Page d’informations
sur les activités PaaLabRes
2021-2025
Nous les avons rangées dans quatre grandes catégories :
Les publications, dont le site internet
Les actions publiques qu’elles soient de type communication, performance verbale, sonore, concert, festival, atelier, etc.
Des sessions de travail
Et celles en lien avec PaaLabRes (pas explicitement portées par le collectif mais associant des membres de PaaLabRes)
Année 2021-22
26-28 août 2021
En acte : Rencontres du CEPI (Centre Européen Pour l’Improvisation) à Valcivières, Puy-de-Dôme.
Conférences, pratiques et performances autour de l’improvisation.
Le 26 à 15 h. : Proposition d’Yves Favier, Jean-Charles François et György Kurtag, « Du solo au tutti : Intrans-Intrus ». En acte : Le 28 à 19 h. : Performance in situ, Les petites Versades.
4 novembre 2021
En acte : Visite à Lyon de Yves Favier et György Kurtag faisant partie d’un « alàp road trip » Bordeaux-Lyon-Lecco-Lyon-Bordeaux. Journée de rencontre avec PaaLabRes au Cefedem AuRA de 10 h. à 22 h. : improvisations musicales et dansées alternant avec des discussions sur les pratiques artistiques après le confinement et la quatrième édition du site paalabres.org. Avec Anan Atoyama, Guillaume Dussably, Jean-Charles François, Clémentine Gasnier, Gilles Laval, Denis Marriott, Pascal Pariaud, Nicolas Sidoroff, Omar Toujib, Gérald Venturi, Mélanie Virot.
9 novembre 2021
En acte : Retour d’Yves Favier et de György Kurtag de Lecco (Italie). Journée de réflexion avec Jean-Charles François, Gilles Laval et Nicolas Sidoroff sur l’avenir du CEPI et l’élaboration d’une lecture/performance en commun en vue du colloque « Innovation In Music Conference » en Suède. Visite de la Friche Lamartine.
3-5 mars 2022
En acte : Rencontres Internationales d’Improvisation Libre « Risquer le Vide », Fort Royal, Ile Sainte Marguerite. Rencontres organisées par Inés Perez-Wilke, Université de Côte d’Azur. Participation de Jean-Charles François.
19 mars 2022
En acte : Concert Promenade « Les Climats en musique : une découverte inattendue », Beaune, participation de l’Ensemble Aleph. Présentation par Jean-Charles François du Slam des Climats. Performance de An Tasten de Mauricio Kagel, arrangement de Dominique Clément.
16-20 avril 2022
En acte : Préparation et performance (le 20) de la conférence/performance « Lisières, Ecotones, PaaLabRes » au Cefedem AuRA, Lyon, en vue d’une présentation dans le colloque « Innovative Music » de Stockholm (17-19 juin). Pour des raisons financières nous n’avons pas pu nous rendre à ce colloque. Yves Favier, Jean-Charles François, György Kurtag, Gilles Laval et Nicolas Sidoroff.
4 mai 2022
En acte : Rencontre avec Pom Bouvier à St Julien Molin Molette (dans le massif du Pilat). Jean-Charles François et Nicolas Sidoroff.
29 mai 2022
En acte : Résidence d’Anan Atoyama au Ramdam sur les questions de migrations. Improvisations danse/musique. Participation de Jean-Charles François.
Année 2022-23
23-24 septembre 2022
En acte : Rencontres européennes de l’improvisation danse et musique « Dé-Rives… Out of borders », organisées par Emmanuelle Pépin au Théâtre National de Nice. Scénographie active, une proposition de Yves Favier, Jean-Charles François et Görgy Kurtag (Le 23 à 22h15).
27 septembre 2022
En acte : Rencontre avec Simon Rose, musicien improvisateur, auteur, Berlin, au Cefedem AuRA. « Et vous comment vous faîtes… » avec les étudiants du Cefedem, suivi d’une session d’improvisation PaaLabRes.
30 novembre 2022
En acte : Soutenance de la thèse de doctorat en Sciences de l’Education de Joris Cintéro, « La fabrique territoriale de la démocratisation des enseignements artistiques », amphithéâtre de la Maison Internationale des Langues et des Cultures (MILC), Lyon.
13 décembre 2022
En acte : Rencontres d’improvisation PaaLabRes au Cefedem AuRA. Avec la présence de Anan Atoyama, Jean-Charles François, Nicolas Sidoroff, et des étudiants du Cefedem.
5-8 janvier 2023
En acte : Rencontres CEPI au Budapest Music Center, Hongrie. Avec la participation Jànos Bali, Laurent Charles, Yves Favier, Reinhard Gagel, Kristin Guttenberg, Kovàcs Kornél, György Kurtag, Emmanuelle Pépin, Karen Schlimp, étudiants en composition de l’Académie de Musique de Budapest, Modern Art Orchestra, Budapest. En acte : Le 8 janvier, concert au Budapest Music Center, avec tous les participants aux rencontres.
24 janvier 2023
En acte : Rencontre PaaLabRes avec Lionel Garcin et Emmanuelle Pépin au Cefedem AuRA. Conférence/performance « Le SON – l’écoute – le GESTE dans l’improvisation » (séance filmée en présence des étudiants et enseignants du Cefedem, en vue d’une publication dans la 4e édition de paalabres.org). Session d’improvisation collective avec les membres de PaaLabRes et leurs amis et amies, et les étudiantes et étudiants du Cefedem.
27 février 2023
En acte : Session d’improvisation collective PaaLabRes organisée par Pascal Pariaud à l’Ecole Nationale de Musique de Villeurbanne.
3-4 mars 2023
En acte : Espace de rencontre ouverte d’improvisation organisée par le ADQ (« Ainsi Danse Qui ») et Omar Toujib à ‘Art et Scène’, Lyon. Participation de Nicolas Sidoroff.
24-26 mars 2023
En acte : Groupe de recherche danse et musique, issu du CEPI, Session organisée par Emmanuelle Pépin, à Cabasse (Var). Avec Jean-Charles François, Lionel Garcin, Amanda Gardone, György Kurtag, Emmanuelle Pépin et Blaise Powell. Et pour une journée Pierre Vion, en tant qu’observateur.
1er avril 2023
En acte : Atelier de Anan Atoyama dans le cadre de sa résidence au Ramdam. Improvisations danse/musique. Participation de Jean-Charles François.
21 juin 2023
En acte : « 40 guitares sur un bateau ivre », Leipzig, Allemagne. Concert rock et contemporain composé par Gilles Laval. En collaboration avec l’Office franco-allemand pour la jeunesse.
11 juillet 2023
En acte : « 40 guitares sur un bateau ivre », parvis de la mairie, Villeurbanne. Concert rock et contemporain composé par Gilles Laval. En collaboration avec l’Office franco-allemand pour la jeunesse.
Année 2023-24
11-17 septembre 2023
En acte : Colloque « Circonférences de l’improvisation, faire corps autrement », organisées par l’Université de Côte d’Azur par Alice Godfroy et Jean-François Truber. Performances de Laurent Charles, Jean-Charles François, Lionel Garcin, Catherine Jauniaux, Lily Klara, Claudia Pelliccia, Emmanuelle Pépin, Blaise Powell, Sten Rudstrøm.
26 septembre 2023
En acte : Rencontre PaaLabRes avec Pom Bouvier au Cefedem AuRA. Promenade d’écoute dans Lyon, puis retour au Cefedem avec les étudiants/étudiantes du Cefedem. Puis session d’improvisation PaaLabRes.
1er octobre 2023
En acte : Performance Pom Bouvier, Jean-Charles François et Nicolas Sidoroff à St Julien Molin Molette, à Lyponne chez Swan. Parcours d’écoute d’une heure dans la campagne suivie d’improvisations dans la grange.
2-6 octobre 2023
En acte : WhatIIIF? Rotterdam, rencontres d’improvisation danse, musique, théâtre, sur la notion d’espace, au WORM, Rotterdam. Participation de Jean-Charles François (avec Yves Favier, György Kurtag et Emmanuelle Pépin).
18-19 novembre 2023
En acte : Résidence d’Anan Atoyama au Ramdam sur les questions de migrations. Improvisations danse/musique. Participation de Jean-Charles François.
29 novembre 2023
En acte : Soutenance de la thèse de doctorat en sociologie de Karin Hahn, « Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit (Drôme) : une autre manière de faire la musique », au Centre Norbert Elias, Vieille Charité, Campus EHESS, Marseille.
9 décembre 2023
En acte : Résidence d’Anan Atoyama au Ramdam sur les questions de migrations. Improvisations danse/musique. Participation de Jean-Charles François.
2-4 février 2024
En acte : Colloque « Musicians’s Perspectives on Improvisation », Exploratorium Berlin. Présentation de Jean-Charles François: « The Empty-Full or Full-Empty of Artistic Research on Musical Improvisation. »
14 mars 2024
En acte : Publication du livre Autour de l’improvisation, Thyrse 22, textes réunis par Inés Perez-Wilke, Patricia Kuypers et Rogerio Costa, Harmattan. Avec un article de Jean-Charles François « Les métamorphoses du vide » Autour de l’improvisation
26 mars 2024
En acte : Séminaire « Actualité de la recherche sur la transmission des pratiques artistiques » (CNSMD, Cefedem AuRA, CFMI, ESPE, Université Lyon II et CMTRA). Présentation par Karine Hahn de sa thèse « Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit (Drôme) : une autre manière de faire la musique » au Cefedem AuRA.
28-30 mars 2024
En acte : Résidence d’Anan Atoyama au Ramdam sur les questions de migrations. Improvisations danse/musique. Participation de Jean-Charles François.
5-7 avril
En acte : Rencontres de recherche CEPI à Bordeaux avec Yves Favier, Jean-Charles François, Donatien Garnier et György Kurtag. En acte : Performance le 7 avril au domicile de Donatien Garnier.
17 juin 2024
En acte : Conférence/performance du collectif PaaLabRes au CNSMD de Lyon, Journées d’Études de la Formation à l’Enseignement, avec Anan Atoyama, Samuel Chagnard, Jean-Charles François, Gilles Laval, Pascal Pariaud, Nicolas Sidoroff et Gérald Venturi.
25 juin
En acte : Séminaire « Actualité de la recherche sur la transmission des pratiques artistiques) (CNSMD, Cefedem AuRA, CFMI, ESPE, Université Lyon II et CMTRA). Séance animée par Jean-Paul Filliod et Fernando Segui sur le sentiment d’illégitimité et de légitimité à enseigner la musique à l’école (et l’école de musique). Avec Claire Haranger. Au CFMI, Université Lyon II.
Année 2024-25
12 octobre 2024
En acte : Projet « Island without Sea » d’Anan Atoyama au Ramdam sur les questions de migrations. Improvisations danse/musique. Participation de Jean-Charles François.
15 octobre 2024
En acte : Performance « Island without Sea » avec Anan Atoyama à l’Amphithéâtre de l’Université Lyon II dans le cadre du Festival Contre-Sens. Participation sur scène du public.
