Essays on "The Vivificationists"

A new recording, titled The Vivicationists, is now for sale here and here.

Below are essays, first mine and then David Tolley's, which are also included as part of the accompanying PDF booklet you can get here.

Below this essay are David’s original notes for the release of our recording, The Vivificationists. Given the profound effect David had on my life as a musician, and coupled with the fact that he is no longer with us, I feel justified in adding a few personal remarks. For a more complete account of David’s philosophies of art making, musical and otherwise, I highly recommend his website http://davidtolley.net/ Also highly recommended are John Whiteoak’s Playing Ad Lib: Improvisatory Music in Australia 1836-1970 (Currency Press Limited, 1999) and the edited volume Experimental Music: Audio Explorations in Australia (UNSW Press, 2009). While neither volume discusses David’s work at length, they provide a fascinating background and context for the work of many Australian artists and musicians, his included.

David had the ability to conjure interesting performances out of musicians. He possessed both an open attitude to music making and a well-formed idea of what he thought made good music. These qualities made for some of the most thought-provoking and transformative musical experiences I have ever had both as a listener and performer.

When, in 2013, I began improvising with David I already had a reasonably clear idea of the kinds musical materials I was most concerned with; I had already spent a significant amount of time exploring polyrhythm and various intervallic constructions for use in my musical improvisations.

When many music theorists discuss how improvisers “connect”, they often invoke the notion of a shared musical vocabulary. Like spoken language in everyday life, a mutually shared language allows agents to recognise commonalities and thus helps create a sense collectivity. This is the model often used to describe Jazz ensembles, where each player’s knowledge of a particular part of the jazz tradition is regarded as a prerequisite for improvising together.

As soon as David and I began playing together, however, it was clear that our musical materials were starkly different. That’s not to say that our improvisations didn’t “work” - we were both very excited to continue working on musical improvisation together - but that our mode of musically connecting was not through a shared musical vocabulary. Instead, our connection developed through an understanding that improvisation might also constitute a mode of being.

Improvisation, in a broad sense, is closely related to the notion of flexibility. Good improvisers find ways to “work around” problems. It’s what good interviewees do when asked unexpected questions, conversationalists do when surrounded by people from extremely diverse backgrounds, what sports people do when the game-plan becomes obsolete, and is evident anytime the under-resourced cobble together bits and pieces to form a tool that gets the job done.

An improvisational mode of being creates a shared space in which collectivity is created whilst also preserving difference. This balance is achieved through flexibility, or “open-ness”, on behalf of the performers in regards to differences within the group.  This is what David showed me. Within this shared space David and I were able to maintain our respective musical languages, recognise differences between them, and allow those differences to exist as part of our work together. In contrast to the jazz group model discussed above, where, difference beyond a certain point of the jazz tradition is treated as an obstacle to playing together, the differences between David and my musical language were not simply incommensurable, but were productive precisely in their incommensurability. There was strength in difference.

Improvised-music ensembles provide excellent opportunities to study how differences between individuals are balanced with group identity. The improvised-music group has the potential to demonstrate that difference, eccentricity, and even inadequacy, may be productive given certain circumstances. I’d argue that an improvisational mode of being is a crucial step to produce such circumstances.

I feel that improvised music can demonstrate that difference need not be feared and eradicated but, with the aid of improvisation, can be productive in a way we never thought would be possible, or that we hadn’t even imagined could exist. It’s what David showed me, and one of the things I’ll remember most about playing with him.

I miss David, his music, his art, his advice, and his thoughtfulness, immensely. Receiving the thumb drive containing these recordings just days after his death was a potent reminder of the brevity of life. I hope these recordings serve both as a reminder of David’s greatness, but also as a demonstration of some of the ideas I’ve suggested here, and, ultimately, as a testament to what improvisation can teach us about ourselves and each other.

David made some artwork for this release. I have slightly modified his images so as to include our essays.

