The following five descriptions of ecosonics are to provide a starting point for discussion. They are here to be commented on, discussed, etc, and to finally produce a text that clearly expresses the range of thinking we are bringing to ecosonic processes. I propose that we start the discussion as a dialogue and see where it takes us.

Abstract: 16/5/08

Proposal for ‘The Reflective Conservatoire: Building Connections’ conference GSMD

Ecosonics explores creative process through improvisation, taking a view of music as a biological capacity that ‘is in the body, waiting to be brought out and developed, like the basic principles of language formation’ (Blacking). The aim is to create a means of practice-based enquiry into the most basic creative musical processes without involving developed musical structures or systems and possibly to gain insight into whether music is ‘aural cheese cake’ or an evolutionary essential human attribute. Player-instrument relationships and player-player interactions, are treated as natural sound making environments; improvisations are performed affectively through gesture-response communicated socially and resonating as feeling states expressed as degrees and inflections of contour, timbre, intensity, duration, and rhythm.Improvisations focus on conversational/dialogic structures, enabling turn-taking patterns, while changes in communicative context are affected by player numbers and instrumental interactions. Players aim to shape sound and syntax purely affectively, spontaneously and intuitively as the honest signalling of biological organisms engaging in a dynamic, unpredictable, social context. In order to minimize conscious mediation and mitigate enculturation, all musical languages or systems are avoided. Musical success is judged subjectively, by the players’ qualities of affective, responsive social engagement. Negative indications include self-oriented playing, not relating responsively to others, conscious use of instrumental techniques, and pursuit of sounds or systems for their own sake. The presence or absence of the qualities are known to the players themselves and are apparent to unbiased observers through aspects such as the congruence between the timing of responses and the gestural dynamics of sounds and phrases. Ecosonics is informed by disciplines concerned with biological, psychological and evolutionary bases of music. Hypotheses supporting this approach include statements by Cross that music: embodies, entrains and transposably intentionalises time in sound and action, in an interactive and participatory suite of behaviours that facilitates and co-ordinates social interactions; Mead’s theory of the evolution of mind, self and social structure, in which the evolution of mind starts with modes of interaction displayed by higher mammals: the writings of Stern who proposes that intersubjectivity is central to humans’ understanding of each other, and of Damasio who argues that the brain is continuously responding to the internal ‘feeling states’ of the body, and that through bodily gestures similar states are evoked in the  bodies of those to whom the gestures are directed.

For … ?  21/10/07

Ecosonic improvisations are modelled on analogies with the sonic communication of birds and other animals, including humans. Instruments are treated as simple sound producing objects – any sounds available within the ‘ecosystem’ of player and instrument, can be used. They are treated as analagous to a bird’s vocal organs (the syrinx) which are capable of producing an extraordinary range of sounds.

The object of ecosonics is to explore the possibilities of sound-making as music. Players must communicate spontaneously (and honestly), without conscious cultural mediation or manipulation. Putting aside the support of culturally acquired musical practices the communicability of ecosonics as music becomes dependent on the total engagement of the players in making statements, listening and responding. To do this they must draw on the same physical and emotional means that they use when speaking.

Ecosonic Improvisation. A music as a language? 18/3/07

Abstract for Language and Music as Cognitive Systems Conference, Centre for Music & Science, Cambridge

The bodily player-instrument relationship and player-player action-interaction, are treated as natural sound making environments in which music is constituted through sonic gesture-response communicated socially and resonating as symbols of feeling states expressed in degrees and inflections of contour, timbre, intensity, duration, and rhythm.

Improvisations focus primarily on conversational/dialogic structures, enabling turn-taking patterns. Changes in communicative meaning take place both in relation to player numbers and through instrumental interactions, e.g. two cellos + flute may draw on models such as ‘two’s company but a third is  … an outsider, a commentator, an interlocutor?’ while two flutes may draw on models of avian vocalization such as matched/unmatched counter-singing, or duetting.

Instruments are treated as simple sound-producing objects lacking an historical accumulation of specific cultural/technological sound producing functions, traditionally developed techniques, conventions of use or performance styles. The sonic language of ecosonics consists of instrument- and player-specific techniques. Sound relationships arise from the total acoustic properties of instruments rather through a standardized pitch-based system. Players may produce any sound in any way that they feel communicates their immediate feeling state, but not abstractly make sound-for-its-own-sake. The aim is to mitigate the problem of acquired cultural reactions and entanglements, enabling spontaneous communication unmediated by conscious/unconscious ‘musical’ constraints. Improvisations are enabled/constrained by simple rules and systems.

For … ?  25/1/07

Ecosonic improvisation explores the process of making music as if it is generated like speech, researching ways and means of developing music through sound as communication, and investigating the relationship between emotions and the physical movements evoked in making and responding to music, and questioning the way sounds are perceived as being music. The substrate of ecosonics lies in using birdsong, animal and human acoustic communication as abstract and metaphorical models for improvisation. (Among other things, I am interested in the possibilities of the concept of music originating as proto-speech, the dynamics of mother/infant communication in relation to musical universals, and in the possible wider biological relationship of music to bioacoustics).

The ecosonic approach to the instrument/player relationship focuses on the immediacy of the body while attempting to bypass conscious mediation of culturally acquired musical imperatives. Sounds and techniques are shaped by the player's physical relationship to the instrument, not by externalized formal musical systems; simple physical movements take priority over highly evolved physical techniques. The use of sound vocabularies, structures and forms of improvisations are shaped by the interrelationships between the players and between the instruments they are playing; improvisations develop as dialogues or conversations of sonic gestures. Musical meaning is dependent on the aptness and congruence of the players' responses to each other, how successfully the sounds they make maintain the process of communication (the spontaneous ‘language’ they create with each improvisation), and on not slipping into abstract sound-making.

Birmingham, 12/10/06

Ecosonics: A new approach to improvisation inspired by research into Bioacoustics and Biomusicology.

Bioacoustics involves the study of animal sounds and their function within particular social groups and environments. It has links with Ecology, Sociobiology and Acoustic Ecology. When applied to human musicians it leads to an increased awareness of the expressive potential of individual sound making acts, and of the sound culture in which they may be interpreted.

Biomusicology seeks to discover the origins of music and relates to dance and play, animal communication, and the evolution of human language and communication particularly between mother and infant.

In improvising with ecosonics the performer aims to draw on the intense emotional expressivity that lies at the heart of spoken utterances. Improvisations are generated through “temporal feeling-shapes … the dynamic and temporal aspects of forms”. They are expressed as “vitality effects” which are best described in dynamic, kinetic terms such as ‘surging’, ‘fading away’, ‘fleeting’, ‘explosive’, ‘crescendo’, ‘diminuendo’, ‘bursting’, ‘drawn’, and so on.  Improvisations are shaped through a contour of affectivity, the temporal form of a set of profiles of intensity, rhythm, and duration of vitality effects.

Ecosonics grew out of Stephen Preston’s research into birdsong as a basis for new techniques and improvisational forms, particularly  on the baroque flute. Birdsong is an inspiringly rich source of sonic ideas and forms: for example, birds that sing in duet are a key model for duo performances. The workshop will include a discussion of ideas, background (such as an 18th century quartertone scale for the flute), development, and use of ecosonics in composition and improvisation.

When extended into live electronics the physical and gestural relationships between the performers remain at the forefront. But there is also consideration of an instrumental ‘group action’ which can be added to individual instrumental actions. This is derived from the electronic sensing of group interactions, and gives another voice to the ecology in which the performers are acting.