24-27 octobre 2024
En acte : « Sound – Light – Dance » Rencontres de recherche CEPI à Hambourg. Session organisée par Vlatko Kučan à la Musikhochschule, Le Centre György Ligeti et le Resonanz Raum. Avec Katrine Bethge (artiste lumières), Katarzyna Brzezinska (danse), John Eckhardt (contrebasse), Jean-Charles François (percussion), Nicolai Hein (guitare électrique), Vlatko Kučan (clarinettes, saxophones), György Kurtag (électronique), Hania Mariam Luthufi (voix), Susanne Martin (danse), Tam Thi Pham (dan bau), Matheus Souza (électronique). En acte : Concert au Resonanz Raum le 26 octobre.
5 novembre 2024
En acte : Présentation du numéro #10 de la revue Agencements, Recherches et pratiques sociales en expérimentation à la Friche du 7, Thomas Arnera et Nicolas Sidoroff.
1er février 2025
En acte : Séminaire « Actualité de la recherche sur la transmission des pratiques artistiques) (CNSMD, Cefedem AuRA, CFMI, ESPE, Université Lyon II et CMTRA) : Marie Preston, Arts plastiques, Université Paris VIII, à l’INSPE de l’Académie de Lyon. Présentation de son projet « Maisonner ».
7 mars 2025
En acte : Soirée en hommage à Barre Phillips, Théâtre de la Vignette, Université Montpellier III, organisée par No Separan, commision « Art et Politique »de la CIBT (J-Kristoff Camps, Carole Rieussec et Patrice Soletti). Participation de Jean-Charles François.
13 mars 2025
En acte : Nuit des étudiants au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. Improvisation, Christophe Baert, Jean-Charles François, Florentin Hay.
19 mars 2025
En acte : Séminaire « Actualité de la recherche sur la transmission des pratiques artistiques) (CNSMD, Cefedem AuRA, CFMI, ESPE, Université Lyon II et CMTRA) : Alexandre Robert, « Le genre en jeu. Styles de pratique et improvisation musicale », à la MILC, Université Lyon II.
22-23 mars 2025
En acte : Résidence d’Anan Atoyama au Ramdam sur les questions de migrations climatiques. Deux journées PaaLabRes. Improvisations danse/musique. Participation de Christophe Baert, Jean-Charles François, Cécile Guiller, Pascal Pariaud, Nicolas Sidoroff, Tam Thi Pham.
25 mars 2025
En acte : Rencontre PaaLabRes avec Tam Thi Pham, musicienne vietnamienne vivant à Hambourg, Allemagne au Cefedem AuRA. Conférence/performance « Pratique traditionnelle et d’improvisation libre sur le dan bau » (séance filmée en vue d’une publication dans la 4e édition de paalabres.org). Session d’improvisation collective avec les membres de PaaLabRes et leurs amis et amies, et les étudiantes et étudiants du Cefedem.
17 avril 2025
En acte : Séminaire « Actualité de la recherche sur la transmission des pratiques artistiques) (CNSMD, Cefedem AuRA, CFMI, ESPE, Université Lyon II et CMTRA) : Jean-Charles François, « Le vide et le plein de l’improvisation “libre” », au CNSMD de Lyon.
3 mai 2025
En acte : Performance « Island without Sea » avec Anan Atoyama et Jean-Charles François et la participation du public, Festival Popodaï #4, à la Maison des Ateliers, Cornilon, Mens, Isère.
13 mai 2025
En acte : TiteBibli en Friche. Sortie de la 2e édition de Nom de code « déployer » au Cefedem AuRA, Thomas Arnera et Nicolas Sidoroff.
22 mai 2025
En acte : Séminaire « Actualité de la recherche sur la transmission des pratiques artistiques) (CNSMD, Cefedem AuRA, CFMI, ESPE, Université Lyon II et CMTRA) : Nicolas Sidoroff, présentation de sa thèse de doctorat, « Gestes de recherche de personnes et de groupes musiquants (des pratiques par leurs lisières) » au Cefedem AuRA.
26 mai 2025
En acte : Rencontre PaaLabRes avec Chris Dobrian, compositeur, professeur émérite de l’University of California Irvine et Young Wha, compositrice. Cefedem AuRA.
14-15 juin 2025
En acte : Hommage à Barre Phillips, Sainte Philomène, Puget-Ville, Var. Rencontres d’improvisation du CEPI. Participation de Jean-Charles François.
25 juin 2025
En acte : Séminaire « Actualité de la recherche sur la transmission des pratiques artistiques) (CNSMD, Cefedem AuRA, CFMI, ESPE, Université Lyon II et CMTRA). Bilan de l’année 2024-25, préparation de la prochaine saison. Au CNSMD de Lyon.
The first photo you see on the home page is a rubble stone taken by Yves Favier.
The graphics appearing on the home page over this photo were created by Leonie Sens.
If you move the cursor over the photo, six large leaves appear representing categories that give access to contributions:
Otherwards/Return. This category concerns artist’s back-and-forth journeys between Africa and the rest of the world. It contains three contributions at present.
InDiscipline – Flux. The interrelations between artistic disciplines, which tend in improvisation forms to be « undisciplined ». For the moment, this category contains two contributions that address the relationships between dance and the environment and between dance and music.
Fabulate – InQuest. This category addresses research concerns ranging from academic formalization to more informal approaches. At present, it contains only one article.
Context – Fabbrik. This category includes three articles that focus on developing of situations based on a particular context, encouraging participants to invent their own practices.
Electro – Tinkering. Two articles focus on the use of electronic and digital technologies in artistic practices.
Trajects. This category concerns projects that take place in different locations that are more or less distant and involve for the participants journeys allowing for reflection before, after or between actions taking place at different locations. Contributions in this category are in progress.
Three names (Éditorial, Guide, Activités) appear at the bottom right of the screen. Clicking on them gives access to a) the 4th Edition Editorial and to the list of contributors with their short biographies; b) the user Guide to this edition; and c) the Activities of the members of the PaaLabRes collective since 2021.
Passing the cursor over one of the leaves in the 6 categories causes a bunch of smaller leaves to grow, some containing the contributors’ initials. To get a more precise idea of each contribution, simply bring the cursor over one of the leaves with initials, and an information bubble will appear. You can then click on it, and you will see that contribution.
Contributions
Otherwards/Return:
DMK: “Interview of Djely Madi Kouyaté”. Interviews of the Guinean musician Djely Madi Kouyaté by Jean-Charles François and Nicolas Sidoroff, with Olivier François present, Paris (2022-2023). The life story of a griot and balafon player who grew up in a village in Guinea, played in the Kotéba ensemble in Ivory Caoast, touring Africa and Europe, and then moved to Paris where he played with numerous African music groups.
LL: Lukas Ligeti, « Instruments secrets, destinations secrètes », translation of an article published in English, “Secret Instruments, Secret Destinations” in Arcana II, Musicians on Music, (John Zorn ed. 2007). A very detailed account of his drum set and electronic music practice in Africa (Ivory Coast, the Beta Foly ensemble, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Burkina Faso) and of his compositions for contemporary music ensembles (Amandina Percussion Group, Budapest, and London Sinfonietta).
FK: Jean-Charles François, “Commentaries on Famoudou Konaté’s BookMémoires d’un musicien africain, Ma vie – mon djembé – ma culture ». Famoudou Konaté is an internationally well-known djembe player and has written this book (published in French in 2022) in collaboration with Thomas Ott who “was a university professor of music pedagogy in Berlin”.
InDiscipline – Flux:
BW: “The Body Weather Farm (1985-90 period), Encounter with Katerina Bakatsaki, Oguri and Christine Quoiraud” (with the participation of Jean-Charles François et Nicolas Sidoroff for PaaLabRes). Account of the creation by Min Tanaka of the farm in Japan and the relationship between dance and the environment, and between dance and music within the concept of “Body Weather”, that is, like the weather, which changes continuously. For the three protagonists, the encounter with Min Tanaka and the creation of the Body Weather farm were very important events during their youth, which each of them remembers in their own way. This founding element subsequently gave rise to different life pathways for them, yet each of them extended with great consistency Tanaka’s initial philosophy.
EP/LG: Emmanuelle Pépin and Lionel Garcin, « LE SON – l’écoute – LE GESTE dans l’improvisation » (“SOUND – listening – GESTURE in improvisation”), video of the lecture/performance that took place at the Cefedem AuRA in January 2023. In addition, we are publishing the texts that Emmanuelle used as basis for this performance, the text that was actually spoken during this performance, and the transcript of the discussions with Cefedem students and teachers following the performance.
Fabulate – InQuest :
NS/JCF: Jean-Charles François and Nicolas Sidoroff, “Situation of Collective Practice Aiming at Opening Meaningful Debate”. Workshop led by the two authors as part of the seminar-workshop on graphic scores “Partitions #3 ‘Donner-ordonner’” of l’Autre musique group (Institute ACTE – Paris 1 University), on March 14, 2018, organized by Frédéric Mathevet and Gérard Pelé. Three study days were organized in Paris during the 2017-18 academic year. The article contains the transcript of the workshop discussions, audio excerpts from the collective improvisations, and commentaries by the two authors.
Context – Fabbrik:
KH: Karine Hahn « L’épisode du métronome » (“The Metronome Episode”), extract from her doctoral thesis in sociology « Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit, Drôme : une autre manière de faire la musique » (“The (Re)sonant Practices in the Dieulefit Territory, Drôme: Another Way for Making Music”, 2023). A description of the democratic practices of Tapacymbal Fanfare, as part of the CAEM music school in Dieulefit.
LC: “The Tale of the ‘Tale’”, an account of the creation of the performance “Le Conte d’un futur commun” by Louis Clément (project instigator), Delphine Descombin (storyteller) Yovan Girard (music) and Maxime Hurdequint (drawings). The texts are the result of four separate interviews with each artist rconducted in 2023 by Nicolas Sidoroff and Jean-Charles François.
GSC: “Nomadic Collective Creation”, project by the Orchestre National Urbain (artistic director Giacomo Spica Capobianco) as part of the Biennale Hors Norme 2023, at Grandes Voisines, Lyon CNSMD and Lyon 2 University. Encounters and mediations between young refugees and conservatorium and university students, around shared artistic practices (music, dance, painting). Accounts by Joris Cintéro and Jean-Charles François, with a video by Giacomo Spica Capobianco and Sébastien Leborgne.
Electro – Tinkering:
C/G: Encounter with Vincent Raphaël Carinola and Jean Geoffroy in February 2023 (with Nicolas Sidoroff and Jean-Charles François for PaaLabRes). The discussion concerned their collaboration around two pieces by Carinola: Toucher and Virtual Rhizome. The contribution is accompanied by an article by the two authors: “On Notational Spaces in Interactive Music”.
We would like to thank all the people who volunteered to help produce this new edition of PaaLabRes, “Report on Practices”.
Production of the edition “Report on Practices”: Jean-Charles François and Nicolas Sidoroff, with the help of Anan Atoyama, Samuel Chagnard, Karine Hahn, Gilles Laval and Pascal Pariaud.
Translations: Jean-Charles François with help of Deepl (free version) and Jacques Moreau. Thanks to Anne-Lise François and Emilie McBain for proofreading some of the English translations. Thanks to Guillaume Dussably and Monica Jordan for proofreading French texts.
