate place. As the three practices were established to avoid external difficulties, this internal regulation became easy for me to recognize.
I went in pursuit of radical practices shown in reports (in Sections 12.3 and 12.4) because I was inspired by the comment of Mr. Ichida.
11 What to log?
11.1 Records of people's reactions
I am going to describe a problem I thought about after the roundtable (cited in Section 10.2), namely, what to log. Until that point, I had reported in my blog after performing about people's reactions, words and tweets. I paid special attention to the reactions of people listening through wireless headphones, as well as my own.
By this time I had become used to people's reactions. Silent street music could be considered as a flow field solely in terms of people's reactions. Below are some examples:
About their eyes: not even looking at; looking at a glance; looking for a while; observing.
About their facial expressions: stiff; surprised; ridiculing; smiling.
About their foot movement: staying away; approaching; stopping for a moment; stopping for a while; remaining.
About their hand movement: pointing; pretending to play the piano; applauding; waving hands.
About their getting information: glancing at the description; reading it a little; reading it carefully.
About wireless headphones: just picking up; wearing them briefly; wearing them and waiting.
About their listening: for a few seconds; for tens of seconds; for a few minutes; for tens of minutes.
I experienced and became familiar with various reactions of people over more than two years to an extent that cannot be experienced in a fixed field. It took a long time to get used to someone pointing at and ridiculing me suddenly, that is to say, to flow audience.
As the documents I brought to the roundtable were mainly related to people's reactions, the discussion was directed toward them. Mr. Atsushi Sasaki (reference Sasaki) was a critic who also attended the roundtable and commented on this during the question and answer session after his lecture.
11.2 Recording a DVD - the music performed and performers' ways of coping with changing circumstances
(Quote from the website of the association and translated)
(reference JASMIM 2011.09.17 lecture Sasaki)
Mr. Sasaki's comment: The second half of the discussion was about audience members' reactions. Mr. Toshimori was looking at the reactions while performing. We are watching the report movie that shows people's eyes while changing angles. His intention is to focus on the reactions. However, I am rather interested in how he himself changed.[...]
I think it is interesting how his music was affected by the behavior of audience members in front of him wearing headphones.
So, I think it's a good way to record a DVD - we can see audience members and the performer's motions through multiple angles and can listen to his music for a certain length of time, such as one hour, in a space with a lot of passers-by. It is, in a sense I think, very interesting research material.
Audience members' reactions are, of course, interesting but can be imagined by us. However, I think it is very interesting that the DVD shows how his music is affected by such parameters, or not affected at all, as it records objective facts external to the performer's consciousness.
(End quote)
Mr. Sasaki was interested in and suggested recording the change of both the music and the improvisational performers' ways of coping with audience members' reactions. As it is impossible to record a field itself, what and how should we record?
I am going to quote from one of my daily reports, which may shed light on this issue. It's about a hot collaboration with a noisy young man who recommended wireless headphones to passers-by while making fun of my performance.
11.3 Recording a document - the bad getting-down breathing and the good getting-down breathing
(Quote from the author's blog and translated)
(reference Toshimori 2011.08.06 Sanjo Ohashi)
Next, I'll describe the main event of the day. Three noisy young males approached where I was playing and were carrying on for more than one hour in total. I got tired but learned a lot about breathing in the process.
At first they saw me from a distance and were already clamoring for attention as they approached.
"He's out of order!" the ringleader of the three shouted.
"Silence! silence!" he screamed loudly and danced in a bad getting-down manner.
"Listen to the silence"
"Great!"
"He's getting down"
"It's fun"
"He satisfies just himself"
"It's foolish to listen to"
He appealed to passers-by, clamoring for attention, but only to girls (laughs). He also stood directly in front of me. I closed my eyes and brought my face close to his while breathing. He, of course, quickly avoided me so as not to touch my face.
A young female began to take photos. She took them in a serious manner from in front of me for quite a long time. I wondered if she really was trying to help me. In the meantime, the noisy young men kept quiet and stayed to the side.
After a little while, the digital piano's batteries ran out of power. I told them about this while bowing respectfully, and they left. After changing the batteries, I began to perform again.
However, the young men returned after a while. And this time they were even louder than initially. Whew! (Laughs). I changed the pattern of my breathing: breathing in a cold manner; holding my breath for a little while; and sighing. The ringleader, who was close to me, really reacted to these changes in my breathing.
"He's wild; risky!"
"Oh, he's got a bad face"
His breathing followed only one pattern. It was simple bad getting-down. I changed between five patterns of breathing. He just tensed himself up when breathing.
"Tired, tired," he said many times.
My getting-down breathing is complex. You are not able to continue to breathe in a simple way while you're performing. In the end, the three never did listen at all to my performance by wearing the wireless headphones (laughs). However, I am sure that my breathing was somehow transmitted to the ringleader. It may come out in his dreams tonight (laughs).
