Creative practice in music, particularly in traditional concert culture, is commonly understood in terms of a rather stark division of labour between composer and performer. But this overlooks the distributed and interactive nature of the creative processes on which so much contemporary music depends. The incorporation of two features-improvisation and collaboration-into much contemporary music suggests that the received view of the relationship between composition and performance requires reassessment. Improvisation and collaborative working practices blur the composition/performance divide and, in doing so, provide important new perspectives on the forms of distributed creativity that play a central part in much contemporary music.Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music explores the different ways in which collaboration and improvisation enable and constrain creative processes. Thirteen chapters and twelve shorter Interventions offer a range of perspectives on distributed creativity in music, on composer/performer collaborations and on contemporary improvisation practices. The chapters provide substantial discussions of a variety of conceptual frameworks and particular projects, while the Interventions present more informal contributions from a variety of practitioners (performers, composers, improvisers), giving insights into the pleasures and perils of working creatively in collaborative and improvised ways.

ContentsList of examplesList of figuresList of tablesList of contributorsIntroduction and overviewEric Clarke and Mark DoffmanSection 1: FramesChapter 1 Composer-performer collaborations in the long twentieth-centuryArnold WhittallChapter 2 The labour that dare not speak its name: musical creativity, labour process and the materials of musicJason ToynbeeChapter 3. Distributed cognition, ecological theory and group improvisationAdam Linson and Eric ClarkeChapter 4. Domesticating gesture: the collaborative creative process of Florence Baschet's StreicherKreis for 'augmented' string quartet (2006-2008)Nicolas DoninSection 2: CollaborationsIntervention. 'These four must be stopped'Irvine ArdittiChapter 5 Cross-cultural collaborations with the Kronos QuartetAmanda BayleyIntervention. Collaboration: making it workSarah NicollsChapter 6 Fluid practices, solid roles? The evolution of Forlorn HopeEric Clarke, Mark Doffman, David Gorton and Stefan ?stersj?Intervention. surfacesJames Saunders and Simon LimbrickChapter 7 Composition changing instruments changing compositionChristopher RedgateIntervention. My Mother Told Me Not To Stare: composition as a collaborative processMartyn HarryIntervention. The composer in the room: Jeremy West on Martyn Harry with His Majesty's Sagbutts and CornettsJeremy WestChapter 8 Negotiations: sound and speech in the making of a studio recordingMaya Gratier, Rebecca Evans and Ksenija StevanovicIntervention. Recording Paraphrase: a 'social occasion'?Emily PayneChapter 9. Contemporary Music in Action: performer-composer collaboration within the conservatoire.Mark Doffman and Jean-Philippe CalvinIntervention. On working aloneJohn CroftSection 3: ImprovisationIntervention. Knots and other forms of entanglementLiza LimChapter 10 (Re-)imagining improvisation: discursive positions in Iranian music from classical to jazzLaudan NooshinIntervention. On the conundrum of composing an improvisationJeremy ThurlowChapter 11 Improvisation as composition: the recorded organ improvisations of Vierne and TournemireDavid MawIntervention. Improvisation and composition in the French organ tradition: an interview with Thierry EscaichDavid Maw with Thierry EscaichChapter 12 Learning to improvise, improvising to learn: a qualitative study of learning processes in improvising musiciansUna MacGlone and Raymond MacDonaldIntervention. SongLor? LixenbergChapter 13 The ensemble as plural subject: jazz improvisation, collective intention, and group agencyGarry HagbergIntervention. What is it like to be an improviser?Neil Heyde, Christopher Redgate, Roger Redgate and Matthew Wright