>strong>Transcriptions of interviews: Jean-Charles François with help of “Buzz”. Thanks to Christine Quoiraud for her help in transcribing the interviews concerning the Body Weather Farm. Thanks to Samuel Chagnard for transcribing the discussions between Cefedem students and Emmanuelle Pépin and Lionel Garcin.
Video: Thanks to Ralph Marcon and Nicolas Sidoroff for filming of the lecture/performance by Emmanuelle Pépin and Lionel Garcin. This video was edited by Jean-Charles François and the sound by Samuel Chagnard.
Home Page: Thanks to Leonie Sens for the graphic design of the home page, and to Yves Favier for the original photography.
List of contributors of the 2025 Edition,
“Report on Practices”
Katerina Bakatsaki
Katerina Bakatsaki is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher of Butoh who works in Amsterdam. Her work stems from the Body Weather organization, founded by Min Tanaka and developed within the Maï-juku Performance Company in Japan, to which Katerina was permanently associated from 1986 to 1993. Since 1996, she has been working with Frans van der Ven, a Butoh dancer and theatre creator. She also teaches in the School for the Development of New Dance of the Amsterdam School for the Arts.
kat.bwa@xs4all.nl]
Warren Burt
Warren Burt is an Australia-based composer of American birth. He is also a performer, video artist, sound poet, writer, builder of electronic and acoustic instruments, and more. He is known for composing in a wide variety of new music styles, ranging from acoustic music, electroacoustic music, sound art installations to text-based music.
Vincent-Raphaël Carinola received most of his musical training at the CRR of Toulouse, then at the CNSMD of Lyon, with Philippe Manoury and Denis Lorrain. He writes works for instrumental formations with or without electroacoustic systems, acousmatic works, for the stage, installations, etc. His works are the result of a close complicity with very committed musician friends and ensembles. Doctor in Musicology, he teaches composition associated with new technologies in the École Supérieure de Musique Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and the Saint-Étienne University. He has recently published Composition, Technology and New Arrangements of Music Categories, Presses Universitaires de Saint-Etienne.
Joris Cintéro holds a doctorate in Educational Sciences. His work focuses on the processes of developing and implementating of territorial public policy, as well as their impact on the work teachers in the cultural and public-school sectors. He is currently a professor of Educational Sciences at the CNSMD of Lyon, and a part time lecturer at Lumière Lyon II University and Jean Monnet University in Saint-Etienne.
Louis Clément graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Val de Seine. He is interested in video projection and mapping since 2013 and created “For L” with composer Dominique Clément, an reactive audio-video scenography that toured all over Europe. He reflects on audience involvement with the MicroMesoMacro installation and TheLiveDrawingProject. Since 2015, Louis has been creating geolocated works where the audience members discover visual art works and musical interventions in unexpected places. He is also general stage manager for several ensembles (Ensemble Aleph, Nomos) and video director for museum works in Lyon (Musée d’Art Contemporain, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Biennale d’Art Contemporain).
Delphine Descombin is a storyteller and trapeze artist. She grew up in Saône-et-Loire surrounded by green fields and big oak trees. Aware of the changes taking place in the world, she favors open-green stories that are echoing what moves us at a given moment. Challenging our certitudes by exploring intimacy and frailty, her tales question our way of being with the living. To tell allow her to propose different views on the world. An enthusiast self-taught of performing arts, she has enriched her work along the way through encounters, learning storytelling with the works of artists she likes: Pépito Matéo, Myriam Pellicane, Christian Massas, Ludor Citrik, Marie-France Marbach. In 2017, she created the Compagnie Grim. She has performed in a 5-meter-high felt yurt, an unusual space of encounters that she invented and built to suspend a trapeze, and to propose her performances. As a solo storyteller or accompanied by musicians or circus artists, she performs for all audiences.
delphinedescombin@yahoo.fr
Jean-Charles François
Jean-Charles François, percussionist, composer, improvisor, member of PaaLabRes. During the 1960s he worked in Paris as a freelance musician, then from 1972 to 1990, professor at the University of California San Diego. In 1990 he moved back to France to create the Cefedem AuRA in Lyon, a music teacher training center. He played for many years with the improvisation group KIVA, the Ensemble Aleph, and with the improvisation trio PFL Traject. Since 2017, he participates to many improvisation encounters as part of CEPI (created by the double-bass player Barre Phillips).
Olivier François, percussionist, initiated into West African percussion by Louis César Ewandé, he participated to Ewandé’s “Percussions Ensemble” project. In 1986 he first met Mamady Kéïta (Djembé Fola) and in 1989 Famoudou Konaté. He accompanied choreographers Jams Sylla, Alphonse Soumah, Norma Claire, Georges Momboye during numerous workshops in France and in foreign countries. Since 1990, he travelled extensively in Africa with Souleyman Koly and the Kotéba ballets. In 2000, he moved to Guinea, where he worked with many musicians and dancers and participated in the creation of the “Percussions de Kouroussa” project. He now lives near Paris.
olivier_fr@orange.fr
Lionel Garcin
Lionel Garcin: “Sound matter is in a way his raw material, his clay, his block of marble… His instrument is the saxophone. A wind instrument, or so they say. But of which he knows how to exploit all the sound facets. Even some of them, sometime, are quite unexpected… The saxophone most often leads him towards the jazz side of music; the sounds he produces on his instruments and their so peculiar rhythms situate him more on the side of acoustic research dear to contemporary music.” (JM Lecarpentier)
He has been playing for about fifteen years with Barre Phillips from a trio (with Émilie Lesbros) to large ensembles (EMIR and EMIR danse). Today, you can hear him play with the groups NOP with Frantz Loriot, Le Concert Perché with Laurent Charles, Two Level Lunch with Emmanuel Cremer, Domininic Lash and Alex Ward, and soon in The Bridge #12 with Christian Provost, David Boykin, Nicole Mitchell and Christophe Rocher.
Jean Geoffroy forged his own pathway in the world of percussion. Principal timpanist with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris from 1985 to 2000 and member of the Menuhin Foundation, Jean Geoffroy is a tireless artist who has participated as a soloist on more than 35 CDs and DVDs. The dedicatee of numerous pieces, he performed in the world’s most prestigious music festivals, and has been giving master classes and lectures around the world for over 30 years. Passionate about teaching, professor at the CNSMD of Lyon and Paris, he is currently director of the Department of Creation at the CNSMD of Lyon: the Espace Transversal de Création. From 1995 to 2004, he worked in the educational department of Irma, where he was also a member of the reading committee. He was artistic director of the Centre Eklekto in Geneva from 2006 to 2013 and artistic director of Les Percussions de Strasbourg from 2015 to 2017. Jean Geoffroy is guest conductor of the Ensemble Mésostics. In 2017, together with Christophe Lebreton, they co-realized the Light Wall System, lighting interface of motion capture, in collaboration with Grame (national center for musical creation). In 2019, this collaboration resulted in the creation of LiSiLog, an association dedicated to artistic innovation and transmission.
After studying classical violin, he studied jazz at the Regional Conservatorium in Paris and Yovan Girard obtained his diploma in 2010. He was invited to play with the trio Didier Lockwood and performed alongside the singers Emel Mathlouti and Bachard Mar Khalifé. In 2015, he joined the Franck Tortiller Mco collective. Since 2017, he is the singer of the Ethio-jazz group Kunta. His interest in different aesthetics and his attraction to improvisation have allowed him to live through a diversity of experiences as a violinist, composer but as well as rapper. In the music of the “Conte d’un future commun” (Tale of a Common Future), which he composed, his pre-recorded sound loops are modified in real time and are augmented by his improvisations.
yovang@hotmail.fr
Karine Hahn
Karine Hahn is a harpist, sociologist, and head of the pedagogy department for specialized music education (FEM) at the CNSMD in Lyon. In October 2023, she defended her doctoral thesis in sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Science Sociale, on « Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit, Drôme, une autre manière de faire la musique : implications, engagements et théorisation par la fabrication ordinaire de musiques » (“The (Re)sonant Practices in the Dieulefit Territory, Drôme: Another Way for Making Music: Implications, Commitments, and Theorization through the Ordinary Production of Music”). As a musician, Karine Hahn is involved in various collectives (PaaLabRes, Inouï production, VMC–Giacomo Spica) that seek to link musical practice and reflexivity, creation and involvement of various actors during creation residencies.
Maxime Hurdequint. After completing his education through different internships in Denmark, Mexico, and then Japan, he worked as an architect in Paris. In 2018 he founded the MURA Agency in Lyon. Because “buildings take too long to complete”, he is also an illustrator: “I like drawing because it’s much quicker to finish a drawing!”
“The traveler is a constant source of perplexity. His place is everywhere and nowhere. He lives on stolen moments, reflections, small present instants, opportunities, and crumbs. Here are those crumbs…” (Nicolas Bouvier, Chroniques japonaises)
His drawings are engraved instances of his time spent walking, riding a scooter, rowing a boat, traveling in a bus, watching and deciphering the landscapes during his journeys.
Famoudou Konaté is a master of the djembé from Guinea, West Africa. Rooted in the traditions of his Malinké homeland, where music and rhythm are woven in the fabric of life. During 25 years he was the principal djembe soloist with the Ballets Africains of the Republic of Guinea. He then became a freelance musician and teacher sharing his music through concerts and workshops around the world.
Djely Madi Kouyaté is a musician, balafon player and guitarist living in Paris, originally from a griot family in Kamponi, in the Boké region of Guinea. He joined Souleyman Koly’s Ballet Kotéba in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, with which he toured extensively in Western Africa and Europe. In 1988 he moved to Paris, where he worked with some of the greatest African musicians, such as Mory Kanté, Salif Keïta and Mamadi Keïta, as well as with the dance companies Norma Claire, Georges Momboye, the ballets Kodia, Nimba and Kakendé. He was one of the first to teach balafon in Paris.
Sébastien Leborgne
Better known as Lucien 16S, Sébastien Leborgne is a rap artist, slammer, human-beatboxer and computer assisted music composer. He made his debut in 1992 with the rap group San Priote. He is accustomed to collaborations taking place outside his own artistic field, appearing in various projects with diverse influences, including neo-jazz, blues sounds and progressive rock, etc. His meeting with Giacomo Spica Capobianco in the early 2000s allowed him to understand the importance of teaching and transmitting urban music. He holds a Diplôme d’Etat in popular amplified music from the Cefedem AuRA. He has been involved in leading workshops initiated by the CRA.P association since 2008 and accepted Giacomo Spica Capobianco’s invitation to join the Orchestre National Urbain in 2016, the year it was founded.
Lukas Ligeti is an Austrian American composer and improvisor (drums and electronics). He combines in his music the influences of a great variety of musical languages, especially those of the European avant-garde, the African traditions, jazz, and the spirit of the New York experimental music scene. His creative experiences lead to innovations in the interaction in ensembles and to polymetric structures and polytempo. A lot of his works are rooted in his intensive study of African music. As a percussionist, he is in demand in the jazz and free improvisation domains, he worked for a long time with live electronic music and is also the initiator of numerous intercultural musical projects. Since 1994 he worked on a regular basis in diverse regions of Africa, this led him to a particular form of intercultural collaboration approach, namely the experimental intercultural collaboration. With colleagues from West Africa, he founded the ensembles Beta Foly (Ivory Coast, 1994-99) and Burkina Electric (Birkina Faso, since 2004) and he worked also in Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe, among others. He is currently professor of composition at the Brixelles Royal Conservatorium.