Finally, they left and headed toward the entrance to the Keihan Line, waving at me as they went. I kept my eyes away from them, instead looking at my equipment.
"Hey. Hey! We've done so much. Hey, we're leaving now!"
I waved my hand, too. Indeed, he had done so much, that noisy young man (laughs). He must have been very tired. I realized one thing: I should be ready to use as wide a range of breathing as possible from the beginning of the collaboration.
(End quote)
In fact, the effect of the noisy young man's recommending the wireless headphones to passers-by was almost zero. In this situation, 50% of my mind said "Go home soon" (to him) while the other 50% said "Collaboration is fun," and in sum, "This is the very field of my performance." I realized that a flow field of musical improvisation had been made.
The report cited above is mainly concerned with aspects of breathing. I place a lot of importance on the method of breathing, about which the co-performer not listening to my music and I had a hot collaboration. Such co-performers not listening to my music could quickly cope with my method of breathing, so I thank him very much!
The noisy young man and the female dancers (described in Section 8.3) are co-performers not listening to my music that I met in town while performing. A multiple angled DVD recording with the music of this session would be difficult to record. If possible, it would be very interesting.
But remember - my co-performers have not listened to my music at all. Therefore, it can be said that my music does not seem to play a central role in the field. If my music were put on a DVD, it would be like background music. This is the point of that the music performed is held back (mentioned in Section 4.3).
11.4 Breathing out and in, and breathing in and out
With regard to the method of breathing, at the second annual meeting of the JASMIM association, I made a presentation on breathing out and in and breathing in and out.
"A method of time processing: circulation of breathing," by Akira Toshimori, from the performance presentation "Demonstrating and commentary of (my) musical improvisation."
(reference JASMIM 2010.09.19 performance presentation Toshimori)
The purpose of this method is for 'music and breathing to be free from each other.' Also in the hot collaboration (described in Section 11.3), it is important that 'music and circumstances are free from each other.' I can say that attaining freedom was successful as the collaboration lasted for an hour. The center of the interaction between me and the noisy young man is clearly not my music but the breathing of both performers.
I, of course, have noticed that the argument above contains circular reasoning. It is a claim on the assumption of a certain experimental method - the music performed is held back within the internal field (mentioned in Section 4.3). It may not be a valid claim when placed against the suggestion to record and analyze the music held back.
11.5 I end reporting about being listened to
After I had thought deeply for a month about the new problem that was brought up at the roundtable, I came to think that silent street music may be misunderstood if focusing on the previous point (made in Section 11.1).
"I will today end reporting about being listened to."
(reference Toshimori 2011.10.21 Subway Performer)
I stopped writing stories about audience members listening. I shall focus on how performers cope with the 'flow wherein someone or no one listens,' or flow audience (defined in Section 4.1.2).
So I gave up collecting tweets at the end of 2011. I have cited only one tweet (cited in Section 1) in this paper.
12 Establishing Practice 3: the internal field being acknowledged by the external field
I will once again return to the three practices (explained in Section 5).
12.1 Re the roundtable
(The case of no mediator)
Let us once again return to Section 10.2. At this time, I had not yet found the method of presentation in fixed date and fixed location. So I performed without notice during break times.
(Quote from the website of the association and translated)
(reference JASMIM 2011.09.17 roundtable Toshimori)
The author's comment: Here, I did not feel like performing silent street music on stage. It's not a street at all. Street live music is such that it may be heard by chance by passers-by. It was better, I thought, for me to perform during break times than on stage. One person listened a little by chance.
(End quote)
If you ask someone to listen within a fixed date and fixed location, someone may listen. If so, the flow field of silent street music will disappear, like in Section 8.4. This is because in this situation there is neither flow date nor flow location. In addition to these factors, there is no flow audience wherein someone or no one listens and, therefore, no flow audience. Again, a flow field needs flow date, flow location and flow audience (defined in Section 4.1.2).
Speaking frankly, it becomes just like having fun among friends within the internal field. In fact, when I explain to people about silent street music, they often misunderstand it as having fun among friends. I thought about how I could avoid this type of misunderstanding.
12.1.1 Mediating the internal field and the external field
After that experience, in order to keep the flow field of silent street music, I noticed that it is necessary to mediate the internal field and the external field. The field of silent street music has three types of participants (performers, audience members, and people not listening). Next, we will examine who the mediator is.
12.2 Audience becomes performer
(The case of the audience acting as mediator)
(embed "movie07")
I am going to cite two events (in Sections 12.2.1 and 12.2.2) from the reports of October 2, 2011.
(Quote from the author's blog and translated)
(reference Toshimori 2011.10.02 Sannomiya)
12.2.1 Two young cool men (listened to the performance through wireless headphones ???madded by the authorn). Their voices and gestures were very clear and big. A lot of attention from people was directed toward them, but not me (laughs).[...]Their shouts caused quite an impact.
