questionnaire

 Alessandro Bosetti
 Alfredo Costa Monteiro
 Andrew Drury
 Axel Dörner
 Bechir Saade
 Bertrand Denzler
 Bhob Rainey
 Bonnie Jones
 Bruce Russell
 Bryan Eubanks
 Burkhard Beins
 Christian Weber
 Christof Kurzmann
 Cor Fuhler
 Dieter Kovacic (dieb13)
 Doug Theriault
 Dragos Tara   new
 eRikm
 Greg Kelley
 Günter Müller
 Heddy Boubaker
 Howard Stelzer
 Ignaz Schick
 Jason Kahn
 Jeff Gburek
 Jeph Jerman
 Jesse Kudler
 Joe Foster
 Julien Ottavi
 Kai Fagaschinski
 Lee Kwang Goh
 Liz Tonne   new
 Lucio Capece
 Mattin
 Michael Renkel
 Michel Doneda
 Reuben Radding
 Róbert Rózsa
 Robin Hayward
 Ruth Barberan
 Sharif Sehnaoui
 Thomas Ankersmit
 Tomas Korber
 Valerio Tricoli
 Will Guthrie

7. How do you evaluate an improvisation? What is it, according to you, that makes one improvisation better than another?

Alessandro Bosetti:
      If I like it or not makes is better or worse (just for me, of course).

Alfredo Costa Monteiro:
      As a musician, it’s very difficult to evaluate a concert I’ve done. I just keep in mind my mood, my feeling and my perception of things. It is almost impossible for me, immediately after a concert, to say if it was good or bad. It’s something that I prefer to hear coming from the audience. To clarify things, I need the recording.
      And if I have to say the truth, I would say that good or bad, doesn’t mean anything when you’re dealing with impermanent and unstable materials; or at least it’s how it should be; but we all know that, even in improvised music, there are some statements that lead us to think in terms of value judgements, and judgement only exists if there’s comparison.
      It happens to me very frequently while listening to a recording: depending on my mood, it’s sometimes difficult to be sure of my thought. But it’s precisely this fluctuation that creates the attraction in me.

Andrew Drury:
      Evaluation of all music, whether improvised or not, is very subjective and changes with time. I don’t hold to or espouse a single method or set of evaluative standards. I have several ways of thinking about improvisations and these can disagree, contradict one another, and that’s fine. 
      That said, my intuitive sense of the music while it is being made and just after is certainly significant. And, on the other hand, often I’ll listen to a recording days or months later and hear the music in a very different way than I did performing.

Axel Dörner:
      The value of different improvisations depends on a lot of different things, it can also change with the time. Also my own perspective is limited. It happened to me that I liked recordings of older improvisations, which I thought were not so interestings at the time when they were made. It´s a question which I cannot answer in a general way, I only can say in each special case what I like in an improvisation.

Bechir Saade:
     Just what it does to my senses I guess. Some loose criteria that can help are clear intentions in the way you play, a minimum of mastery over what you're doing (kind of the same as the first), and the hardest "making it somehow work".

Bertrand Denzler:
      It's very difficult to tell. Most of the time, it just works or not, there is some kind of tension, or evidence, to an improvisation, or not. In the end, it's not so different then evaluating a composition, a song or maybe a meal. It's quite subjective. Even if I often agree with the other musicians I am playing with or with some members of the audience.

Bhob Rainey :
      A live improvisation is a charismatic event, regardless of the performer's position on audience/performer hierarchies. There are times when you are just sucked in. At those points, you are in the worst position to evaluate why something is working. It's the duds that give rise to plenty of theories and often spark the most heated debates. Sometimes, these debates can turn a dud judgment into a new obsession. So, we rely on the old medicine man magic, and we rely on the failures. We probably do best when our evaluations are as ephemeral as our improvisations.
      Personally, I judge everything I do quite harshly. But, luckily, I'm pretty forgiving.

Bonnie Jones:
      I hate to say it, but I usually evaluate improvisations in a purely subjective (and somewhat personal/emotional) matter. How did I feel after the set? Did it seem like we were all listening? Did we communicate in interesting ways? Did I learn something about the musical ideas of myself and/or the other players? I like improvisations that feel as though the players are reading each other's minds. I like using that part of my brain that deals with non-verbal actions, decisions, and communication systems – and I like it when those things are responded to in kind – with a sense of mutual awareness. As for text projects that I consider "improvised" the best I can hope for is to be able to employ various understandings of language to respond to/shift/address/change/comply to the perception of the audience/reader. At this point, I'm trying to work with text in such a different way then I have in the past that it's all un-chartered territory. If no one throws anything at me I consider it a job well done.