Oguri, choreographer native of Japan. His inspiration to dance came after meeting Butoh founder Hijikata Tatsumi. He started training/performing in 1985 with famed dancer Min Tanaka’s company, Mai-Juku and participated in founding Body Weather Farme. He practiced traditional organic farming, experiencing the rhythms and cycles of this most human lifestyle. Oguri moved to Los Angeles in 1991 and joined Roxanne Steinberg sharing Body Weather Laboratory. For over 30 years, he has been teaching, creating and producing dance and multi-media works incorporating his own large-scale set/sculpture installations and his dramatic, often chiaroscuro lighting in formal theatre settings and site-specific venues worldwide. He has developed collaborative projects with musicians, sculptors, painters, and poets, using literature, daily life imagery and simple materials to transform space and time with dance. In 2011, Oguri formed ARCANE Collective with Morleigh Steinberg, touring full-productions and live concepts.
Emmanuelle Pépin, dancer, choreographer and educator. A long pathway as a performer in contemporary and African dance companies led her to instant composition and performance art with improvisation artists (particularly Barre Phillips) and visual artists. Associate artist in 7Pépinière artistic and educational development space with Pierre Vion, focusing specifically on instant composition, performance, perception senses and phenomena, in collaboration with philosophers, photographers, visual artists, architects, writers, sophrologists, and musicians. Emmanuelle Pépin performs on the scenes of contemporary art in France and many other countries around the world, weaving tight links between humans and the environment, particularly nature, but also in landmark sites, remarkable gardens, museums and galleries, ruins, and wide open spaces. Dance, music, poetry, and installations intersect here, with the great freedom offered by the art of improvisation. Emmanuelle Pépin, born in January 1968 in Brittany, lives in the South of France. She remains nomadic at heart and the world is her playground. She places the human being at the center of her artistic and educational approach. She deeply believes in the beauty that each person carries within, and in how body language can reveal the self being.
Christine Quoiraud studied contemporary dance, art history, philosophy, and visual arts. In 1981, she began studying and practicing in Mon Tanaka’s Body Weather Laboratory. In 1985, she became a member of his company, Maï-Juku Dance Co, the farmers-dancers, at the Hakushu Body Weather Farm in Japan. In 1990 she came back to France to develop her practice and teaching around working on the body meteorology or “Body Weather Laboratory”. She developed her own creative work and set up the Marche et Danse (walking and dance project) thanks to a Villa Médicis hors les murs fellowship (1999). Various projects of long distance walking extended her investigative work on the relationship body/landscape both solo or in groups (Yugoslavia, California, Spain, Australia, Great Britain, Montenegro, Morocco, Mexico, France, etc.). She considers herself an improvisational performer with a strong connection to the environment. She has collaborated with numerous musicians, visual artists, poets, and scientists, including ethologists and botanists. Today, she contributes to the history of dance. She devotes herself to writing and archiving her work for the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin and presents her research to various audiences (Uqam, Books on the Move, CND, dance festivals, etc.).
See the article: « Se loger dans le « etc. » du XXe siècle. ‘Donner la palabre’. Entretiens sur l’improvisation empruntant les voies du Body Weather. » Centre National de la Danse
Leonie Sens is a designer and visual artist based in Hamburg/ Germany. She has worked as a stage designer before she studied Design.
Her work extends over various disciplines of visual expression.
From textile design (she founded her own Label le.sens in 2008) to illustrations and digital paintings and into the field of photography.
In her own design language, she deals with nature from a non-anthropocentric perspective.
Nicolas Sidoroff, militant-musician, member of PaaLabRes, teaches at the Cefedem Auvergne Rhône-Alpes. He will soon defend his doctoral thesis in the Education Sciences department at Paris 8 University, under the provisional title “Explorer des lisières d’activités.Vers une microsociologie des pratiques (musicales)” (Exploring edges (margins) of activities. Towards a micro-sociology of (musical) practices). Among other things, he is the webm@ster of the site…
Giacomo Spica Capobianco is author, composer, artist singer, slammer, tchatcher, improviser, musician, urban instrument builder, educator, and self-taught. Founder of the Company GSC and of the Orchestre National Urbain (2015). After spending 16 years working in a factory as a metallurgy worker, and issued from a family of musicians from southern Italy, at Isola del Liri (a region between Rome and Naples), he decided to devote himself fully to music. He is also the artistic director of CRA.P (Carrefour of pluricultural artistic encounters), an art center specializing in urban and electronic music. He has a strong experience in bringing together classical music, jazz, traditional music, and popular amplified music. His discography is very extensive, and he participated to numerous residencies and concerts with the Orchestre National Urbain. He often performs solo or with various partners (Camel Zekri, Karine Hahn, Gilles Laval, etc.) in Europe and North Africa.
La photo initiale de la page d’accueil est un moellon prise par Yves Favier.
Les graphismes qui apparaissent par-dessus cette photo ont été réalisés par Leonie Sens.
Si on déplace le curseur sur la photo apparaissent 6 feuilles représentant des catégories donnant accès aux contributions :
Al(t)er/Retour. Cette catégorie concerne les allers et retours d’artistes entre l’Afrique et le reste du monde. Elle contient pour l’instant trois contributions.
InDisciplines – Flux. Les interrelations entre disciplines artistiques qui tendent dans les formes improvisées à être « indisciplinées ». Pour l’instant cette catégorie contient deux contributions qui abordent les relations entre la danse et l’environnement et entre la danse et la musique.
Fabuler – EnQuête. La recherche artistique allant de la formalisation universitaire à des démarches plus informelles. Cette catégorie ne comporte pour l’instant qu’un seul article.
Fabrique-à-dispositifs. Il y a trois articles dans cette catégorie qui porte sur l’élaboration de situations à partir d’un contexte particulier mettant les personnes qui y participent dans des démarches d’invention de leur pratique.
BidOuille – Électro. Deux articles portent sur l’utilisation des technologies électroniques et numériques dans des pratiques artistiques.
Trajets. Cette catégorie concerne des projets qui se déroulent dans des lieux plus ou moins éloignés et impliquent pour les personnes qui y participent des voyages permettant la réflexion avant, après ou entre les actions se déroulant sur les différents lieux. Les contributions de cette catégorie sont en projet.
Trois noms (Éditorial, Guide, Activités) apparaissent en bas à droite de l’écran. En cliquant dessus, ils donnent accès a) à l’éditorial de la quatrième édition et à la liste des contributeurs, b) au guide d’utilisation de cette édition et c) aux activités des membres du collectif PaaLabRes depuis 2021.
En faisant passer le curseur sur une des feuilles des 6 catégories fait pousser un bouquet de feuilles plus petites, certaines contenant les initiales des contributeurs. Pour avoir une idée plus précise de chaque contribution, il suffit d’amener le curseur sur une des feuilles avec des initiales, une bulle d’information apparaît. Vous pouvez ensuite cliquer dessus si vous voulez voir cette contribution.
Contributions
Al(t)er/Retour :
DMK : « Interview de Djely Madi Kouyaté ». Interviews du musicien guinéen Djely Madi Kouyaté par Jean-Charles François et Nicolas Sidoroff en présence d’Olivier François, Paris (2022-2023). Parcours d’un griot, joueur de balafon, qui a grandi dans un village en Guinée, joué dans l’ensemble Kotéba en Côte d’Ivoire en tournant en Afrique et en Europe, puis s’est installé à Paris en participant à de nombreux groupes de musiques africaines.
LL : Lukas Ligeti, « Instruments secrets, destinations secrètes », traduction d’un article publié en anglais dans Arcana II, Musicians on Music, (John Zorn ed. 2007). Récit très détaillé de sa pratique de la batterie et de la musique électronique en Afrique (Côte d’Ivoire, l’ensemble Beta Foly, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Burkina Faso) et de ses compositions pour ensembles de musique contemporaine (Amadinda Percussion Group, Budapest et London Sinfonietta).
BW : « Rencontre autour de la ferme du Body Weather (la période 1985-90), Entretien avec Katerina Bakatsaki, Oguri et Christine Quoiraud (avec la participation de Jean-Charles François et Nicolas Sidoroff pour PaaLabRes) ». Récit de la création par Min Tanaka de la ferme au Japon et des rapports entre la danse et l’environnement, entre la danse et la musique dans le cadre du concept de « Body Weather », c’est-à-dire comme le temps météorologique, le corps qui change de manière continuelle. Pour les trois protagonistes, la rencontre avec Min Tanaka et la création de la ferme du Body Weather ont été des évènements majeurs pendant leur jeunesse, dont chacune et chacun se souvient à leur manière. Cet élément fondateur a donné lieu par la suite chez elles et lui à des parcours de vie différents, mais pourtant prolongeant avec une grande continuité la philosophie initiale de Tanaka.
EP/LG : Emmanuelle Pépin et Lionel Garcin, « LE SON – l’écoute – LE GESTE dans l’improvisation », vidéo de la conférence/performance qui a eu lieu au Cefedem AuRA en janvier 2023. En addition, nous publions les textes d’Emmanuelle utilisés comme base lors de cette conférence, le texte effectivement prononcé pendant la performance, et la transcription des débats avec les étudiants et enseignants du Cefedem à l’issue de cette performance.
Fabuler – EnQuête :
NS/JCF : Jean-Charles François et Nicolas Sidoroff, « Une situation de mise en pratique collective en vue d’ouvrir un débat significatif ». Atelier animé par les deux auteurs dans le cadre du séminaire-atelier sur les partitions graphiques « Partitions #3 “Donner-ordonner” » de l’Autre musique (Institut ACTE, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne), le 14 mars 2018 organisé par Frédéric Mathevet et Gérard Pelé. Trois journées d’études avaient été organisées à Paris dans le courant de l’année 2017-18. L’article contient la transcription des propos tenus pendant l’atelier, des extraits audio des improvisations collectives, et des commentaires par les deux auteurs.
Fabrique-à-dispositifs :
KH : Karine Hahn « L’épisode du métronome », extrait de sa thèse de doctorat en sociologie « Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit, Drôme : une autre manière de faire la musique » (2023). Une description des pratiques démocratiques de la fanfare Tapacymbal dans le cadre de l’école de musique du Caem à Dieulefit.
LC : « Le Conte du “Conte” », compte-rendu de la création du spectacle « Le Conte d’un futur commun » par Louis Clément (initiateur du projet), Delphine Descombin (conteuse), Yovan Girard (musique) et Maxime Hurdequint (dessins). Les textes sont le résultat de quatre interviews séparées de chaque artiste réalisé en 2023 par Nicolas Sidoroff et Jean-Charles François.
GSC : « Création Collective Nomade », projet de l’Orchestre National Urbain (direction artistique Giacomo Spica Capobianco) dans le cadre de la Biennale Hors Norme 2023 au Grandes voisines, CNSMD de Lyon, Université Lyon II. Rencontres et médiations entre des jeunes réfugiés et des étudiants du conservatoire et de l’université autour de pratiques artistiques (musique, danse, peinture) mises en commun. Comptes-rendus de Joris Cintéro et Jean-Charles François, avec une vidéo de Giacomo Spica Capobianco et Sébastien Leborgne.