12.2.2 [...]The last notable event was when some young male and female band members came by after performing/practicing[...]After one young bassist began to listen through the wireless headphones, he took out his bass guitar and began to play air bass guitar, really getting down. He got a lot of attention. I also laughed.
A group of about ten girls came along. They took turns listening through the wireless headphones.
"He's really playing! Amazing!"
I pointed to the bassist, saying, "I'm playing with him."
Everyone laughed (laughs).
(End quote)
Two young cool men and the young bassist, the audience, became my fellow performers, and the internal field (both they and I) got attention from the external field. The method of being a participatory audience member of the bassist hit the target in the center. He said he liked jazz, and he instinctively wanted to play his bass along with me.
Similar cases often occur when 5- to 6-year-old children listening through the wireless headphones move their bodies naturally. People in the external field watch the internal field (the children and me), and many of them pass by smiling. 5- to 6-year-old children and the Sannomiya cool boys act as mediator, which enable the internal field being acknowledged by the external field. I felt that a flow field had been made.
12.3 Greetings as a radical action
(The case of performers acting as mediator)
I am going to quote from my report of a day when I performed without permission at the entrance of an event.
(Quote from the author's blog and translated)
(reference Toshimori 2011.10.01 Museum)
Today, my silent street music progressed (laughs). It may sound ridiculous, but it's referring to greetings. Simply to say "Good evening" is very radical.
[...]Why are greetings radical? They confront something. I am a street musician without invitation or permission.
"Good evening; welcome,"
While saying this, I perform in silence, and I am able to break the boundaries between the event organizers and other people.
(End quote)
This method has the effect of allowing me to perform more easily without permission. As I made use of this effectiveness, I established Practice 3 - the internal field being acknowledged by the external field. I, the performer, was able to act as mediator through the method of greeting without the help of others, especially without an audience.
Other examples of this method are as follows:
- While greeting people in front of the gate of a university by saying "Good evening."
(reference Toshimori 2011.10.07 University)
- While greeting people at a subway entrance by saying "Thank you very much for your use of the subway."
(reference Toshimori 2011.10.10 Subway Station)
- While greeting people by the side of the gate of a temple by saying "Thank you very much."
(reference Toshimori 2011.10.13 Temple)
There were a lot of instances of 'being acknowledged inside the internal field,' that is, normal reactions from audience members. I got a lot of tweets about my performances. Of course, I would like to thank all of those reactions, whether favorable or not, for my lonely and bizarre performance (cited in Section 1). I think of them a lot. However, I suspect that even if I got many evaluations from audience members, I would not be able to reach my goal of making a flow field.
12.4 No [You are noisy], but [It's an air piano (laughs)]
(The case of performer acting as mediator)
Below are quotes from my report of going to a university festival and performing without permission. I proceeded by myself with the aim of the internal field being acknowledged by the external field.
12.4.1 (Quote from the author's blog and translated)
(reference Toshimori 2011.11.07 University)
Prior to going to university festivals, I spent a lot of time thinking about this assumption. I did this in order to get more attention at these festivals.
[You are noisy!]
(Often at university festivals, there are several music performances using large-volume PA systems that are very noisy [added by the author].)[...]If I perform in silence with the sign [You are noisy!], I'm bound to get a lot of attention.
[...]However, after consideration, I decided against it. Silent street music is not a concept of that type. If externalizing the word noisy, the concept itself would diminish. Being noisy is a relative term - a state of mind. I gave up my attempts to get attention (laughs).
(End quote)
After thinking about it, I replaced the concept of [You are noisy!] with that of [It's an air piano (laughs)]. I placed a laminated sign on the piano. Because a lot of people took the sign to be true, about 90% of the time no one listened to my performance, which was my intention. If many audience members wait to use the wireless headphones, the 'flow wherein someone or no one listens' disappears. If the circumstances wherein someone listens continue, it is necessary to devise ways so as to increase the circumstances wherein no one listens.
12.4.2 Three friends divided
(Excerpted and edited from the author's blog and translated)
(reference Toshimori 2011.11.26 University)
A group of three friends gathered around my silent street music. One of them listened through the wireless headphones; the other two did not. One member of the group recognized my playing. However, something strange occurred - this fact was not transmitted to the other two. Those two were convinced it was an air performance and started doing an air dance with me. The other audience member listened while keeping still (laughs). Even when he said that I was really playing, it was not transmitted to the other two.
(I pushed the division further by saying "Thank you for your air collaboration" and "We are air brothers." [added by the author])
[...]They left with their recognition divided.
(End quote)
Of course, performers should make a big deal of an audience member; for example, by putting on a hot show.
In this case, the external field recognizes the performance as air piano, while the internal field does not. As both fields divided with respect to the music performed, each type of recognition is naturally different from the other.
