WOODWINDS
Dr . Daniel Schnee is an ethnomusicologist and multi-instrumentalist who has performed worldwide with over 20 different JUNO and Grammy Award-winning musicians . He has also been internationally recognized as a graphic score composer , and is a former student of both Ornette Coleman and legendary Japanese GUTAI artist Shozo Shimamoto .
By Dan Schnee
A Lesson With Ornette Coleman
In the summer of 1997 , while living in New York City , I had the privilege of meeting and becoming a student of Ornette Coleman ( 1930-2015 ), jazz legend and recipient of both a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and Pulitzer Prize , among other honours . He was a huge influence on much of the world ’ s art and music after 1959 , and his New York debut at the Five Spot Café is the stuff of legend . Ornette almost singlehandedly put freely improvised music ( avant-garde jazz ) on the world stage , and thus is considered the Father of Free Jazz . He was a dear friend and wonderful teacher , so to honour his legacy , I would like to share with you two interesting concepts he taught me .
Mapping First of all , he often described the melodies he wrote as territories : a kind of “ mapped ” mental soundscape in which various things were possible . One could also take part of a melody and use that as territory in which to create variations or new directions into other territories related to the melody , as well as your own ideas becoming new territories simultaneously . Each territory can also work as a type of supplement or addition to the other ( s ) – musical cultures without borders . This process focuses on an ongoing process of forming , rather than some fixed perfected form , and is rather neatly summed up by the French word agencement : not arrangement or organization per se , but the overall time-based processes of fitting , organizing , and unfolding , like a flower growing rather than a house being built ; maps flowering into bouquets of maps !
This flowering , or budding of sound through territories of expression , representation , time , symmetry , asymmetry , and so on , resembles what is known in Japanese literature as zuihitsu , stream of consciousness writings that “ follow the brush ” – not just random thoughts , but freely evolving motifs linked across sentences and paragraphs , or in Ornette ’ s case , a pan-tonal series of scales and patterns . There is also a slight similarity to the traditional Arab music concept of modulation , in which modal modulations occur by altering the various defining flatted or sharpened notes in a mode to begin improvisation in a new mode / emotional flavor . This approach to sound as a kind of abstract science of sonic “ topography ” opens up new ways of conceptualizing / re-conceptualizing sound , for sometimes we need to inwardly redefine what we do before we can improve or perfect it in the outer world .
Un-naming The second , and most significant , concept he taught me was the process of “ un-naming ” pitches . He insisted I set aside the idea of “ notes ” and note names to contemplate the various tones as “ themselves .” During our many sessions together , he asked me to improvise with pitch in a spirit of sonic contemplation as opposed to composing , improvising , or theorizing various relationships between named pitches . Seemingly a deconstructive act , in reality , this process was rather refreshing , and I felt I was truly experiencing sound openly and creatively for the first time .
Before , thinking “ notes ” had led me to be concerned with modality and intervallic relationships – playing C led to automatically thinking about the idea of something “ being ” C or being “ in C ,” thus leading to D – which unconsciously establishes habitual theoretical thinking . This , of course , is fine in most standard jazz situations , but for what I was trying to achieve , it was becoming a hindrance . Because theory training becomes unconscious and generally unquestioned , many university jazz students never leave the well-worn ruts of what they “ know .” Certain scales “ go with ” certain chords , and there is a measurable scale of consonance to dissonance . This quantifiable jazz pedagogy ensures jazz professors have something they can grade , but it almost singlehandedly guarantees jazz becomes about playing what is “ right ,” as opposed to what is the most beautiful , profound , or artistic , which often involves playing dissonances or what is not measurable in terms of scales and chords . Jazz thus becomes cold , lifeless , and pedantically unattached from the profundities of life itself .
Two major benefits of un-naming pitches were thus immediately apparent . Pitch became a much more dynamic area of creativity , as I could play without worrying about intervallic relationships . Microtonal ornamentation I had learnt from traditional Persian , Arab , and Japanese Noh theatre music was revitalized in this new context , and I found that I was immediately able to utilize these systems much more creatively . The other benefit was that unnaming pitches and “ following your emotions ” rather than theory was , in most cases , much more musically productive . Not that this replaces other systems , but Ornette ’ s method was a very effective way of allowing that knowledge to be intuitive rather than studied , and you play what you “ feel like ” playing rather than “ what works .” “ C is just a name ,” he would say , “ and the sound is the actual reality of the note . You could call it ‘ Tokyo ,’ or ‘ wisdom ,’ or ‘ sandwich ,’ but that doesn ’ t signify the sound – rather its relationship with other notes .” We would play “ un-naming duets ” for hours , and it was in these sessions that I felt I was truly starting to move forward in my own style , without merely imitating his playing .
Ornette taught me his system , but what he was really teaching me was an approach to the world itself . Seeing the world fresh , to approach it un-named , to stop preconceiving the world before it had spoken to me . The world will never see another amazing soul like his again .
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