Bruce Russell:
      Good improvisation is 'cool'. Coolness is a West African concept that denotes 'alignment with your inner divinity'. You know when it's good, but you can't express it.

Bryan Eubanks:
      The way I evaluate music is very subjective, whether playing or listening it boils down to how it leaves me feeling afterwards. I am hesitant to create a hiearchy of what is better or worse because this music is constantly in process so I try to relax about it. Sometimes it just doesn't seem to work regardless of aesthetic details.

Burkhard Beins:
      Quite often the results of not preconceived musical group processes are hybrids of diverse ratio of mixture. Therefore they often can´t be clearly filed under a certain genre and evaluated by it´s inherent set of values and rules. This ambiguity is essential and makes it a crucial task not only of the musicians, but also of each individual listener to find or construct his or her relevant frames of reference.
      Concurrently each group creates it´s own reference system in the course of time, and as a group member retrospectively trying to evaluate a musical process I was involved in myself, I´m doing this from an interior perspective. The criteria of quality would be then how successfully the group was able to apply it´s already established musical material and ways of communication in a stable but flexible way, and to what degree we were able to broaden our possibilities, challenge our boundaries or enhance our potential while doing this.

Christian Weber:
      The quality. Simple parameters of quality.

Christof Kurzmann:
      In the end it's how I feel. And how I feel the others. It's, as I sad before, like in a dialogue. It mustn't be agreed what we are "talking" about as long as it is vivid and interesting.

Cor Fuhler:
      No special rules there. Although with improv I tend to accept (and even like) a bit of noodling more then with composed music.

Dieter Kovacic (dieb13):
      I basically use the same criteria for "composed" and "improvised" music. It's good when it's catchy and it's catchy when it is stringent and, at the same time, able to surprise me.

Doug Theriault:
      Does it have all the things that excite me as a listener? If not, it is deleted..
      (second question) Whether or not the piece has broken new ground for myself.

Dragos Tara :
      If it feels easy, fluent to play. If my image of the moment was clear, or just exciting... This is kind of confusing. Sorry, I don't really know.

eRikm:
      Well, in the first case the music is bad, while in the second it is good :)) It is important to have a good time. Whether the audience is lulled to sleep with happiness, or if they are completely electrified, is an equally good indicator. What is often a characteristic of a good concert is the fact that the time has “disappeared”.

Greg Kelley:
      It can be analysed like any music - Does it make sense? Does it engage the mind (and spirit)? Why?

Günter Müller:
      It is first of all the feeling it leaves, then maybe talking about what was happening, or listening to recordings of the things we played. There are different aspects that make an improvisation more or less successful: was it kind of focussed or just fumbling around, are there any interesting or surprising dynamics, were there new things happening or was it the same old stuff, were there interesting details, new strategies, how the big form was, the flow, etc.

Heddy Boubaker:
       This is a great mystery !!! If I'm involved in it, a "good" improvisation is one where I don't remember anything after it's finished :) Beyond that, this is often by listening again later to the recording that really this kind of appreciation develops; I can't name any precise points that make me decide what a good improv is for me (in fact, there are a few points that can make me judge what makes a NOT good improv in my eyes: lack of listening, not taking the environment in account, lack of involvement, the use of clichés ...) furthermore it really depends on the mood, the moment, the weather, the time of the day and so on, it is really a question of how I feel in relation to what I'm listening to. Previously, I mentioned anguish, neurosis, catastrophic ugly sounds, accidents, ... all these imperfections in the perfect theory of mastering the Art of Improvisation makes this practice much more interesting than its theory.

Howard Stelzer:
      Any music should be held to the same standard... it should work as a finished piece, whether it's improvised or composed, live or recorded. I hate to listen to improvising groups try to figure out what they're doing while I'm listening to them. I enjoy definite gestures, and don't find jams or rehearsals interesting.

Ignaz Schick:
      Hard to say, the more coherent the structure is, the more I will appreciate it, but it really depends on the style of music which is just performed, whether it is a noise set-up, or a microtonal-trance drone project or a super silent lowercase set, all those different musics have their own laws & rules, what works well for a noise set-up does not necessarily help a drone set, something what worked well once does not necessarily work again the next time, best is usually a kind of common denominator, a certain base you can rely on, exciting sets usually consist only of 30% innovation/risk and 70% of (own) tradition/experience.

