This experiment, at its core, is about improvisation. It’s about various forms of improvising, how we can play around with various aspects and paradigms in music as musicians or as listeners. We’ll look at existing frameworks for improvisation and come up with new ones, all while trying to bridge gaps in expertise, familiarity, and comfort in music.

The initial idea for this subject, “How to involve an audience in improvised performances?”, was originally can be traced back to situations I encountered at most, if not all, free improvisation jam sessions. During my studies in secondary school and at the conservatory, I frequented all kinds of jams. Blues, straight-ahead jazz, groove, and a lot of free improvisation jams. Both musicians and audience really enjoy
being in that time and space, bathing in that infectious energy of people mingling, having verbal and non-verbal or musical conversations. People dig the vibe, except at those free improv sessions.

Here, musicians are perhaps the most ecstatic out of the entire crowd while being free to explore sounds and ideas without having to adhere to a certain context. Free improvisation is very demanding, but ever so gratifying for the musicians participating. Unfortunately, while the band is loving every second of that jam session, the audience is usually left in the cold. Often citing - not understanding what is going on or what noise they ’re making “they ’re just playing for themselves!”. Other listeners might express great interest in wanting to participate, but have no way to do so. What could be a way to alleviate this problem? How can we try to make free improvisation more accessible and more participatory?

Through research of both old and modern improvisation frameworks, I started noting common methods used to explore improvisation through other means than pure theory or relying on a musical background. I came across a lot of interesting concepts and tools, but quickly found a direction I wanted to explore more, those being a type of composition called game pieces. A type of framework where you explore different paradigms in music as if you were playing a board game, some kind of sport or emulating things like political discourse. I also interviewed some musicians whom I have played with in the past, who have a large background in improvisation, some even going back decades. Being aware of some pitfalls, I furthered my own research on how I could make my own game pieces, embedded with and in technology, where the listening public finally could participate. Soon, they would be able to partake in the joy of exploring sound and music. The last few weeks have been a mad dash to define my final
concepts and to develop these proof of concepts.