Talk:Free improvisation

moved from Free music
I've moved this from free music - see Talk:Free music for one of the reasons. I also think that "free improvisation" is the more common term. The two might seem to mean different things, but as far as I know, free music is improvised by definition anyway, so there shouldn't be a problem (somebody else may know better of course). --Camembert

Brotherhood of Breath & Sisterhood of Spit
Restored Brotherhood of Breath & Sisterhood of Spit- these were actual bands with strong free improv influences, and were not put in as 'spurious' or 'self serving' references. quercus robur 22:00, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Signifigance
Copied from 65.3.169.133 's talk page;

''Re Free improvisation on exactly who's authority do you decide who is 'insignificant' or 'self serving'? All the musicians & performers listed exist or existed, to delete groups such as Brotherhood of Breath (who featured Louis Moholo, Chris McGregor, Evan Parker, and recorded the seminal live at Willisau album or Iskra 1903 (who were Barry Guy, Derek Bailey and Paul Rutherford, and released at one album on the Duetsche Gramaphone label, and I believe, at least one other) as 'inisigificant' shows breathtaking ignorance of the free improv scene and it's history. quercus robur 19:00, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)''

Joel Garten
I deleted Joel Garten from the paragraph detailing relatively well-known free improvisers. I know free improv is fairly marginal stuff, but consider these figures: Garten has no allmusic.com listing, and scores about 20 google hits, verses about 7,600 hits for Keith Rowe, 62,000 hits for Derek Bailey, 17,000 hits for Peter Brotzmann, or 56,000 for Evan Parker, who all have extensive discographies and reviews on all music. Anon, 10 Dec, 2004

reentry from guy's deletion
my passage on the minneapolis free improvisation scene was deleted by guy hutton. i believe it is important to provide information on this scene as it is vital to the progress of free improvisation. if listing several musicians in the minneapolis scene is viewed as "shameless self promotion" then i think you have the wrong idea about wikipedia. this is a resource for the dissemination of information, not an eliteist organization. there are several free streams of free improvisation on the record label insides music which was included in my post. the passage right above it is about the london radio station and wnur of chicago which has far less free improvisation than insides music. if you're going to delete insides music for the reasons of self promotion, then you should also delete those passages that have less relevance. i have re-added the names of some notable performers here in minneapolis, but left out the record label note about where people could go on the internet to listen for free. what are thoughts from others? should i put on the passage about insides music? here's what i readded: "Minneapolis has a vibrant free improvisation scene. Notable free improvisers of Minneapolis are: Milo Fine, Davu Seru, Jaron Childs, Bryce Beverlin II, Charles Gillett, Nathan Phillips, Tim Glenn, Mike Hallenbeck, Jt Bates, Edward Schneider, Casey Deming, and the group Brown Rainbow."


 * And you are Bryce Beverlin II, that is the problem. Welcome to Wikipedia, but please don't lecture others until you've a) learnt how to sign your talk page contributions (see my welcome notice on your talk page for that) and b) understand that Wikipedia is not a place for random facts or self promotion (see - and I hate linking to these rules and rarely do it - WP:NOT). --kingboyk 02:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * and you are kingboyk. just because i am posting something that has to do with me doesn't mean it is self promotion. and i will lecture you on free improvisation if you need it. this article is horribly bare and elitist. the minneapolis scene has a lot to offer for free improvisation. why would you discourage information on a specific place where free improvisation is vibrant? how are people to be represented if we don't start somewhere? and you have no business putting a negative welcome note on my page to tell someone to delete it and the 7 hour film i've been working on for over 5 years and the record label i started that has a quality world culture contribution and following. kingboyk, please don't "hate" . wikipedia is not for hate. and wikipedia IS for random facts as well. just go to the homepage. each day something is drawn at random to INFORM!!! that's what this site is for: INFORMATION! and communication of ideas, events, and works to those who may not otherwise be exposed to them. so a) please be understanding of someone you don't know b)sorry i didn't sign my talk page contribution. i forgot that step. i think it was pretty obvious from the "history" page if anyone had any doubts. would it be acceptable if i wrote that the minneapolis free improvisation scene was very active, but left myself out of the listing even though i am a major contributer? i'm a bit frustrated with whom this article has chosen to represent free improvisational music. it is the music of right now. so those who are making it right now should be represented. and now for the four tildes. bryce Bryce Beverlin II 16:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Really, there's a point to not including a lengthy discussion of the Minneapolis free-improv scene as part of the main article on "free improvisation". For one thing, it greatly overstates the importance of the Minneapolis scene (not that it isn't a fine scene and all) to have it appear as its own section without those of myriad other cities listed as well.  Secondly, the article would become incredbily long, unwieldly, and just plain ugly if it contained a long list of every obscure free improv scene the world over (Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Wellington, New Zealand; Madison, Wisconsin, etc, etc.) or an exhaustive list of free improv players, etc.  Any or all of these things could be included in another page with a less broad scope.  For example, you could create a page called "Minneapolis Free Improvisation Scene" or (better) "Free Improvisation in Minneapolis, Minnesota", where such content would be perfectly appropriate, and we could link to it off of this page.  (Maybe with a link to a category of "local free improvisation scenes" or whatever).  Voila.  Problem solved.  (Of course, whether or not the article should be written by someone mentioning themselvesin the article is at odds with the whole "self promotion" thing is a whole different issue.) Ellen Smithee 16:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Subgroup
Personally i know nothing about the minneapolis free improv scene, but Wikipedia would be thge ideal place to learn about it, and be a reference for futrure historians, hence have re-instated the contentious text within a subgroup in a way that I personally think would facilitate this. Hope this helps. quercus robur 20:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Request for references for Vitamin-S
Please refer to references on Wikipedia article about Vitamin-S.