I also discovered what I should be radical against. It is to push the division between the internal field and the external field and to mediate them. It is not fraudulent for performers to enjoy this; rather, it is the typical laughter and tears of performers dating from long ago.
12.5 A street art performance without permission
(The case of both performer and audience as mediator)
(embed "movie08")
(Quote from the author's blog and translated)
(reference Toshimori 2011.11.09 Museum)
This Okazaki Park area is a place of recreation and cultural facilities.[...] When I greeted people with "Hello" while performing, almost everyone returned the "Hello," often smiling.
[...]Near the end of today's performance, two nearby elementary school boys said to me,
"What are you doing? I can't hear your sound."
[...]After I played the piano while talking to them, they played the instrument (laughs). To try anything by oneself is important (laughs), so I gave the role of performer to them.
(End quote)
I was very hesitant to present a cultural performance without invitation or permission in such a cultural zone. However, I dared to hold an 'experience school' with those interested boys. People around looked on while smiling. Of course, I would have left there immediately while continuing to perform on the mobile piano if there had been an external difficulty.
12.6 People not listening acting as mediator
In summary, the case of the audience acting as mediator is outlined in Sections 12.2 and 12.5. The case of performer acting as mediator is discussed in Sections 12.3, 12.4 and 12.5.
Another case is that of people not listening in the external field acting as mediator, as demonstrated by the dancers (in Section 8.3) and the noisy young man (in 11.3).
In addition, a different case - the possibility of no mediator - is discussed below (Section 13.2).
12.7 The mediator and the flow field
Section 12 has been described by using the term mediator, but what is the relationship between the mediator and the flow field? To reiterate, a flow field is a field of musical performance of flow date, flow location and flow audience (defined in Section 4.1.2).
As seen in the case of Sections 12.2-12.5, we can replace flow audience with mediator between the internal field and the external field because flow audience is defined by my eyes as a performer. From the perspective of audience members' eyes, performers may flow; that is flow performer. Moreover, in many instances, there is no audience.
We can further replace mediator between the internal field and the external field by the internal field being acknowledged by the external field as the result of this mediation. As a practice, performers aim at being acknowledged.
12.8 Re flow field
According to our new definition, now a flow field is considered to be a field of musical performance of flow date, flow location and the mediator between the internal field and the external field.
The dancers (in Section 8.3), the noisy young man (11.3), the Sannomiya cool boys (12.2) and the greeting performer (12.3) are mediators between the internal field and the external field, thus making a flow field.
13 Changing practices
Before the conclusion of this paper, I am going to describe examples of changing practices (mentioned in Section 5.4) in order to cope with the prevailing circumstances.
13.1 Jazz mobile stand (with real sound)
I developed a new performance method while moving with real sound in August 2011. It is Jazz Yatai (Jazz mobile stand), performed in Gokomachi Square in Zest Oike. Yatai has the meaning of a quasi-mobile shop on the street.
There are only some passers-by in the square. I move and perform while watching audience members moving. I approach audience members showing certain reactions, and greet or talk to them while performing. I perform sometimes while playing hide-and-seek around big pillars with children. The following is how to change the three practices.
13.1.1 Because of real sound, it's noisy.
13.1.2 Because of being mobile, it's non-occupying of space; because of not gathering a fixed audience, it's non-occupying of humans; because of permission to perform in the square, it's occupying of space.
13.1.3 Because people around smile while observing me playing hide-and-seek with children, it's almost being acknowledged.
13.2 Playing the piano in silence at an art festival, while facing backward with my eyes closed
I performed silent street music while coexisting (described in Section 8.3) with artists. The performer became like a piece of installation art.
(embed "movie09")
(Quote from the author's blog and translated)
(reference Toshimori 2012.01.29 KYOTO artvillage)
I did not know people's reactions at all.[...]Later I found by watching recorded video after my performance that when I played the piano facing backward with my eyes closed, people sometimes stared at me.
(End quote)
13.2.1 It's non-noisy.
13.2.2 Because performed in a fixed small area, it's occupying of space; because of not gathering a fixed audience, it's non-occupying of humans.
13.2.3 Because of the sign [It's an air piano (laughs)], people's suspicion of a 'flow performer' leads to being acknowledged.
14 Conclusion
The above discussion is focused on the subtitle of this paper: Three practices make a flow field of musical improvisation. I carefully chose its subject and reconfigured the description to represent the initial theory it propounds. I, as a performer, have in my mind a mixture of despair, adventurous spirit, concrete considerations, chance discoveries, imaginary sociology, future planning and hypotheses of musical improvisation.
They are the food for my performance. In other words, they help me to go to town to perform alone. However, in this research paper, I focused from among them on one hypothesis - the flow field - and restricted my comments to this as much as possible.
(End)