Improvisation as Creative Impulse for Composition

My work as a composer has focussed on the relationships obtaining between complex notational strategies and multi-layered parametric processes in relation to extended instrumental techniques. This involves a significant degree of pre-compositional planning which is often seen to problematize the creative process.

A parallel side to this activity is my work as an improviser (violinist), which in its spontaneity and creative freedom would seem to be the opposite of my compositional practice. However, for me as a musician these are inextricably linked. As an improviser there are necessarily aspects of my material, which cannot be notated, defined by complex combinations/de-synchronising of playing techniques, with a view to accessing material beyond conventional techniques.

More recently I have aimed to cross the boundaries between improvisation and such complex notational strategies initially with works combining performative freedom/improvisation with notated materials. My current series of violin Caprices, however, written during lockdown, further explores the notational potential of improvised music with a view capturing the kind of material developed in an improvised context.

In this paper I will discuss the cross-fertilization of these activities in the violin Caprices. What are the boundaries of the notatable; how might improvised material change when notated? What are the formal implications of material conceived in this way and how does this affect the creative process? This further impacts on the notion of the score as a vehicle for collaboration between composer and performer.