Jason Kahn:
      I have a very intuitive approach to improvised playing. For me to say whether one improvisation is better than another really just depends on how I feel, if the improvisation moves me.
      I don't have a catalog of criteria which I check off to determine whether an improvisation is "good" or "bad."
      And, as I mentioned before here, the process is most important for me. When this feels good then I am mostly satisfied.

Jeff Gburek:
      No general rule about this. You judge case by case. I might add that I don't depend on improvisation to make music necessarily always interesting. In the case of my acoustic guitar work, a good improvisation is one that leads fluidly back into one of the compositions. And it always works.

Jeph Jerman:
      The level of listening by each participant. I try not to evaluate or judge the music, which is often hard to do. Another thing that mind does...If I am having fun, and not thinking too much, then that's enough for me.

Jesse Kudler:
      In some sense, I have no idea. Sometimes it feels great, but the audience seems indifferent. Sometimes it feels terrible, and the audience loves it. Sometimes a crappy performance sounds beautiful on a recording. If I'm trying to select recordings to use for release, it matters to me, but a concert is over when it's over - no sense in obsessing. Even though I probably do! I like an improvisation that feels truly improvised but also purposeful. It's nice to feel like everyone is listening and paying attention and not being too egotistical. It needs to feel honest.
      Other than that... it sometimes seems a matter of just my mental state, or my focus. Often, a really good performance feels almost effortless, or like what athletes might call "flow": it almost feels like I inhale, the performance starts, I exhale, and it's over. This is fairly rare.

Joe Foster:
      I don't have good answers to these questions...but I've thought about them a lot...on one level, the urge to evaluate is pernicious, but on the other hand, it's such a powerful human impulse that fighting it can seem ridiculous. I evaluate shows based on their effect on me and using whatever context I have available to me (past shows, past recordings). I evaluate recordings as recordings, as objects, since I can listen to them more than once. My opinions often change dramatically, so I'm pretty sure they're more about me than about the recordings themselves.
      As for evaluating players, it's very hard. I only feel comfortable forming evaluations about players I've repeatedly heard in person, since I can put performances in context and can perceive development and habits.

Julien Ottavi:
      For me it's difficult to evaluate any kind of improvisation in any kind of situation, you have to see much more components to even have an idea of what's going on in a situation/context. If you talk about a musical situation in the musical style of "improvisation" I should say that it's not the question because for me as I said upper it's a process of learning, it's not a process of make your "ego" visible for others. Because your question is related to the notion of "performance" in terms of "efficiency" or "effectiveness" and the evaluation of a piece of music is always related in occidental society to the aspect of competition in the music and of it's perfection, even if this perfection is to be the more experimental, strange, weird with a lot of errors and noisy stuff as possible, it's always a perfection to my mind. And the notion of better is in this idea as well... as a process of learning, of a personal growing process, there is no better, no baddest, there is only different people with their own approaches to a context/situation.
      But in terms of musical expression, I will reformulate the question : how could we appreciate a piece of music that uses improvisational codes? Which should mean that no real codes are pre-determined...
      And then we should say in which terms, from which aspect? Intellectually, as a musical reference, simply as sound organisation, as a strong expression of sentiments or feelings, or as a raw physical expression?...etc

Kai Fagaschinski:
      Like every other piece of music, it has to be entertaining in a deeper sense. It has to affect me somehow. I want to feel a kind of a poetic quality.

Lee Kwang Goh:
      Personally I think it is just – you like it or not. There might be 10 000 reasons behind it but we can simply break it down to the basic: like it or not.

Liz Tonne :
      Form, a good improvisation has intrinsic form to it, perhaps always a different form but one that appeals to the human mind. It is not random.

Lucio Capece:
      Like with any other music, I try not to have an aesthetic approach when I listen to someone. I have my taste, but the most important is how intense, deep and true is what is happening when someone plays. Even if it’s banal music or if its badly played. Improvisation is my choice and the choice of several musicians that I like to hear. But I do not consider improvised music better than any other one. This depends on the choices of the musician who is doing the music, and how deep in these choices this musician is involved.
      I enjoy listening to musicians that take risks when they perform, musicians that play music that is alive, taking the gig to a place where you feel that something is not working in the already known way but it’s interesting. In improvised music itself, sometimes I get disappointed in some concerts by the end of which people say “it worked”. Very often the improv audience says this about sets that were typical improv sets. I’m not interested in improvisation as a language, and I do not consider a good gig the one that fits into the predictable language that improvisation has in some way become. I appreciate it when musicians give up an already built up and successful language going for something else. I enjoy listening to people "cooking" ideas, rediscovering and redefining the practice of music.