^ http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/05-06-2.pdf ^ http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/members/committeemeetings2004/creative/m20061110.asp ^ http://www.aucklandfringe.org.nz/programme.aspx ^ http://www.nzmusician.co.nz/index.php/ps_pagename/newsitem/pi_newsitemid/2747 ^ http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=500&objectid=10449636&pnum=2 ^ http://list.audiofoundation.org.nz/pipermail/af_list-audiofoundation.org.nz/2007-June/002440.html

These establish that Vitamin-S has been an integral part of the Auckland improvisation and alternative music scene, and a brief look at the Vitamin-S website will demonstrate that it is a currently active movement - with regular workshops and visiting international artists as well as regular pool night improvisations.
 * Fine, so please add these to this article. Another Wikipedia article may not be used as a reliable source, but reliable sources cited in them can of course be reused.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I will do so, it just always seems like excessive redundancy to me.


 * I'm astonished that the radio reference wasn't considered notable enough. As I'm sure everyone reading this article should understand, non-idiomatic improvisation is not a form which generates large amounts of mainstream press.  We have previously demonstrated that Vitamin-S is indeed notable by Wikipedia standards when creating the formation of the Vitamin-S wikipedia page.  This required a large number of individual references - most of which are above, and some of which are no longer available on-line.  To avoid cluttering up this particular wiki with an equally large number of references I chose to use athe most recent reference available - a radio article on one of the more popular radio statins - which reaches over a third of our nations population.   I trust you did listen to the article?  It demonstrates that the entry in this wiki is verifiable by a third party source, it demonstrates newsworthy, in combination with articles provided in the main Vitamin-S article peer recognition is recognised.   Surely if something meets notability guidelines for an article (and it has gone through an unsuccessful RFD process - so this has been demonstrated)  then it should also meet notability guidelines for a single line in an appropriate parent article?  Dinobass (talk) 21:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I, for one, agree with you, and I have reverted SethTisue's edit accordingly. No explanation was offered for why Vitamin S should be regarded as not notable and, as you have pointed out, this question has already been resolved in connection with the Wikipedia article on them. If no better criterion can be offered than "I don't think they are notable enough", then they should be included.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Dinobass (talk) 22:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Vitamin S may be notable enough to have their own article, but I fail to see how they are notable enough to merit a mention on this page, the Free improvisation page. The article is not (and should not be) a laundry list of every notable musician, collective, or event in the field. I don't doubt Vitamin S is important in a New Zealand context, but that doesn't mean they merit a mention in this article. I have read the above provided references, other than the first one, which is a dead link. Frankly they are small potatoes — an event listing in a newspaper, a small grant from a local government, etc. etc. In this article, Vitamin S are mentioned in a section that also discusses Derek Bailey's massively internationally influential Company week; no one has yet provided any information showing that Vitamin S is in any way remotely comparable to that, and that's because they aren't. SethTisue (talk) 13:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "Massively internationally influential"? Well, I am of course familiar with Derek Bailey's career (mainly from his interviews and writings, rather than his actual music), and I would have to agree that he had more visibility in the field than Vitamin S (whose work I do not know at all) but, as Dinobass says, "non-idiomatic improvisation is not a form which generates large amounts of mainstream press" (and this is probably a considerable understatement). Did Derek Bailey actually have that kind of media coverage (the Wikipedia article on him does not indicate that he did)? If so, who runs second to him? Most importantly, what criteria do you suggest to judge notability in a field as far from the mainstream as this subject is?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Let us assume for the moment, that having Vitamin S on the list is going to open the flood gates for all the other free improvising collectives that have existed for more than 5 years, are active on a regular basis (weekly) and have a 'membership' of 100+ performers? How many, exactly, would that be?    I would suggest that, in the context of free improvisation, groups/organisations of this (albeit small) size are in fact significant.  Let's face it, we're talking about a form where the internation society of improvising musicians (referred to in the article) has a membership of 300 (mostly from the USA).  Dinobass (talk) 00:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Jerome: Who said anything about mainstream press? Bailey doesn't need mainstream press to be notable; he and Company week are discussed or at least mentioned in practically everything that's ever been written about free improvisation. Yes, Company week is "massively internationally influential" in the context of the free improvisation, which is (after all) the subject of the article. You want to know what my criteria are; I refer you to WP:MUSIC, especially the part excluding references “comprising merely trivial coverage.” Dinobass: the fact remains, you need references demonstrating real notability in the broad context of free improvisation as a field, and you don't have them (and I'm pretty sure that's because they don't exist). SethTisue (talk) 12:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * SethTisue: I will leave it to you and Dinobass to slug it out over Vitamin S's credentials, but the article you refer me to is clearly addressing the pop-music world, from which free improvisation is even further removed than it is from so-called "mainstream classical music". Invoking this standard is tantamount to suggesting the entire subject of free improvisation is non-notable, and seems to me to simply reinforce Dinobass's point.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