Bidouille – Électro :
C/G : Rencontre avec Vincent Raphaël Carinola et Jean Geoffroy en février 2023 (avec Nicolas Sidoroff and Jean-Charles François pour PaaLabRes). La discussion a porté sur leur collaboration autour de deux pièces de Carinola : Toucher et Virtual Rhizome. La contribution est accompagné d’un article des deux mêmes auteurs traduit de l’anglais : « Espaces notationnels et œuvres interactives ».
Nous souhaitons remercier les personnes qui ont aidé de manière bénévole à la production de cette nouvelle Édition « Rendre compte des pratiques ».
Réalisation de l’édition « Rendre compte des pratiques » : Jean-Charles François et Nicolas Sidoroff, avec l’aide de Anan Atoyama, Samuel Chagnard, Karine Hahn, Gilles Laval et Pascal Pariaud.
Traductions : Jean-Charles François avec l’aide de Deepl (version gratuite) et Jacques Moreau. Merci à Anne-Lise François, Emilie McBain et Alison Woolley pour leurs relectures des traductions en anglais. Merci à Guillaume Dussably et Monica Jordan pour leurs relectures des textes en français.
Transcriptions des interviews : Jean-Charles François avec l’aide de Buzz. Merci à Christine Quoiraud pour son aide dans la transcription des interviews concernant la ferme du Body Weather. Merci à Samuel Chagnard pour la transcription des discussions des étudiants du Cefedem avec Emmanuelle Pépin et Lionel Garcin.
Vidéo : Merci à Ralph Marcon et Nicolas Sidoroff pour la réalisation de la captation vidéo de la conférence/performance d’Emmanuelle Pépin et Lionel Garcin. Cette vidéo a été éditée par Jean-Charles François, le son par Samuel Chagnard.
La page d’accueil : Remerciements à Leonie Sens pour la présentation graphique de la page d’accueil et à Yves Favier pour la photo du moellon.
Liste des contributeurs et contributrices de l’édition 2025,
« Rendre compte des pratiques »
Katerina Bakatsaki
Katerina Bakatsaki est une danseuse, chorégraphe et enseignante qui travaille à Amsterdam. Son travail est issu du Body Weather Laboratory, fondé par Min Tanaka et développé au sein de la Maï-juku Performance Company au Japon, à laquelle Katerina a été attachée de façon permanente de 1986 à 1993. Dès 1996, elle fonde le BWL Amsterdam avec Frank van de Ven, danseur, performer. Elle enseigne également à l’École pour le développement de la nouvelle danse de l’École de théâtre de l’École des arts d’Amsterdam.
kat.bwa@xs4all.nl]
Warren Burt
Warren Burt est un compositeur australien d’origine américaine. Il est aussi performeur, artiste vidéo, poète sonore, écrivain, constructeur d’instruments électroniques et acoustiques et d’autres choses encore. Il enseigne au Box Hill Institute, Melbourne. Il est connu pour composer dans une grande variété de nouveaux styles musicaux, allant de la musique acoustique à la musique électroacoustique, en passant par les installations d’art sonore et la musique textuelle.
Vincent-Raphaël Carinola reçoit l’essentiel de sa formation musicale au CRR de Toulouse, puis au CNSMD de Lyon, auprès de Philippe Manoury et Denis Lorrain. Il écrit des œuvres pour des formations instrumentales avec ou sans dispositif électroacoustique, des œuvres acousmatiques, pour la scène, des installations, etc. Ses œuvres sont résultat d’une étroite complicité avec des amis musiciens et des ensembles très engagés. Docteur en Musicologie, il enseigne la composition associée aux nouvelles technologies à l’École Supérieure de Musique Bourgogne-Franche-Comté et à l’Université de Saint-Étienne. Il a récemment publié Composition, technologies et nouveaux agencements des catégories musicales aux Presses Universitaires de Saint-Étienne.
Joris Cintéro est docteur en Sciences de l’éducation et de la formation. Ses travaux s’intéressent aux processus de construction et de mise en œuvre de l’action publique territorialisée ainsi qu’à leurs effets sur le travail des enseignants dans les secteurs culturels et scolaires. Il est actuellement professeur de sciences de l’éducation au CNSMD de Lyon, chargé de cours à l’Université Lumière Lyon 2 et à l’Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne.
Louis Clément est diplômé de l’École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Val de Seine. Il s’intéresse à la vidéo projection et au mapping depuis 2013 et crée « For L » avec le compositeur Dominique Clément, une scénographie vidéo audio réactive qui fera le tour de l’Europe. Il réfléchit à l’implication du public avec l’installation MicroMesoMacro et TheLiveDrawingProject. Depuis 2015, Louis réalise des œuvres géolocalisées où les spectateurs découvrent sur un territoire des œuvres plastiques et des interventions musicales dans des lieux inattendus. Il est également régisseur général pour plusieurs ensembles (Ensemble Aleph, Nomos) et régisseur vidéo pour des œuvres muséales à Lyon (Musée d’Art Contemporain, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Biennale d’Art Contemporain).
Delphine Descombin est conteuse et trapéziste : Elle grandit en Saône-et-Loire au milieu des prés et des chênes immenses. À l’écoute des mutations du monde, elle privilégie les histoires ou- vertes, en écho à ce qui nous anime à un moment clé. Bousculant nos certitudes en explorant l’intime et la fragilité, ses contes interrogent notre manière d’être avec le vivant. Raconter, lui permet de proposer différents regards sur le monde. Autodidacte passionnée des arts vivants, elle alimente son travail tout au long de son parcours par ses rencontres, elle se forme à raconter avec des artistes dont elle aime le travail : Pépito Matéo, Myriam Pellicane, Christian Massas, Ludor Citrik, Marie-France Marbach. En 2017, elle créée la Compagnie Grim. On a pu la voir jouer sous une yourte en feutre, haute de 5m, espace insolite de rencontre qu’elle a inventé et fabriqué pour suspendre son trapèze, et proposer ses spectacles. Conteuse solo ou accompagnée de musicien, de circassien, elle raconte pour tous les publics. En 2017, elle créée la Compagnie Grim. On a pu la voir jouer sous une yourte en feutre, haute de 5m, espace insolite de rencontre qu’elle a inventé et fabriqué pour suspendre son trapèze, et proposer ses spectacles. Conteuse solo ou accompagnée de musicien, de circassien, elle raconte pour tous les publics.
delphinedescombin@yahoo.fr
Jean-Charles François
Percussionniste, compositeur, improvisateur, membre de PaaLabRes. Il a été dans les années 1960 musicien indépendant à Paris, puis de 1972 à 1990, professeur à l’Université de Californie San Diego. En 1990 il revient en France pour créer le Cefedem AuRA à Lyon. Il a joué de nombreuses années avec le groupe d’improvisation KIVA, l’Ensemble Aleph, puis plus récemment le trio d’improvisation PFL Traject. Depuis 2017 il participe à de nombreuses rencontres d’improvisation dans le cadre du CEPI (créé par le contrebassiste Barre Phillips).
Percussionniste, initié aux percussions d’Afrique de l’Ouest avec Louis César Ewandé, il participe au projet « Percussions Ensemble » de Louis César Ewandé. Premières rencontres en 1986 avec Mamady Kéïta (Djembé Fola) et en 1989 avec Famoudou Konaté. Accompagne les chorégraphes Jams Sylla, Alphonse Soumah, Norma Claire, Georges Momboye lors de nombreux stages en France et à l’étranger. Depuis 1990 nombreux voyages en Afrique avec Souleyman Koly et les ballets Kotéba. En 2000 il s’installe en Guinée où il travaille avec bon nombre de musiciens et danseurs et participe à la création du projet « Percussions de Kouroussa ». Il vit actuellement en région parisienne.
olivier_fr@orange.fr
Lionel Garcin
« La matière sonore, c’est un peu sa matière première, sa glaise, son bloc de marbre… Son instrument, c’est le saxophone. Un instrument à vent, soi¬ disant. Mais dont il sait exploiter toutes les facettes sonores. Certaines, parfois même assez inattendues… Le saxophone l’emmène le plus souvent sur le versant jazz de la musique ; les sons qu’il tire de ses instruments et ses rythmiques si particulières le situeraient plutôt du côté des recherches acoustiques chères à la musique contemporaine. » (J¬M Lecarpentier) Il joue depuis une quinzaine d’années avec Barre Phillips du trio (avec Émilie Lesbros) au grand ensemble (EMIR et EMIR danse). On peut aussi le retrouver actuellement dans les groupes NOP avec Frantz Loriot, Le Concert Perché avec Laurent Charles, Two Level Lunch avec Emmanuel Cremer, Domininic Lash et Alex Ward, et bientôt dans The bridge #12 avec Christian Pruvost, David Boykin, Nicole Mitchell et Christophe Rocher.
Jean Geoffroy a tracé sa propre voie dans le monde des percussions. Timbalier solo de l’EnsembleOrchestral de Paris de 1985 à 2000, membre de la Fondation Menuhin, Jean Geoffroy est un artiste infatigable qui a participé en tant que soliste à plus de 35 CD et DVD. Dédicataire de très nombreuses pièces, il joue dans les plus prestigieux festivals de musique du monde, et donne des master classes et des conférences dans le monde entier depuis plus de 30 ans. Passionné par l’enseignement, professeur aux CNSMD de Lyon et Paris, depuis 2019 il est directeur du département de création au CNSMD de Lyon : l’Espace Transversal de Création. De 1995 à 2004, il travaille au département pédagogique de l’Irma, dont il est aussi membre du comité de lecture. Directeur artistique du Centre Eklekto à Genève de 2006 à 2013, directeur artistique des Percussions de Strasbourg de 2015à 2017. Jean Geoffroy est chef invité de l’Ensemble Mésostics. En 2017, avec Christophe Lebreton, ils co-réalisent en collaboration avec le Grame (centre national de création musicale) le Light Wall System, interface lumineuse de captation du geste. En 2019, cette collaboration s’est concrétisée avec la Création de LiSiLoG association dédiée à l’innovation artistique et à la transmission.
Après des études de violon classique, Yovan Girard étudie le jazz au CRR de Paris et obtient son Diplôme en 2010. Il est Invité du trio Didier Lockwood et se produit aux côtés de la chanteuse Emel Mathlouti et du chanteur Bachard Mar Khalifé. En 2015, il intègre le Mco collectiv de Franck Tortiller. Depuis 2017 il est chanteur du groupe d’Ethio-jazz Kunta. Son intérêt pour différentes esthétiques et son attrait pour l’improvisation lui permettent des expériences diverses en tant que violoniste, compositeur mais également rappeur. Dans la musique du “Conte d’un futur Commun” qu’il a composée, ses boucles sonores pré-enregistrées sont modifiées en temps-réel, et augmentées par ses improvisations.
yovang@hotmail.fr
Karine Hahn
Karine Hahn est une harpiste, sociologue, responsable du département de pédagogie, formation à l’enseignement spécialisé de la musique au CNSMD de Lyon. En octobre 2023, elle a soutenu une thèse de doctorat en sociologie à l’École des Hautes Études en Science Sociale, portant sur « Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit, Drôme, une autre manière de faire la musique : implications, engagements et théorisation par la fabrication ordinaire de musiques ». En tant que musicienne, Karine Hahn est impliquée dans différents collectifs (PaaLabRes, Inouï production, VMC – Giacomo Spica) s’attachant à relier pratique musicale et réflexivité, création et implication d’acteurs et d’actrices variées lors de résidences de création.
