Introduction

"The art of improvisation, in the foreground of contemporary musical practice, is an art of self discipline. Far from being a practice second to notated composition, it has been a means for even more precise personal expression in all the world's musical cultures, including the West. Studies of the world's musical cultures are to a large extent, studies in the art of improvisation; observations of attitudes and approaches are not merely interesting as exotic objects of study, but are directly inspiring as examples of this discipline. No matter what material one chooses to use today, this basic attitude of self discipline towards precision in all details must be developed.

"The contemporary situation has created a new sense of the purpose and impact of the musical laws; a glimpse of what other cultures have known about the relationships of music to many areas of life. Basic musical training, the kind that does not deal with a particular musical style or with the playing of an instrument, seems to be beneficial for practically anyone. A sense of right timing and rhythmic cycles, for example, seems to be a basic human need. In fact, all the performing arts could benefit from these practices. This is why body discipline, dance, all visual media, poetry, songwriting are complementary to contemporary musical development."

-Karl Berger

(From a promotional brochure for the 1978-1979 Creative Music Studio sessions.)

This book is about a unique endeavor in shared musical experience-musical education, yes, but so much more. The Creative Music Studio comprised an actual community in which music and the creative process were fused into a lifestyle that brought students of all levels into contact with seasoned, improvising professionals of the highest stature. The studio, founded in 1971, was located in a number of different sites in and around Woodstock, New York. And although there has been no CMS since 1984, the community that developed still exists in a remarkable network of creative musicians all over the globe.

There has never been another "school," or instructional musical offering of any type, that has brought together so many of the world's leading improvising or contemporary classical (or simply uncategorizable) musicians. The Creative Music Studio had a magnetic force that drew musical innovators from all over the world. By 1981, its tenth year, CMS had reached its goal of having better than 50 percent of its student body from outside the United States. Musicians came from Europe, Canada, Brazil, and Japan, as well as the United States. As the student participation became more international, so did the music. Guiding artists came from several countries in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, from India, Turkey, and Japan. The phenomenon of world music, whatever one considers that to be, cannot be fully examined without an understanding of what happened at CMS.

I will refer, throughout this book, to students and teachers, or guiding artists. Most musicians who were interviewed for this book, however, concurred with the idea that the line between student and teacher was frequently blurred. All who came were collaborators in studying, performing, and living music in an atmosphere that held personal expression paramount.

You will notice, too, that musicians are generally referred to by their first names. This is not done to appear overly familiar. This is done because that's the way it was at CMS, and I hope to portray realistically the intimacy and the extended-family quality that being part of this community provided.

Students had the opportunity not only to attend classes with the instructors but also to perform and record with them. During some sessions, students and instructors even lived in the same quarters, ate meals together, did laundry together, and in many cases forged ongoing professional relationships. The student-teacher interaction, in fact, was more like an apprenticeship. Much of the valuable learning came about through the experience of sharing life together, beyond developing the techniques of the craft.

In describing CMS, it's difficult not to compare the experience of going there with the experience of attending a university or conservatory's music program. When one thinks of music education, formal, academic environments are what naturally and most quickly come to mind. European classical music has been the standard, although many colleges now present programs in jazz studies. But there is actually no basis for comparison between CMS and traditional music schools, other than to say that there is music at each, and there is learning at each.

The closest thing to an educational experience of the sort that CMS offered would be an innovative jazz, world, or improvising music curriculum, such as those at the California Institute for the Arts, the University of Michigan, Wesleyan University, York University in Toronto, or the University of California at San Diego's Department of Critical Studies and Experimental Practices. However, none comes close. The Black Mountain College educational experience was similar in that it was a community of artists, living their art. But the music program there was just one component, and with the exception of John Cage's experimentation, it was presenting primarily the European classics. One way to convey the uniqueness of the Creative Music Studio is to present a list of the guiding artists. Some names are well known, others are quite obscure. You'll find dancers and poets in there, too.

CMS Guiding Artists

Introduction (continued)

This is an unprecedented and fascinating era. It is only within the last forty years or so that musicians have had, as a tool of their trade, the technology that can bring them musics that have originated in such a vast geographic and historic expanse. It is only within the last forty years or so that the world has become so small. Today, any musician with even modest resources can choose to listen to, study, and emulate the music of Duke Ellington, Mozart, Ecuadoran folk groups, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Tibetan monks, John Philip Sousa, shakuhachi or bansuri flute masters, Afro-Cuban drummers, Miles Davis, mariachis, Beethoven, Willie Dixon, or John Cage. Certainly there remain, and always will be, purists of style. But for the musician who is open to the universe of musical expression, it's all within reach.

The Creative Music Studio was not a place to come to learn how to play an instrument or to study any specific style. It was an environment in which musicians, regardless of their levels of proficiency, could give full attention to the universal elements of music and receive guidance from advanced professionals in developing a personal relationship with those elements. With a keener sense of what it really means to be in tune and in time, the individual is much better prepared to develop a freer, more personal expression within whatever musical context he or she chooses.

"We live in a Number One situation. Although we learn from traditions, we cannot simply continue them. They have been defined by world regions that have lost their exclusivity. We live in very transitional times. It is up to us what we make of them. . . .

"Personal expression is now, more than ever, based on the discovery of personal potential and of personal tradition beyond tribal supports and securities. More than ever we must learn to start from the beginning, from the experience of silence, the experience of available space. Actually, that is an inspiring challenge, but not easy by any means. Personal discovery begins with the simple discipline of meditation, the meeting and making friends with oneself and the space around: centering oneself.

"In search for our own music, we learn to realize that our personal material is already there, something to be discovered rather than learned. While we study our instruments and discipline our musical minds, our materials begin to surface. No one can teach anyone to play if the goal is improvisation. One can only teach common basics, awareness of the many details to be watched, traditional approaches, and try to be an example of some kind. Music is a lifelong study, a way of life. It begins by imitating others, sometimes almost to the point of total identification, the same way that children learn to walk talk and do things. This is an important period and not to be ridiculed at all. Certain inroads into personal aspects of music can only be made that way: understanding what the layers are that can be reached.

"Finally, there can be the liberating experience that the material is not the point at all: We train ourselves to become instruments when the music can flow through freely, like electricity through a transmitter. We don't know where it is going. We don't even know what it is doing. We are only as ready as possible, keeping the tools sharp, keeping fine tuning-essentially empty so we can vibrate."

-Karl Berger

(This section of the 1978-1979 promotional brochure for the Creative Music Studio sessions was entitled "Liberation Through Sound.")

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