There Will Never Be Another You: Temporality, Singularity, and the Ephemeral Composition of Improvisation

Date
2000
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Haverford College. Department of Philosophy
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
Improvisation is the mode of creativity in which the reprisal of the content of a performance represents repetition or replication, rather than reinterpretation. In improvisation, there is no script which transcends the particular performance. The content of the performance, therefore, is inseparable from its temporal context. This context results in the improvisation's being a historical singularity, such that to revisit an improvisation is to make a nostalgic nod to an idiosyncratic set of circumstances which gave rise to an essentially irreproducible performance. Improvisation is not simply a matter of particularity, but of antiessentialism. Furthermore, improvisation's utter insistence on singularity leads to each instant of performance occurring as a distinct context, positing an even more profound notion of anti-essentialism. This metaphysical foundation (or lack thereof) leads to a dramatic reconsideration of the nature of the improvised musical object. As a result of improvisation's emphasis on the singularity of the creative instant, the musical object becomes dynamic and open-ended, rather than determined and circumscribed. The improviser himself, understood as a temporal being, is similarly transformed; his artistic identity becomes synonymous with the unfolding of the improvisatory process. Similarly, this tradition of performance finds itself in a continuous state of motion and refiguration. The community to which this tradition belongs follows similar processual methods, stressing a personal, hands-on mode of education, as well as a mode of interaction—one most fully realized in the setting of group improvisation—which values dialogue above all else.
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