Après avoir complété sa formation par différentes pratiques au Danemark, Mexique puis Japon, Maxime Hurdequint a exercé comme architecte à Paris. En 2018 il a fondé l’agence MURA à Lyon. Parce que « les bâtiments prennent trop de temps pour être achevés », il est aussi illustrateur : « J’aime faire des dessins parce qu’il est beaucoup plus rapide d’en finir un ! »
« Le voyageur est une source continuelle de perplexités. Sa place est partout et nulle part. Il vit d’instants volés, de reflets, de menus présents, d’aubaines et de miettes. Voici ces miettes… » (Nicolas Bouvier, Chroniques japonaises) Ses dessins sont des instants gravés de ses moments passés à pied, en scooter, en barque, dans le bus, à regarder et à décrypter les paysages qu’il a observé tout au long de ses voyages.
Famoudou Konaté est le grand représentant de la tradition musicale Malinké de la Guinée. Pendant 25 ans il a été le premier soliste de djembé des Ballets Africains de la République de Guinée. Il est ensuite devenu musicien et enseignant indépendant et a fait découvrir sa musique, lors de concerts et d’ateliers, dans le monde entier.
Djely Madi Kouyaté est un musicien balafonniste guitariste, vivant à Paris, issu d’une famille de griots à Kamponi région de Boké en Guinée. Il intègre le Ballet Kotéba de Souleyman Koly, à Abidjan en Côte d’Ivoire, avec lequel il fait de nombreuses tournées en Afrique de l’Ouest et en Europe. En 1988 il s’installe à Paris où il travaille avec les plus grands musiciens Africains tel que Mory Kanté, Salif Keïta, Mamadi Keïta, avec les compagnies de danse Norma Claire, Georges Momboye et les ballets Kodia, Nimba, Kakendé. Il fut parmi les tout premiers à enseigner le balafon à Paris.
Sébastien Leborgne
Sébastien Leborgne est plus connu sous le nom de Lucien 16S, artiste rap, slam, human beat-box et compositeur en MAO. Fait ses débuts en 1992 avec le groupe de rap « LANPRYNT » puis rejoindra le groupe I.P.M (Impact Par les Mots) en 1997. Il est habitué aux collaborations hors de son champ artistique, il apparaît sur différents projets aux diverses influences, Néo Jazz, sonorités Blues et Rock Progressif, etc. Sa rencontre avec Giacomo Spica Capobianco, début des années 2000 va lui permettre de comprendre l’importance de la formation et de la transmission des musiques urbaines. Il est diplômé d’Etat en musiques actuelles amplifiées (Cefedem AuRA). Il intervient sur les ateliers initiés par l’association CRA.P à partir de 2008 et accepte l’invitation de Giacomo Spica Capobianco d’intégrer l’Orchestre National Urbain, en 2016, date de sa création.
Compositeur et improvisateur autrichien-américain, Lukas Ligeti combine dans sa musique des influences d’une grande variété de langages musicaux, notamment ceux de l’avant-garde européenne, des traditions africaines, du jazz et de l’esprit de la scène musicale expérimentale new-yorkaise. Ses expériences créatives ont conduit à des innovations dans l’interaction d’ensemble et des structures polymétriques et polytempo. Beaucoup de ses œuvres sont enracinées dans son étude intensive des musique africaines. Recherché comme percussionniste dans les domaines du jazz et de l’improvisation libre, Lukas Ligeti travaille depuis longtemps avec l’électronique live et est également l’initiateur de nombreux projets musicaux interculturels. Depuis 1994 il a travaillé régulièrement dans diverses régions d’Afrique, ce qui a conduit à une forme particulière d’approche de la collaboration transculturelle, la collaboration interculturelle expérimentale. Avec des collègues d’Afrique de l’Ouest, il a fondé les ensembles Beta Foly (Côte d’Ivoire, 1994-99) et Burkina Electric (Burkina Faso, depuis 2004) et a également travaillé en Côte d’Ivoire, Égypte, au Ghana, au Kenya, au Lesotho, au Mozambique, en Ouganda et au Zimbabwe, entre autres. Il est actuellement professeur de composition au Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles.
Oguri, chorégraphe né au Japon. Son inspiration pour la danse est venue de sa rencontre avec Hijikata Tatsumi, fondateur du Butoh. En 1985 il a étudié et dansé avec Min Tanaka et participe à la création de la ferme du Body Weather. En tant que danseur, le lien entre le corps humain et la nature est pour lui fondamental. En 1991 il s’est installé à Los Angeles et a fondé avec Roxanne Steinberg le Body Weather Laboratory. Pendant plus de trente ans, Oguri a été enseignant, créateur et producteur de danse et d’œuvres multimédia, en incorporant ses propres installations constituées par de grandes sculptures scéniques et des éclairages dramatiques, souvent en clair-obscur, dans des théâtres et des environnements spécifiques à travers le monde entier. Il a collaboré avec des musiciens, des sculpteurs, des peintres et des poètes dans des projets mêlant la littérature, l’imagerie de la vie quotidienne et des matériaux simples pour transformer l’espace et le temps avec la danse. En 2011, Oguri a fondé le collectif ARCANE avec Morleigh Steinberg.
Emmanuelle Pépin, danseuse, chorégraphe et pédagogue. Un long chemin en tant qu’interprète auprès de compagnies de danse contemporaine et africaine l’a guidé jusqu’à la composition instantanée et l’art de la performance avec des artistes improvisateurs (en particulier Barre Phillips) et des plasticiens. Artiste associée de l’espace de développement artistique et pédagogique 7Pépinière avec Pierre Vion, orienté spécifiquement sur la composition instantanée, la performance, les sens et le phénomène de perception, en collaboration avec des philosophes, photographe, plasticiens, architectes, écrivains, sophrologues et musiciens. Emmanuelle Pépin intègre les scènes de l’art contemporain, en France et dans beaucoup de pays du monde et tisse un lien très étroit entre la place de l’homme et l’environnement, particulièrement la nature mais aussi des sites classés, des jardins remarquables, des musées et galeries, des ruines, des étendues. Danse, musique, poésie, installations se croisent ici, avec cette grande liberté qu’est l’art de l’improvisation. Emmanuelle Pépin, née en Janvier 1968 en Bretagne, vit dans le sud de la France. Elle reste nomade dans l’âme et le monde est son territoire de jeu. Elle place l’humain au centre de sa démarche artistique et pédagogique. Elle croit profondément en la beauté que peut porter chaque personne, et comment le langage du corps peut dévoiler l’être.
Christine Quoiraud a étudié la danse contemporaine, l’histoire de l’art, la philosophie et les arts visuels. A partir de 1981, elle étudie et pratique le Body Weather Laboratory avec Min Tanaka. En 1985, elle devient membre de sa compagnie, Maï-Juku Dance Co, les danseurs fermiers, à la « Hakushu Body Weather Farm », au Japon. En 1990, elle revient en France pour y développer sa pratique et son enseignement autour du travail sur la météorologie du corps ou « Body Weather Laboratory ». Elle développe son propre travail de création et met en place les projets Marche et Danse grâce à la bourse Villa Médicis hors les murs (1999). Différents projets de marches longue distance prolongent son travail d’investigation sur la relation Corps/Paysage et sur les questions de l’improvisation, du rôle de l’art et de la position de l’artiste. Marches en solo ou en groupes (Yougoslavie, Californie, Espagne, Australie, Grande Bretagne, Monténégro, Maroc, Mexique, France, etc.). Elle se considère performer improvisatrice en lien fort avec l’environnement. Elle a collaboré avec de nombreux musiciens, artistes visuels, poètes et avec des scientifiques éthologues, botanistes. Aujourd’hui, elle contribue à l’histoire de la danse. Elle se consacre à l’écriture et à l’archivage de ses traces pour le Centre National de la Danse de Pantin et elle présente son travail de chercheuse auprès de divers publics (Uqam, Books on the Move, CND, festivals rando danse etc).
Voir l’article: Se loger dans le « etc. » du XXe siècle. “Donner la palabre”. Entretiens sur l’improvisation empruntant les voies du Body Weather. Centre National de la Danse
christinequoiraud@outlook.fr
Leonie Sens
Leonie Sens est une designer-styliste et artiste visuelle basée à Hambourg, en Allemagne. Elle a travaillé comme scénographe avant d’étudier le design.
Son travail porte sur différentes disciplines des arts plastiques.
Du design textile (elle a fondé sa propre marque, le.sens, en 2008) à l’illustration et à la peinture numérique, en passant par la photographie.
Dans son propre langage stylistique, elle évoque la nature d’un point de vue qui n’est pas anthropocentrique.
Nicolas Sidoroff, musicien-militant, membre de PaaLabRes, formateur au Cefedem Auvergne Rhône-Alpes. Il va bientôt soutenir sa thèse de doctorat dans le département des Sciences de l’Éducation de l’Université Paris VIII sous le titre provisoire de « Explorer des lisières d’activités. Vers une microsociologie des pratiques (musicales) ». Entre autres, webm@ster du site…
Giacomo Spica Capobianco est auteur compositeur, artiste chanteur, slameur, tchatcheur, improvisateur, musicien, facteur d’instruments urbains, pédagogue, et autodidacte. Fondateur de la Compagnie GSC et de l’Orchestre National Urbain (2015). Après 16 ans passé à l’usine, en tant qu’ouvrier en métallurgie, et baigné dans un univers familial de musiciens, issus du sud de l’Italie, à Isola del Liri (région entre Rome et Naples), il décide de se consacrer pleinement à la musique. Parallèlement, il dirige l’association CRA.P (Carrefour des rencontres artistiques pluriculturelles), centre d’art spécialisé en musiques urbaines et électroniques. Il a une forte expérience dans les rencontres entre musiques classiques, jazz, musiques traditionnelles et musiques actuelles amplifiées. Il a une discographie très fournie et participe à de nombreuses résidences et concerts avec l’Orchestre National Urbain. Il joue souvent en solo ou avec différents partenaires (Camel Zekri, Karine Hahn, Gilles Laval, etc.) en Europe et Afrique du Nord.
PaaLabRes (Pratiques Artistiques en Actes, LAboratoire de REchercheS) [Artistic Practices in Acts, Research Laboratory] is a collective of artists, in existence in Lyon since 2011, which attempts to define the outlines of a research carried out by the practitioners themselves concerning artistic expressions that do not result in definitive art works.
PaaLabRes aims to bring together, through action, reflection and research, diverse practices that cannot be closely identified with the frozen forms of patrimonial heritage, nor in those imposed by cultural industries. These practices often involve collective creation, improvisation, collaboration between artistic domains, but without creating an identity that excludes other interactive forms of production. They tend to call into question the notion of autonomy of art in relation to society, and they are grounded in everyday life, and in contexts that mix art with sociology, politics, philosophy and the logic of transmission and education. As a result, these practices remain instable and ever-changing, they are truly nomadic and transversal.
