Listening, pt. 3

This is part three in an ongoing series on the topic of listening. Part One and Part Two are also available for your perusal.

In this installment in the series I'd like to not only talk about listening, but also listening as part and parcel of the act of improvisation, and indeed place the emphasis on the latter half of the equation. I'm going to discuss the acts of listening and improvisation as two parts of a co-creative or mutually causative process. These co-creative processes are the result of numerable complex interactions on the aural processing and active music making levels.  In this post I'm going to focus on General Systems Theory as a conceptual framework, and then in Part Four I am going to tie this into the Buddhist concept of pattica sammupada.

Due to the nature of these interactions, a linear approach to understanding them is lacking, and a more dynamic understanding is offered by the study of General Systems Theory. These concepts will offer us the conceptual and analytical tools necessary to frame the discussion in a meaningful manner.

General systems theory states that a system is less a thing than a pattern, “a dynamic flow of interactions…that maintains and organizes itself by exchanging matter, energy, and information with its environment. These flow through the system and are transformed by it” (Macy, 69, 73).

Applying these ideas to improvising musicians is particularly interesting, as musicians are not only passive parts of a system that are being transformed through its processes, but they are also active participants in that system. At times they are passive and at times they are very active in its processes; that is to say, not only do they ride the wave, but they also participate in the creation of the wave they are riding. The ways in which musicians step in and out of these roles in the context of the group determines the way the system functions, and the totality of their actions results in the music made.

The concept of the feedback mechanism in general systems theory is very helpful in examining the improvising musician and ensemble. There are two types of feedback mechanisms, positive and negative.

Negative feedbacks reduce deviation in the system, while positive feedbacks increase deviation, as well as reinforcing and amplifying existing deviations (Ibid, 73). In other words, "...the effects of any action are fed back into the organism, and by virtue of this feedback systems are indeterminative" (Ibid, 54).

Positive feedbacks in a musical context can be understood as playing by a musician that can be described as deviant or disharmonious in terms of the course of the music being made, causing the rest of the musical organism to react to those deviations.

Negative feedbacks can be understood as music making that follows the trajectory of the existing music being made and encouraging it along the same course.  So at any given moment in the improvisatory context, musicians can act as negative or positive feedbacks in the group system of improvisation, either reducing or increasing deviation to the existing systematic sound. If a musician took the role of a positive feedback in the ensemble, it would imply a more active role in shaping the course of the music, while negative feedbacks would imply a more passive, receptive mode of music making.

You might also be able to posit that in a positive versus a negative feedback role, various types of listening are occurring. In order to embody the concept of the negative feedback, the focus of the individual's listening might very well be on the other members of the ensemble. In a positive feedback role the musician might be focusing more on their own voice within the ensemble. Both of these examples are oversimplifications of course, but you can see how the location of listening can really alter the way musicians act and interact in the ensemble.

Through explaining these various modes of interaction, a depiction emerges of the improvising ensemble: if causality is mutual, the ensemble is not the musician and the group which we conventionally posit, so much as a series of events, occurrences of playing and creating.  Joanna Macy, author of Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems, notes:  "It has been likened, by both systems thinkers and early Buddhists, to a stream and to a flame, constantly flowing and undergoing transformation" (161). More on that later.

The structuring medium of the music, if there is an existing composition from which the music is being made, can be understood as an agreed upon territory to survey, or a starting point where the musicians begin their explorations. That the musical experience of the musicians and the audience relates to the entire piece of music both past and present rather than just the current notes being played can be explained through systems theory and feedbacks: "By virtue of feedback, past experience is accumulated, transformed, and internalized in the system's mental constructs and neural nets. Its structure at any given moment expresses its history" (Ibid, 168). In other words, the musicians' and audience’s cumulative musical experiences, both within the course of a song and their entire life determines and influences their present experience of the music being created.

And of course, no system is closed. All of these "systems" interact in the context of the larger system of life.

Another useful concept from the realm of systems theory in understanding the system of a group of improvising musicians is that of holons. A holon is "…an integral whole and a part within the larger whole. As open systems interact, be they atom or organism, they form larger self sustaining patterns, which in turn relate to build yet more inclusive and more varied forms. Each level is irreducible, and each whole is a holon – comprising subsystems, is itself a subsystem in a larger system, each level revealing greater diversity and improbability" (Ibid, 85). This can be visualized as a nested series of systems, or a nested series of listenings.

This can also be described as a “Self-organizing system” or SOS, which is “...a general term that describes a diverse range of systems that exhibit both complex and adaptive dynamics...They are most often comprised of numerous individual agents that are autonomous but also exhibit a high degree of interconnectivity” (Borgo, 126).

This nonlinear and adaptive aspect is central to the improvisational unit’s ability to change and evolve over time: “Due to their nonlinear dynamics, SOS’ are able to adapt to new stimuli and to internal changes...only nonlinear systems can evolve (in a biological sense) over time” (Ibid).

Okay, that's all I have the stamina for right now.

So this all begs the question: who cares?

I think this is always an important question to ask when getting mired in theory and concepts to discuss an act or phenomenon that exists just fine on its own without these frameworks.

In writing about these subjects, my primary goal is to help create a means of understanding the act of listening and improvisation in the hopes of both elevating their status as an act and an art. The secondary goal is to put down in writing the ideas that otherwise exist only in my head, where they can't be shared with others.

Take away what you find useful and leave the rest behind; thanks for reading.

Borgo, David. Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age. New York: Continuum International, 2005.

Macy, Joanna. Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems. Albany : State University of New York Press, c1991.