ABSTRACT
In this chapter I attempt an exegesis of one of my recent works. FLAT TIME/sounding (2010) is a six-page score of texts and visual elements composed for improvising musicians. 1 Although I describe the work as a score, it functions more as an opening or catalyst. Its purpose is to question discursively the way in which a ‘score’ is thought to be mutually understood by those who are implicated in its enactment: composer, performers, audience and researchers. Improvisers do not need, nor do they want a score when they are improvising and yet there is a case to be made at times for shifting the conditions of improvisation. What I have learned from practicing improvisation for more than 40 years is that habits can inhibit the innovative potential of groups and individuals. Free improvisation is a contested practice with more than 50 years of history behind it. Stereotypical routines and unspoken taboos arise, just as they do in any other genre of music making, but the centrality of collectivism in the playing of improvisation can be as restrictive as it is liberating.