To Document Practices and Informal Research
The fourth edition of the paalabres.org website is linked to two concerns. On the one hand, there is the question of how to document the profusion of practices that most often take place anonymously. On the other hand, we attempt to show that within these practices, silent research approaches are at work, often unbeknownst to the people involved. Artistic research, thought of as directly linked to the processes of elaboration of practices, to the definition of projects, to interactions between people participating in them and eventually to particular modes of documentation in use (see the stations « Débat » et « Artistic Turn » in the first edition of paalabres.org).
The extraordinary diversity of the practices calls into question the notion of universalism and strongly challenges the hegemony of certain practices. Such diversity creates the necessity to include within the production mechanisms of elaboration that are related to bricolage, experimentation, and research. It is no longer simply a question of the conception of materials at the heart of artistic acts, but of including a more global approach concerning the interactions between individuals, the methods being considered, the different ways and contents of transmission and learning, the relationship with institutions, etc. To be able to find one’s way through the maze of the ecology of practices, of this proliferation of often antagonistic activities, there is a need to develop specific reflective tools. First, it is necessary to describe the practices in all their aspects and to question them in order to bring out their distinctive problematics. An inventory seems necessary in the form of narratives describing in detail what happens during a given project, in the documentation of practices using various media and in the formalization of concepts inherent to practical acts in the given context, notably concerning the unstable relations between intentions, daily reality, the final realization of productions and their public dissemination.
Artists often do not have the time or show little interest in narrating the details of their practice, in documenting processes for critical reflection. Often the artists wish that the attention be focused only on their finished productions and not on the behind the scenes of their elaboration. The explanations are considered too academic and not doing justice to the uniqueness of artistic approaches, or it is considered that art should keep its autonomy and
remain detached from the prosaic world.
Behind-the-scenes of research is largely ignored in the content of its publications (articles, books, conference presentations, etc.). The presentation of results takes precedence over the trial and error that preceded them. Yet research is full of starting up processes, unstable elaborations, and provisional documents. For example, the journal Agencements, Recherches et pratiques sociales en expérimentation has a section called « coulisse(s) » (behind-the-scenes) designed to “provide readers with major research writing, which remains confined in the workshop area where each one works or in the backstage of research” [Bodineau&co, 2018, p.9].
Concerning artistic practices, on of the risks is to leave the exclusivity of the explanations to the external viewpoints. In order to overcome the obstacles encountered by the protagonists of the practices, PaaLabRes proposes collective processes to finalize the contributions by putting in interrelation diverse skills. Thus, the narration of an artistic project can be clarified in an interview, in particular to help identify the points left obscure; oral expression is in this case easier but implies intelligent transcription skills. Documentation methods are often highly technical in relation to the various media and require collaboration. In this context, technical skills must be extended beyond their specialization and definitely include the ability to understand the issues at hand as perceived by those directly involved in the development of practices.
Critical analysis of practices is generally considered to be expressed in a written text, informed by references to previously published works on relevant topics. In the case of artistic research, this requirement is not necessarily what best suits the subversive character of certain artistic approaches. But the invention of textual or other technological devices appropriate to the spirit of an artistic project still seems to be insufficiently explored and remains a delicate proposition. How to consider handling both the concepts in all their complexity and their presentation remaining faithful to the intended artistic approach? How to expose at the same time the aesthetic points of view and to put them in question?
Narration, documentation and questioning of practices are by nature multifaceted: they involve events (performances, public presentations, workshops, conferences, etc.), multiple media (written texts, scores, graphics, videos, audio recordings, images, words), and numerous mediations that are constantly part of complex interaction processes.
The use of the term “artistic research” in the context of the fourth edition should therefore not be limited to what is precisely formalized in higher education and research institutions. It should be remembered that many artistic practices may contain phases of experimentation and processes that can be described as “informal research”. The project of the PaaLabRes collective is to put into relation the antagonisms that historically exist between artistic practices and university research on the one hand, and between artistic practices and the sector in charge of teaching these practices on the other. Moreover, the comparison of artistic practices with practices in use in fields that have special resonances with the arts (such as sociology, anthropology, linguistics…) can be very useful for the elaboration of a more general reflection on today’s cultural contexts. Therefore, the call for contributions for the fourth edition remains very broad and concerns the realms of university research, arts education, and the diversity of practices in the field of the arts and other related disciplines.
The objective of the fourth edition is to develop a database of practices, more or less ephemeral, which constitute the horizon of today’s culture. The aim is not to propose models that can be developed into methods with guaranteed standardized results, but rather to have access to references from which one can draw inspiration and compare procedures. For this reason, the fourth edition is not limited in time, but will remain open until the moment when it seems that there is too much information. Everybody can at any time propose a contribution to this fourth edition.
Practices
The acts of practice are inscribed in time, one after the other, without giving the possibility of a panoptic view at the moment of their accomplishment. While doing, to reflect on all the elements at play is difficult, and it is only in retrospect that actions can be evaluated. Decisions during practice are rapidly made or even in an immediate manner, they can at any time result in changing direction, but without taking the time to really measure the consequences [See Bourdieu, 1980].
In the language succession, the meaning of a word can be changed by the succession of other grammatical elements, but at the time it is spoken, it carries a meaning perceived unilaterally. It can also offer openings towards the multitude of meanings it could produce. The same phenomenon tends to be manifested in the act of doing something. This act may change meaning according to acts that will follow, but at the time of doing, the individual who accomplishes it can only concentrate on what make sense at this precise moment in this particular act.
This leads to the question of how to approach practices in the field of research? The temporal nature of practices means that we need to seriously consider processes into which the actions in progress evolve as they confront contexts. Nicolas Sidoroff [2024] defines practices as follows:
Procedures in a context.
With institutional dimensions.
And they lead beyond relationships between individuals.
Institutional dimensions are part of the context, but it’s often necessary to make them explicit so as to not forget and to be able to signify what they intersect with. This is one of the five dimensions proposed by Jacques Ardoino [1999] to describe human interactions as accurately as possible.[1] This dimension is worked on by so-called “institutional” approaches (psychotherapy, pedagogy, institutional analysis). This dimension is multifaceted, it brings together values, norms, social beliefs, ideological and cultural models, the hisstories in which we are all enmeshed, the imaginary, ghosts (absent persons but who have influences on the activity in process), and so on. Moreover, practices go beyond
social relationships between individuals alone to play a part in transformating social relations (according to Danièle Kergoat). Practices develop in a reciprocal movement. They are driven by a subject who is a “collective producer of meaning and actor of his or her own history” [Daniel Kergoat, 2009, p. 114], and they enable at the same time such subject to become collective producer and actor. [Nicolas Sidoroff, 2024, p. 156]
And finally, in the framework of this PaaLabRes edition, to consider practices as procedures in context and as succession of acts, leads to the possibility of narrating them. Practices can be recounted: this is what happened, or rather, better still, what somebody did,[2] in the present tense of the action, to be as close to it as possible. Someone does, we do, I do. Then, writing in the broadest sense of the term, what we call “documenting”, can take place, and with it, research on artistic fabrications and constructs.
The actions in progress implied in the active verb of “musicking” are univocal yet multiple acts [see Christopher Small, 1998]: they unfold in time, they last, they are not isolated, and they must constantly confront contexts that change as quickly as the weather. At the time of making a decision to do an act, thinking is immediate. Everything is determined both by the actors’ past (habits, acquired knowledge) and by the situation to be faced (in the presence of other people and particular environments). The act can then be frozen in a conventional stage, if you don’t have the means to break away from the obsession with doing things right. But the time that follows the decision can also be viewed as a pathway to follow (to wander) in which unforeseen events may emerge opening up new options: the notions of trial and error, tinkering, experimentation and research then assume their full meaning.
Actions in progress are situated [Haraway, 2007], but they are also multiple, giving rise to a multitude of often contradictory injunctions. As a result, they are always inscribed at the edges, fringes or margins, placed in between “nuclei” that Nicolas Sidoroff defines in the context of his own practices as “performance, creation, mediation-teaching-learning, research, administration, and technique-instrument building.” (See Lisières, 3rd Edition PaaLabRes). Each act is situated with a different intensity in each of these nuclei that make edges exist and living in such ecosystems. Potentially, each act is largely within a single nucleus, but is also in interaction with all the others.
In Fernand Oury and Françoise Thébaudin’s book Pédagogie institutionnelle, Mise en place et pratique des institutions dans la classe [1995], interesting examples of “monographies” can be found, accounts of events inscribed in the framework of their pedagogy. Grounded with transcripts of spoken words made by young pupils and placed in context, the analysis is never done by a single person at the height of his or her expertise, but by several members of a team. Discussions are therefore never peremptory, reflecting uncertainties, ambivalences and complexities. Scientific-based books or notions, notably drawn from psychoanalysis, are then referred to, so as to enrich the debate and help understanding, but they are never considered as absolute truth, but they are just juxtaposed as elements among others in the collective analysis of complex and singular events. The pupils’ spoken words are in this manner always put to the fore.
Report, Inquiry, Research
Artists associated in particular with ephemeral forms face difficulty accepting the principle of documenting their production. For example, in the world of improvisation, the publication of a recording seems completely at odds with the notion of a situated act, performed in the present and never to be repeated in this form.[3] The documentation of an event seems to imply that it should serve as an exemplary model for subsequent events. Modeling is viewed as susceptible to creating the conditions of servile conformity to the established order in the immutable repetition of the same things. The diversification of the objects of documentation (observation accounts, discussions, consulting archives, reports on neighboring experiences, related texts, videos, recordings, etc.) tends to cause the idea of model to disappear in favor of that of inquiry. It gathers a whole ensemble of materials[4] that may not seem interesting at first sight, but that are essential in defining the context in which the action takes place.
In the call for contributions, we had considered exploring different modes of presenting research contents to the public, whether artistic or linked to other academic fields, whether informal or as part of university-style formalization. These different ways of reporting and documenting the elaboration of a practice to honor the processes of inquiry and research that often remain implicit, are not easy to invent.
The ways of reporting are also difficult to collect. In the music world, the almost magical phrase “we do it this way” is often pronounced. But without an instrument at hand, how to explain this manner of “doing it like that”? Recording and transcribing are our usual tools of inquiry. Our meetings and interviews usually take place in life settings (houses, apartments, cafes, videoconferences, etc.) where the conditions are not optimal, since there is a lot of interfering noises that come to perturb the understanding of recordings during transcription.
Experimenting with different ways means of presenting research presentation as an alternative to the sole “thesis” presented on a text written according to the current rules set up by higher education institutions remains a very important objective for us. The aim is to present objects that encapsulate the essential artistic and conceptual contents of a given practice, without revealing what specialists consider as relevant detail. We can envisage objects capable of being apprehended by an audience and giving them the desire to visit further the content of a narration, its analysis, and its various accompanying documents. Such objects can be for example a lecture/performance, a mix-media work, a collage, an audio file, an animated text, etc.
The Contributions
The edition is organized in five categories:
Otherwards-Return.. Three articles on Africa and the back-and-forth between this continent and the rest of the world.
InDiscipline – Flux. Two contributions deal with the interrelationships between artistic disciplines, which tend to be “undisciplined” in improvised forms. More specifically they address the relationships between dance and the environment, and between dance and music.
Fabulate – InQuest. This category covers research concerns ranging from academic formalization to more informal approaches. For the time being, it contains only one article.