Personally I’d like to thank all of the musicians who played in each of the concerts of the Vivificationists, Martin Jackson and The Melbourne Jazz Co-opertative for giving David and I the opportunity to present and document this music, Bennetts Lane for hosting us, Nicholas Croggan for his assistance with this short essay, and James Savage for recording, mixing and mastering.

The VIVIFICATIONISTS

In Feb 2013, David Tolley and Marc Hannaford began a collaboration to explore the unconventional in the conventional jazz piano/bass duo. David recalls hearing some of Marc’s solo pieces and determining that he should make some improvisational music with this “extraordinarily inventive young musician”. Moreover, it was not long since he had returned to his beloved contra bass (made by Sydney residing Luthier Neville Whitehead) after an absence of several years. This project was an opportunity to make a contribution the long-standing jazz piano/bass duo tradition.

Martin Jackson and The Melbourne Jazz Co-op saw fit to feature a three night VIVIFICATION Series at Bennetts Lane, Melbourne in 2013. This recording is of the final night in the series.

Set 1 of each VIVIFICATION performance comprised TOLLEY/ HANNAFORD Duo improvisations commencing, at Tollley’s insistence, with a Hannaford solo. Set 2 featured various ensemble improvisations. These incorporated ALLAN BROWNE, completing the so-called "rhythm section", and two so-called "front-line" players: Concert #1- CAROLYN CONNORS and SCOTT McCONNACHIE, Concert #2 - TONY HICKS, and BRETT THOMPSON and Concert #3 - REN WALTERS and SCOTT TINKLER.

At various times Tolley introduces laptop material and a loop sampler triggered by the bass.

They decided to commission James Savage to record Concert #3, August 6, 2013. Track 1 – 3 of the TOLLEY/ HANNAFORD Duo were recorded in a session prior to the doors opening, Tracks 3 – 6 comprised Set 1 of the TOLLEY/ HANNAFORD Duo recorded live and Tracks 7 and 8, the live recording of the VIVIFICATIONISTS.

Recording, Engineering, Mixing, Production: James Savage

Co-production by David Tolley

Just quickly . . .

Just a quick note to say that if you're in the New York area and interested in lessons I'm available.

You can contact me in the comments to this post, or through this link.

Music Composition Instruction

Also, I have plans to write a lengthy post this summer detailing the process I go through writing and practicing my music. Hopefully it will be instructive and give everyone who reads it an insight into my compositional and practice process.

Finally, I'm happy to say the recording I made with Scott Tinkler, Ellery Eskelin and Tom Rainey is on track to get mixed and mastered. I'm extremely happy with how it came out; everyone played great, so I can't wait to get it released so you all can hear it.

P.S. If you didn't get down to hear Tony Malaby's trio with Nasheet Waits and William Parker last night you really missed out! I credit that trio for my great day of practice and work today...

Music Theory and Practice: An Example

When I tell people I'm enrolled in a music theory PhD, a common assumption is that I'm giving up piano and becoming a writer/theorist/teacher/accountant. Nothing could be further from the truth. Music theory might have the reputation of being a dry, number-crunching, positivist-minded business, but I think one can learn and use music theory through playing music.

The question that often arise for me when learn about a new theoretical concept is, "could I improvise using that?" or perhaps "could that concept inform my practice in some way?" Coming from a university system that emphasizes practice-led research means that I often think in terms of linking my academic research with my practice.

As way of example, here's something I was practicing today.

The book is Elliott Carter Studies, edited by Marguerite Boland and John Link. In Brenda Ravenscroft's essay "Expression and Design in Carter's Songs," she points out an interesting theoretical property of the all-triad-hexachord (ATH). Before I get to that, a little background on the ATH.

The ATH is a six-note chord that contains all combinations of three notes. It's usually described using set theory, which counts the semi-tones above an indeterminate pitch: 012478. So from a bass-note of C, the notes would be C, C#, D, E, G and Ab. It's inversion, 014678 also contains all combinations of three notes.