Mattin:
      When I get a headfuck , when I can feel that something is going on that I cannot fully understand but there is intensity, its good. I find it interesting when I cannot work out whether what I hear is good or bad, because it makes me question the foundations of my values and judgments.

Michael Renkel:
      Intensity, Authenticity, time treatment, humor, magic... It's good if musicians can draw the audience's attention intensely to the process on the stage, and at the same time create a situation where music, musicians and audience melt into one wholeness. I like the music most when I - while listening- don't think about how it's made.

Michel Doneda:
      I don't really care about good or bad. I think that each improvisation is a unique, one-off thing and in this way it cannot be something else. Of course I experience different feelings but I try to accept them as they are. Maybe my concept is too close to real life.

Reuben Radding:
      A difficult question! No one knows how to decide to make a good improvised piece of music, and what that would consist of, but most will agree when they've heard or taken part in one. It seems to have a lot to do with form and freshness.

Róbert Rózsa:
      Good or bad improvisation? And the categorization, the evaluation. This thing doesn’t seem simple at all to me, so every judgment is actually subjective, because it’s most of all about personal perception and impression, sensitivity. I’d say that I like good improvised music only. To me it’s the one that stimulates my imagination and marvels, or maybe teases. I like the improvisation in which I recognize the curiousness. I also like the fact that it is unrepeatable. Then there’s skillfulness, virtuosity or imaginativeness, unpredictability, the extremes in music, and silence, everything and anything can make an improvisation good or better than some other.

Robin Hayward:
      I suppose I have a set of criteria, some quite conventional: did the form work, were things too predictable etc. One sign of a successful improvisation is often that the music seemed to play itself, without any effort. But it's often quite hard to say why one improvisation worked and another one didn't.

Ruth Barberan:
      It´s very subjective, of course, and it also depends on the way I feel at that moment. I have been able to verify this by listening to the same record many times; I don’t have the same opinion from one day to another.
      The first thing I want to say about this (but I have no proof) is that if something is happening internally to the musician(s), that I may be able to have the same feeling; if I see that there’s some risk, if I can see that they are listening to the common sound. Or also if something surprises me. Sometimes, it´s a new sound or a new way to produce it. Sometimes, I enjoy this but not what the musician is doing with that sound. Sometimes, I’m surprised by what the musician is doing with sounds that I already know. Sometimes it’s both.

Sharif Sehnaoui:
       It is almost impossible not to produce qualitative judgments around the music you hear yet it is something I actively try to avoid. Hence I will not directly answer the question.
      I tend to think there is no improvisation better than another. Each one is different, and has a value of its own. Above that comes our subjectivity that allows us to apprehend and appreciate music in a specific time and place and conditions that are both internal and external. There are so many different qualities that could be considered, and it is in part what makes this music interesting to me, so many ways, so many levels of understanding and perceptions are possible

Thomas Ankersmit:
       Generally, whether with my own stuff or with other music I hear, I'm always looking for a kind of intensity, a focus, and the absence of boredom. It might be easier for me to say when I think something is unsuccessful: flat, predictable, without flow or tension. The good moments are all the other moments. As an example, I heard Robin Hayward do an improvised concert with Diego Chamy sometime last year. It was a rather tense, uncomfortable situation, a very incongruent set of events where nobody knew who had what role in the music or what was keeping it "up". I thought that was very beautiful.

Tomas Korber:
      The music. And whether the music is succesful or not is something that, in my opinion, cannot be judged objectively. I have my own reasons for finding something interesting or not, but that is a far too complex topic to be discussed in depth in this short interview.

Valerio Tricoli:
     Wow, this is a question about "quality" in art, and it's hard to answer. I feel that a gig is good when it has kicked my ass, aesthetically, or mentally, or ethically, or just physically. I generally find myself really bored during impro gigs, expecially here in Berlin. There are just a few musicians that I consider to be exploratory musicians. Many of them, who were brilliant once, have run out of ideas now. They should start listening to some music different from their own. A good gig has to be fresh. The so called impro-scene is really like a cemetery for me.


Will Guthrie:
      For me it is always important to have a sense of form and stucture, no matter how abstract that sense of form or structure could be ... so sucess or failure (whatever that is!) is not as important to me as if it makes sense to me.