20th-century classical music
20th-century classical music is listed in the infobox under stylistic origins, but that is entirely too vague. Surely, a more specific link can be found for a movement or school, or perhaps more than one, within 20th-century classical music that more clearly influenced free improvisation. --- The Old Jacobite The '45  18:03, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

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Objective historical overview
What I expect from a Wikipedia page entitled 'Free Improvisation' is something approaching an objective historical overview of the origin and development of this musical practice; obviously the 'objective' element is the subjective part here, but we should be able to achieve a degree of consensus on historically distant material. What we've got here seems actually seems to be a real mess of unbalanced, partisan (and perhaps self-promotional) material, mainly concerned with what people and their friends are doing now or have been doing recently, and which is quite distressing to someone like myself, who has spent the last 40 years working in the field of improvised music. I'm not saying there isn't an interesting improvised music tradition in Minneapolis, or that Vitamin S or The Noise Upstairs aren't involved in improvised music. But we're talking about the Wikipedia article which is meant to cover the whole subject 'Free Improvisation'; do they really justify the space given to them here, while so many pioneering and revolutionary musicians of international significance are ignored? As Ellen Smithee said way back in 2006, if you want to write only about improvised music in Manchester (for example), then start an article on that subject. (As someone who has played improvised music in the UK since the 70s, I can tell you that Manchester's historical role is fairly limited.) This page is a mess, and an embarrassment to those of us who love (and live for) free improvisation. And no, I don't have the time to edit itat the moment, but isn't there someone out there who can restore a certain amount of impartiality, objectivity and historical perspective to this page? Please. New York, Fall 1974 (talk) 19:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Instead I think this entire page should just be deleted.

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Red Krayola Free Improvisation
The Red Krayola's debut album was arguably the first rock record to merge free improvisation with rock music, I've found a credible source here from the chicago reader which also makes mention of this:

https://chicagoreader.com/music/long-lived-rock/ Aradicus77 (talk) 13:05, 7 May 2023 (UTC)


 * It's an outlier source written by someone who must have been hurrying to get a review out the door. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS with this source, because the writer is wrong that 1967 could have been first. Improvisation was mainstreamed in pop music by many bands around 1965, two years before Red Krayola's first album. A lot of writers have researched improvisation in popular music, including rock music, blues rock, psychedelia, etc., and they list a bunch of bands doing it in 1965 and 1966: The Byrds, the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, the Doors, the Butterfield Blues Band, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, and Mike Bloomfield's guitar on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. And of course there's Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, which mixed jazz improvisation and rock. Binksternet (talk) 20:19, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * "improvising" in music isn't the same as "free improvisation" which is an extreme version of free jazz that gets rid of any rhythm and melody. The improvisation you have listed till adheres to factors such as tempo, rhythm, time signature, key signature and melody. Hear: AMM and Nihilist Spasm Band. Besides Zappa, Soft Machine, Godz and Pink Floyd no other band in 1967 was merging free improv with rock. Improvising in music has been around for much longer than the '60s. Aradicus77 (talk) 20:22, 7 May 2023 (UTC)