A little background information on three-note chords. Firstly, there aren't that many providing you regard inversions as identical, and don't specify register. For example, 016 (C, Db, Gb) is theoretically identical to 056 (C, F, Gb). The simplest way to check if two chords are the same is to name all of the intervals in the chord and see if they're identical. So the two chords in the last sentence both contain a minor 2nd, a perfect 4th and a tritone. Therefore they are identical.

So, all of the three-note chords are: 012, 013, 014, 015, 016, 024, 025, 026, 027, 036, 037 and 048, and all of those are contained within the ATH, 012478.

Seeing as I'm into Carter, I often practice incorporating this chord, in various transpositions and inversion into my playing. Sometimes I try and link it back to some sort of tonal reference, but most often I use it as a way to structure my "free" improvisations.

Ravenscroft states: " . . . in this passage Carter explores the hexachord's 'complement union property,' in which the ATH always results from a combination of a member of the subset set-class (0167) with any (04) set class member, provided there is no pitch-class duplication between the tetrachord and the dyad."

This means that a major third (04), combined with any 0167 that doesn't contain any of the pitches in it, will form an ATH. Here it is:



The first two 0167s are the two that don't duplicate pitches from the major third. The last chord, in brackets, is the second chord inverted and placed to show that it's simply a semitone-up transposition of the first chord.

Ravenscroft's observation provided me with a new way to think about the ATH, and perhaps improvise with it in a different way; a new way of thinking about something often results in new musical outcomes.

I also experimented with making the major third in the lower staff the first and third of a major tonality or third and fifth of a minor tonality and then using the 0167s as structures to improvise around. Sounded pretty interesting! They don't tend to sound very linear; the intervals themselves are the most prominent sound. To me that suggested that they're better used as a basis to play "around" rather than to be used exclusively, at least to my taste.

Of course, I also wanted to find out all the major thirds that could be combined with a single 0167:


The fact that there is four major thirds that combine with a single 0167, while there's only two 0167s that combine with a single major third is due to the 0167 being a symmetrical structure itself; two of the 0167s that combine with the major thirds are inversions of the others.

While improvising I also discovered another voicing I liked. Improvising often causes new ideas to bubble up from the depths. This voicing made the ATH sound even more tonal, which might come in handy:

In this case we have a 014678 where 0 is the pitch B, but with a C-minor triad in the bass. The inversion of the ATH looks like this:


A few month ago I read Dmitri Tymoczko's A Geometry of Music (2010). A point that fascinated me was that three-note chords voice-lead most efficiently to major-third transpositions of themselves: a C-major triad leads well to major triads E and Ab, for example. It's an interesting read with some points that make me want to improvise and compose with some of the ideas.

Taking this on, then, I came up with this:

In the bass clef are minor triads a major third apart with efficient voice-leading. The top stave contains the notes that forms an ATH with each of the triads. Interesting that each of the three-note chords voice-lead pretty well to one another, not as well as the triads, but well enough to sound connected I think (not counting the transition across the bar-line). Here is the same exercise using major triads:


So now the task is to get familiar with all these in all keys. I'll probably do this by combining methodical practice (simply playing each voicing in all keys with the metronome) with more improvisation-based practice, where I use each chord as a point-of departure for improvising and try to sometimes return, other times progress through, each voicing in all keys.


Needless to say I have a lot to work on, but I'm excited to work hard on continuing to develop my language for improvisation. If I remember I'll make a recording of my practice and post it on here.

If you have any questions that can't be answered by a quick google search post them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer.

P.S. I also just noticed that the four groups of major thirds in the second example can form two major 7th chords a tritone apart. Tymoczko's book also talks about how three-note chords voice-lead well to similar chords a major third apart (as stated above), but also that four note chords voice-lead well to the same chords transposed minor thirds away. Tritone = two minor thirds!

P.P.S. This post brings the views of my blog to over 30,000, so thank you!