ABSTRACT
What constitutes a sonic environment? How is the physical environment in which the music is created related to the sonic environment? This chapter identifies how a sonic environment is made conducive to idea chasing (improvisation, innovation, experimentation and exploration) by involving the accommodation of ego and agency in an open-ended musical context. Through musical examples such as Herbie Hancock’s seminal band Mwandishi, we discuss the complexities in a sonic environment, including not only the physical surroundings but also aspects such as the sound/noise, the performer, the listener and the musical context. Further, these aspects inform the nature of the sound/noise in terms of its musicality. We describe how the collaborative making of improvised music can be seen as a continuous flow that is created by the contributions made to it by the people playing in it.
