Types, Styles, and Spaces of Possibility : Phenomenology and Musical Improvisation

Abstract

SummaryI outline an approach to the phenomenology of improvised music which takes typification and the development of multi‐ordered phenomenological structures as central. My approach here is firmly in line with classical Husserlian phenomenology, taking the discussion of types in Experience and Judgment (Husserl, 1973) and Brudzińska (2015) as guide. I provide a phenomenological analysis of musical types as they are found in improvisational contexts, focusing on jazz in the 20th century. Styles are higher‐order musical types. Musical types are structures that are temporally “thick,” relying on sedimented typification and knowledge, driving expectations as definitional. In most forms of music (including improvised music), musical styles involve maintaining a balance between confirming expectations and flouting expectations. I show that improvised music has a phenomenal structure which is enriched by the communicative and “ real‐time” nature of improvised music. Improvised music can be seen as an exploration of a possibility space rendered by the juxtaposition of the musical types afforded by a performance environment (instrumentation, harmonic and melodic traditions, etc.). I show that improvisation in music is a multi‐vectoral form of communication. The communication is founded in what Dieter Lohmar calls “non‐linguistic thinking.” The expression is constituted in the results of active and synthesis. The culmination of improvisational exploration of possibility spaces is the precisification and enrichment of styles‐as‐types, while in some cases developing new styles in the process.

Gendhing Dhanyangan as Cultural Preservation for Relation with Nature and The Ancestor

“…The Dhanyang is not believed to be a great figure like God but only acts as a protector who can interact with humans. In Javanese cosmology, the virtual world and the spirit world, the small and large universes, the rational and irrational worlds, and the visible and visible worlds cannot be separated because they are interconnected with each other [7]. Therefore, it is common for Javanese people to interact with spirits like Dhanyang in various ways, such as singing songs, making offerings, lighting incense, cleaning special places, and mentioning their names in prayer.…”