This item is not in the library — it is a part of: C. Bergstrøm-Nielsen, Intuitive Music: A Mini Handbook.
Although not belonging to parameter exercises according to my definition, these are related to them because they deal with musical material which can be considered just one part of the total universe. Obviously, chord progressions, so characteristic of what we usually call “tonality”, require a heavy amount of arranging and ensuing predictability which would contradict the idea of free improvisation. Yet some simpler forms of tonality can be encountered and also practiced so as to have a keener awareness about them when they pop up.
1) Drone-tonality: agree on a tone. It should be sustained in a low register throughout, but its execution could well be divided between several players overlapping freely, so they can be free to change their roles during playing. Other players play free melodies departing from, and coming back to, the central tone. Participants should feel free to join into a polyphonic web, although they should also listen well and make pauses enough to avoid a too tight texture that could blur the melody/drone relations.
2) Interference-tonality: this form utilizes in its most direct forms absolute pitch, as it bases upon those vibrations produced by two or more tones near each other in frequency. The resulting sound may sound like one tone with a vibrating, complex environment. This phenomenon is often referred to as employing “microtones”, although the point here is gradual sliding change of pitch, not stepwise movement. Participants must be able to sustain and gradually change their pitch. This rules out a number of instruments, but voices are fine, and it may be easiest to start with them. The first time, point out some participants who keep a sustained, agreed-upon tone, while the others make free, ever-so-small slides away and from it. Later, alternation between sustaining and sliding may take place freely. With both male and female voices, try to find a pitch both can sing, low for the female and some comfortable place in the upper register for the male ones. If not feasible, one octave’s difference may work anyway (for instance, when one sex is in the majority). If still difficult, try to divide the group into smaller ones. Listen and enjoy…
3) quotations: this is the possibility of nevertheless entering glimpses of well-known music into the improvisation. It is described under (PAR) Parameter Exercises (↑).
4) tone repetitions: fast repetitions establish a kind of “very local” tonality – maybe a polytonality – in glimpses. Try it out, in pure form or together with other material. Avoid triads and chord-like figurations that may lock up the sound which should be kept open.
5) interval structures: make sure everyone can make long, sustained tones – else practice first (tremolos and the like – should sound as even as possible). Play/sing different ones polyphonically with individual pauses. Like previously, avoid triads and chord-like figurations that may lock up the sound which should be kept open. (This could be named ‘atonal chords’ were it not for the fact that “atonal”, despite its strict meaning of “no tonal center”, for some people sounds like “noisy and scratchy”, which need not at all be the case. This could rather become a “chamber music”-like thing halfway between traditional tonal music and music with all kinds of sounds).
The wording above is by Carl Bergstrøm-Nielsen, as written in Intuitive Music: A Mini-Handbook, licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 (Bergstrøm-Nielsen 2009, 18)
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