Compositional Voice in/as Ensemble Microtradition: Collective Self-Organisation as Compositional Approach

This paper will consider the role(s) of the ensemble in providing meaning(s) in compositional frameworks and strategies designed for improvisers. I will position such improvisation-reliant approaches as particularly fruitful subjects of analysis in this context and examine the ways in which ensemble-level ‘microtraditions’ can be seen to intersect with compositional voice. Using my ensemble Union Division as a case study, I will examine the importance of leadership and ‘followership’ styles in the collective development of our performance practice and will discuss the processes by which we established particular modes of eliding improvisation and composition via self-organization. In examining specific changes that occurred subsequently within the group’s practice, and looking to David Borgo’s (2006) research on ‘swarm intelligence’ in free improvisation and Irving Janis’s (1972) concept of ‘groupthink’, I hope to illuminate: a) how these changes can be seen to have impacted meaning and understanding of the compositions played; b) how they were able to occur without conflict via non-verbal consensus within a large group; and c) how the group’s microtradition can be seen to have gradually become the dominant vehicle for compositional voice via a process of decentralization; moving beyond elements related to ‘ensemble sound’ to also include group-specific ways of working, modes of communication and socialites.