Having started the 100days project during lockdown at the end of May, I reached day 100 at the beginning of September. Generally, it’s been a lonely process and not particularly comfortable; quite consistently frustrating and also endlessly interesting. A lot of the time it felt like a mechanicalizing of creative practice, and yet I think there are also many things to learn from it. I plan to use the recordings and my ongoing reflections as part of a performative autoethnographic project exploring improvisation, space and self (of which these blogs are a beginning). Perhaps the project has particular relevance in a socially distanced world amidst an ongoing pandemic, but I think it will also be useful to think about in relation to a more socially connected world.
 
Sometimes, during an improvisation, I noticed a sense that I was moving through a process; perhaps a feeling or some thoughts for example. Whereas at other times, I felt I was clearly articulating something. I began to wonder whether this was an internal experience, or whether that would come across to a listener? As an experiment, I decided to listen back to a few of my improvisations from the 100days (https://soundcloud.com/nickyhaire). Quickly, I noticed that there seemed to be variations between what sounded like process, articulation and articulated process. I wondered about what these categories offered… 
 
I revisited Tim Ingold’s (2013) Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture and enjoyed his expression of articulation. As I feel it, articulation means a sort of joining up, a coherence of form which embodies both telling (making known) and feeling (inner knowing). Drawing on Michael Polanyi’s explication of tacit knowing, Ingold makes the case for a more holistic and situated understanding of articulation. For Ingold, articulation also contains what is not being said: “… My only objections are to his [Polanyi’s] identification of articulation with telling, and to the inference he draws, namely that what is not articulated remains untold and therefore tacit (p.111).” 
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Psychoanalyst Paul Williams writes “For something original and authentic to arise [in improvisation], not only is space required but also the functions of another mind with which generative dialogue, external or internal can take place” (2007, p. 351). In my solo improvisations, this could mean an inclusivity of my own selves. Yet, having a conversation with yourself can be difficult. How do you surprise yourself, for example? Or, allow for what might want to remain tacit? When improvising on my own, I often felt that I was engaging with inner characters, voices, selves and they were not always pleasant or welcome. Sometimes, I struggled to know how to sound this without ignoring some voices in favour of others.

At one point during the 100days process, I became struck by the idea of “saying something”. For me, this seemed to encompass my sense of making daily improvisations which meant something. Ingrid Monson (1996) has written extensively about the idea of “saying something” through jazz improvisation: "Improvisation is an apt metaphor for more flexible social thinking, but we'd better keep a basic music lesson in mind: you've got to listen to the whole band if you ever expect to say something (p. 215).” 

As I listened to some of my 100days recordings I noticed that the most coherent and interesting improvisations came from a sense of articulated process where I had found form that encompassed feeling and unexpectedness. These improvisations also held the unsaid; the single line sounded multi-voiced as if there was potential for more. Monson’s (1996) work was useful and I reminded myself that maybe I wasn’t listening. Maybe I wasn’t actually allowing space for different internal selves and actively finding ways to engage in conversation with them. 

I don’t find it particularly easy to locate (and use) space in an online world; it often feels compressed experientially and to favour a head space rather than a body space, and yet this is in process for me and it is changing all the time. Through this 100days project, I feel I am beginning to be able to articulate how the pandemic has affected a way of being through improvisation. I know my body is complaining. Yet I continue to notice new ways of dialoguing with my selves and possibilities for integrating psycho-somatic experience which in turn enables me to move towards being able to articulate this process in a meaningful way. 
 
References:
Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. London: Routledge.
Monson, I. (1996). Saying something: Jazz improvisation and interaction. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 
Williams, P. (2007). The worm that flies in the night. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 23(3), 343–364. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0118.2007.00032.x

The catalyst for this blog came from a recent exploratory improvisation project I am involved in with fellow music therapist Luke Annesley. As I began to write I also realised that the blog, in some ways, forms a response to his recent post: “The need to be heard”[1]. Here Luke discusses, amongst other things, reasons for setting up a private group on Facebook for music therapists to share their music with each other during the lockdown.
 
I had fun responding to single-line tracks Luke sent over. I didn’t listen beforehand, I just dropped his tracks into Garageband, created a new track, pressed record and then went for it. The results are interesting. Once I had overcome the fact that nothing that I played made any difference to his playing, and the oddness of that feeling, I then realised that I was listening in an over-focused, and slightly over-excited way; trying to catch his movements and flurries. When I relaxed and slowed my listening down, there was much more of a sense of communion in the resulting recordings. Given that my PhD research involves arts-based reflexivity and improvisation, I began to think more into this process and specifically how experiences of my own personal space have changed over the last few months.
 
I’ve had a daily improvisation practice for many years. I use it as a mixture of creative-time, meditative-time, play-time, practice-time and general me-time. I protect this space quite fiercely. In these past few months however, being in my usual solo improvising space has felt very different. Finding a centre and a meaning in playing has felt very different. Even improvisational dialogues like the one with Luke, have felt different. In these spaces, at this time, I’ve found that I’ve been having to engage with aspects of myself that don’t often have space or get heard, and they’ve been needing attention. 
 
After improvising over Luke’s tracks, I recorded some free improvisations; some single lines with the thought that I send them to him and repeat the dialogue. Recording my own solo improvisations is not a new thing so I thought this would be relatively easy but to begin with, each line I recorded felt flat and unconvincing. It seemed that the idea that someone would be hearing these improvisations began to get in the way.
 
In Luke’s recent discussion with music therapist and psychoanalyst David John, as part of Music Therapy Conversations[2], David speaks about his conceptualisation of the difference between noise, sound and music. As he sets it out, a sound is made by someone who feels there is someone to listen to it; it is communicative and has the potential for meaning and response. This sparked off some thinking around how I was listening (or not) to myself and how I could foster a more open improvisational self-dialogue.
 
I’ve been reading James Hillman again and I really enjoy his term insearch. At a time when our experiences and conceptions of contact are in flux, it’s been useful to revisit his imaginal thinking and remind myself of how to cultivate and take care of creative inner space. Speaking about therapists, Hillman writes: “To be in touch with you I need to be in touch within” (1994, p. 29)[3].
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For me, Luke’s questions around sharing music and how or whether this might be a way that music therapists can look after each other, circles back to my experience in initiating self-dialogue. What is it that makes an improvised single line open to dialogue? Being centred and sure in my own line, my own voice and my own improvised conversation, enables a freer listening before I think about dialogue with others. This might sound very simple, but it feels important to embody before asking questions about how we might help our colleagues or others (and especially when thinking of working as any kind of therapist). 
 
As an invitation to myself to take this further, I’ve signed up to the 100days project[4]. It’s a collaborative open space which will allow for documenting my exploration of self-dialogue through improvisation. The plan is simple: to upload an improvisation to my Soundcloud page every day for 100 days. Through this, I hope it enables me to experiment with voice and maybe make sense for myself of what is happening locally and around the world. In this way, and in the spirit of open dialogue and process, it might have meaning or spark off new conversations for others.
 
The first improvisation - “trio” - ended up with three lines…
https://soundcloud.com/nickyhaire/100days-1

 
[1] http://jazztoad.blogspot.com
[2]https://www.bamt.org/british-association-for-music-therapy-resources/podcasts.html    
[3] Hillman. J., (1994). Insearch: psychology and religion. Putnam, Connecticut: Spring Publications
[4] https://www.100daysscotland.co.uk