About the article "Ist die freie Improvisation am Ende?" Thomas Meyer, published in Dissonance, # 111.
Dear Sir Thomas Meyer,
I do not know you and obviously it is the same for you. I am one of the musicians insignificant "obscure" improvisers that you think are dying everywhere on the Swiss scene. What a picture, we brush you there?
Colleagues, the son of their texts have, I must say, done a great job to return to its rightful place your diatribe. Not only does it blend incompatible things, but Assen information completely false and inaccurate and shows your deep ignorance of the Swiss scene of improvisation in the taxing of dying, as I currently see a renaissance of this powerful scene in recent years . For cons, I must say it is not recognized as well as major events celebrities, such as the Montreux Jazz Festival, Lugano, Bern, the Paleo or Gurten. While glitz and glitter sparkle to the sound of bubbles of champagne VIP spree in major festivals, a very active underground organizes and live extraordinary creativity with the passionate commitment of human and exciting.
Ignore, for example, the work done by the collective of the Rue du Nord in Lausanne, The Cave 12 and the AMR in Geneva, the CBA in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the musician scene like Biel, Lucien Dubuis (known to New York), Lionel Gafner, Jonas Kocher (every thirty years or less) and the Swiss-Balkan Creative Music Project is either incompetent or dishonest disinformation. In both cases, because I see no other you have nothing to do either in a national cultural funding agency, or in a newspaper talking about new music. And in this case, Dear Sir, I also have the honor to return the favor by saying that honest journalism is dead! At least that's the responsible journalism!
As an educator and musician improvising long, I just want to disassemble your great concept, dating back over thirty years, which sometimes resurfaces stating that improvisation can not be taught. Any self-respecting musician, by definition knows that learning music is more of an accompaniment to the discovery of one's own expression students a true learning "tough." This is true for improvisation as well as for the music written. This educational support is essential but not alone "making" a musician. There are two or three centuries, music schools and conservatories of music and the music did not exist was not recognized as an art but a craft that was handed down from master to student. From where they are, the great composers such as Bach, Beethoven or Mozart would say certainly by looking at our current system of music education that music can not be taught in schools, and they speak not only of improvisation, but music in general. No serious musician teacher can not claim to bring the art of music a student, the music is written or improvised, for approach learning music, not to inculcate blow the Penal Code or by heart all the theorems of mathematics. The main action of the educator is to show a path to become an art music, to capture this form of expression, to understand the source and destination and at the very end to appropriate the various elements to forge its own unique expression. "Learning to learn, get the student taught himself, he will become self-taught by "in the words of Pierre Boulez.
When Denis Beuret in his text-reply says" She (improvised music) is renewed through each musician through the uniqueness of each individual, "I say that this applies to the written music as well. Indeed, the teacher can only accompany a student to his own musical expression, he could never teach him the" Music ". And if as you say, improvisation is not learned in High School, written music is not learned either in the High Schools. To show no High school whether classical or jazz would never qualify as a musician leaving diploma, find work and make a career as a concert artist, composer or brilliant. Being able to play a Beethoven sonata, the two books by heart of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and so on, obviously not enough to declare a concert pianist. Here is the problem. A musician coming out of HEM is not a musician but he has all the means in hand for the future. Similarly an improviser coming out of a course of any school of improvisation is not an improviser, but potentially has the means to become its future commitment and practice. In fact, the ultimate step is his. That all musicians know, improvisers or not know and your tirade is completely offset a worrisome mediocrity. By cons, as already stated by my colleagues, it helps seriously "ghettoization" yet more musicians and artists belonging to the free jazz in Switzerland.
Another observation that makes me sad: You pretend journalist and musicologist, titles you have probably been established there are very, very, very long ... Indeed, a number of research works in many countries, speak with intelligence and plurality of the place of improvisation including free improvisation. Many researchers already in the early eighties have outlined the challenges of teaching improvisation and practice. What you write about this is appalling and properly belongs to a totally exceeded that denies number of books and stories seriously discussing this with humanitude, wit and intellectual rigor. I refer to this subject the writings of Jacques Siron or Denis Levaillant which, among many others, have both contributed to this beautiful old debate. But I guess according to "St. Thomas Meyer" these people do not exist. For
Finally, I just re-quote what Jacques Demierre said in his response below: "To say that improvisation is dead is like saying that music is dead!".
Dear Sir Thomas Meyer, if you think about changing careers, I urge you, the Undertakers you go very well. A word to the wise ...
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