Context – FabBrick. Three articles in this category deal with the invention of “dispositifs”, i.e. situations elaborated from a particular context and involving the people who take part in them in creative linked to their practice.
Electro – Tinkering. Two articles deal with the use of electronic and digital technologies in artistic practices.
A final category, which for the time being contains no contribution, Trajects, will deal with projects that take place in several more or less remote location and imply for the participants to travel, enabling reflection before, after or between the actions taking place in the various locations.
Here, in no particular order, is the presentation of the first ten contributions:
Emmanuelle Pépin and Lionel Garcin presented a lecture/performance on the relationships between dance and music. The performance was based on a dialogue between a dancer and a musician improvising together, exploring and demonstrating dance/music relationships in acts. The actions relating the dancer and the musician during the performance were not precisely predetermined: it was a real improvisation, yet one in a long series of improvisation mixing dance and music by both artists (not exclusively in the format of this particular duo), over a very long period of time. At certain points of the performance, Emmanuelle read aloud extracts from a text she had prepared ahead of time, choosing these extracts at random on the spirit of the moment. She also improvised spoken words inspired by her text while dancing in space. Lionel, meanwhile, continued to improvise sounds while moving in space, taking care of not covering the enunciated text. The text itself was situated in an “ecotone” (or edge) intertwining the presentation of the elements in play and the description of physical, bodily and acoustic phenomena, all this unified by poetical formulations. The principal interest of this kind of performance is that the act of “saying” is completely inserted in the midst of what is danced and musicked, but also that the “saying” in progress is directly put in practice in the dance and music performed (without, however, there being a direct relationship between words, sounds and movements as a form of pleonasm). In a single movement, the explanatory text in its poetic form, and the unfolding of the dance and music materials (and their theatricalization) form a unified whole, without avoiding the presentation of what constitutes its complexity.
The three contributions concerning the back-and- forth journeys between Africa and the rest of the world, that is the interview of Djely Madi Kouyaté, the commentaries on Famoudou Konaté‘s book, and the article by Lukas Ligeti describe long life journeys full of ambivalent events. All three are personalities who grew up in traditional environments – Guineans villages for Djely Madi Kouyaté and Famoudou Konaté, and the European intellectual elite for Lukas Ligeti (who is the son of the famous composer) – and who set off on “adventure” towards the rest of Africa, and then the rest of the world for the first two, and to several African countries for the latter. In all three cases, the journeys brought out contradictions due to culture shock.
Djely Madi Kouyaté, after growing up in the tradition of a Guinean village, when he joined the group Kotéba in Ivory Coast, had to face a process of bringing together practices originating from several African countries and the development of procedures linked to spectacle and technologies influenced in part by Western culture. The group toured Europe extensively, which led eventually Djely Madi to settle in Paris, where he had to interact in greater depth with its ambient culture. This raised the question for him of how to retain the richness of his own tradition despite the few adjustments he had to accept.
The life story of Famoudou Konaté, is very similar: he is selected in his village to be part of the Ballets Africains, which brings together the best musicians and dancers from independent Guinee. This ensemble tours around the world several times and allows him to be recognized as an international djembe virtuoso. He then became an independent musician and started also to be involved in teaching the fundamental basis of his tradition in Africa and Europe, to ensure its survival in a world of globalized culture influenced by electronic medias.
In Lukas Ligeti‘s case, he came to Africa with his own representations linked to ethnomusicological studies and composing pieces influenced by African music. Through contact with African cultural realities, he had to adapt his practice as a percussionist, composer and electronic music practitioner to African contexts that blend traditional practices to the input of various technologies linked to electricity. Then in return, this raised the question of how all these elements can be taken up in the context of Western experimental music.
Another approach to documentation was chosen in the case of the “Tale of the ‘Tale’”,, as a result of a series of four separate interviews to the four protagonists of the immersive performance “Le Conte d’un future commun” (The Tale of a Common Future), Louis Clément, Delphine Descombin, Yovan Girard and Maxime Hurdequint. This collaborative project was based on ecological issues linked to the future of the planet, with the particularity of regrouping personalities already extremely close to each other in terms of family ties, friendships, belonging to the same networks or geographical proximity. But the four parallel accounts of the performance’s lengthy production process highlighted differences of perception as how things actually happened. Each of them had built an affabulation of the role and position of the others, and in their narratives staged fictitious conversations to describe the elements of discussions and interaction required to the bring the piece to life. These differences were not the expression of disagreements concerning the project itself in artistic terms or political content, but rather subtle nuances of sensibility. In particular, the account of Delphine, the storyteller, often took the form of a series of “tales” during the interview, not in the sense of inventing fictional situations, but rather in the use of a certain narrative style to convey the information she wished to give us. Therefore, on the part of the PaaLabRes editorial team, the idea came to reorganize the different interview transcription texts of interviews in the form of dialogues in what could resemble a tale describing the fable of the “Tale”.
The same subtilities of nuances can be found in the account of dancer Min Tanaka’s creation of the Body Weather Farm au Japon, in Japan, by three dancers – Katerina Bakatsaki, Oguri and Christine Quoiraud – who participated to this project during the period 1985-90. Two videoconference sessions took place, separated by a time span of nine months, this time conducted jointly with everyone present. Both encounters were in English, with Nicolas Sidoroff and Jean-Charles François present for PaalabRes. None of the people present spoke English as their native language and all expressed themselves with strong foreign accents (a Greek women living in Amsterdam, a Japanese man living in Los Angeles, and three French people living in France). Hence difficulty in the editorial realization to access a clear and precise meaning during the transcript of the audio files. Additionally, remembering the exact circumstances of events that took place a long time ago was not an easy task, and each artist’s narrative reflected three different ways of looking at this fundamental experience in their life right up to the present time. For this reason, we felt it necessary to preserve as far as possible the diversity of the narrative styles used by the three protagonists. What’s more, the views that the two “paalabrians” musicians had on things were somewhat divergent than the one of the three dance artists: the meaning of the same terms in dance and music is not of the same nature, and the perception of relationship between dance and music can vary a lot depending to the field one belongs. The total ignorance of the two musicians concerning the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Body Weather farm, led to some interesting debates on the presence or absence of “commons” in Min Tanaka’s group at the farm, on his determination never to fix things in definitive forms, and above all on the idea of not creating situations where a power exercised by anyone would be imposed itself on the whole community. It is the absence of obligation, nevertheless combined with the necessity of absolute engagement at all times, with whatever actions were undertaken, which seemed to have been the main force at work behind the Body Weather idea.
Warren Burt, who describes himself as a composer, performer, instrument builder, sound poet, video artist, multimedia artist, writer (etc.), and above as an “irrelevant musician”, traces the recent history of the fantastic evolution of sound technologies, showing how they have influenced throughout his life his own aesthetics and political positions, in the realization of very precise actions. His militantism for an immediate use of the least expensive, most democratic tools made available by technology never changed: the use of the most ingenious, yet simplest tinkering, aiming at the richest possible aesthetics, with the cheapest utilizations possible in terms of money. Low-cost democratic access, impossible during the 1970s except for a privileged few working or studying in collective studios housed in big-budget institutions, is now becoming a reality for a large part of the world population, thanks to personal portable computers. But ironically, this access that was initially considered as to be necessarily experimental and alternative, now that everybody has the ability to manipulate sound (and other) objects at will, is in grave danger of becoming nothing more than a generalized conformism generated by manipulative medias.
The recent evolution of new sound technologies has led the development of interface tools (theremin, smartphones) manipulated by performing musicians controlling machines and distributing sounds in space. The sonorities, determined by the composer and stored in a particular electronic system, are no longer directly produced by the instrumentalists who then become collaborators of the composer in determining what will actually happen during a performance. This new situation changes the conditions of the relationship between those who elaborate particular systems, those who build the appropriate technological tools to realize them, and those who implement them on stage in real time. These aspects of collaboration were the suject of the encounters with Vincent-Raphaël Carinola and Jean Geoffroy. In retrospect, it would have been necessary to include in the interview a third person responsible of the technological construction of the new lutheries (Christophe Lebreton). In the future, there is the possibility to make up for the absence of this third facet of the collaborative musical conception.
In the minds of these two musicians, Jean and Vincent, the boundaries between creation and interpretation have become porous, but at the same time they don’t call in question the fundamental separation between composer and performer that is characteristic of Western music. In this manner, they are part of a historic continuity within this style of music, because collaborations between composer and performer, and also with instrument builder, have often taken place in the past, despite the gradual specialization of roles in their professional function. As with the music based on processes of the second part of the twentieth century, the composer doesn’t completely determine the events will occur on stage but proposes a regulated sound architecture into which the interpret must creatively enter. The instrumentalist becomes a sculptor of sound matter in real time, a stage director of the system’s data, which creates the conditions for a new virtuosity and thus stands out from the use of interfaces (as in certain installations or videogames) by the general public.
The effective encounters of differences (cultural, artistic, economical, of geographical origin, of research content, etc.) in shared practical situations is of great importance in relation to today’s context. In all cases, whether in the encounter of different artistic domains, or of different aesthetics, or of different community groups, or again that linked to the reception of refugees, it’s necessary to invent a practical ground for mediation and not simply juxtapose or superimpose the diversity of expressions. In this manner, you may avoid the domination of one human group over another in a dual movement of respect for different expressions and of development of a common practice between groups based on principles of democratic equality.
For over thirty years, Giacomo Spica Capobianco developed actions to give young people of underprivileged neighborhoods access to musical practices in accordance with their aspirations, by enabling them to invent their own forms of expression. He has always been concerned to connect these youths with practices of other spheres of society. He organized encounters between groups of very different styles and, developed with the members of the Orchestre National Urbain improvisation situations that made possible for groups to work on common materials outside their principal cultural references. The document included in this edition, Collective Nomadic Creation, is the result of an action conducted by the Orchestre National Urbain, which took place during the Autumn 2023 bringing together young refugees from various shelter centers with the students of the CNSMDL (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon), and of the Lyon II University. It presents texts by two of the project’s observers, Joris Cintéro et Jean-Charles François and a video realized by Giacomo Spica Capobianco and Sébastien Leborgne featuring a series of interviews with various participants and extracts of music and dance actions that took place during this project.
We publish an extract from Karine Hahn‘s doctorate thesis on “Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit, Drôme : une autre manière de faire de la musique.” [The (re)sonating practices of Dieulefit territory, Drôme: another way to make music.] The title of this extract is “The Metronome Episode”, in which she relates the unexpected apparition of a metronome at a rehearsal of a democratic fanfare. The metronome-object, brought in by one of the group members, drastically bursts into the scene of the practice of an ensemble that usually vehemently resists any external authoritarian imposition. Karine Hahn’s analysis of this event takes place in a context where she made the deliberate choice to be part of this “Tapacymbal” fanfare, both to experience a practice from the inside in an epidermic manner, and to be able to observe it from a more detached viewpoint. She breaks away from an oft-stated rule that, to do research, you should not get involved in the objects you are studying. If she is part of the group to be observed, she is in danger through this experience to be emotionally in solidarity with the problems they encounter, and if she remains outside, she is in danger of not really understanding what is at stake. Often researchers external to their subject matter are unable to put forward the questions that are relevant to the group they’re observing, and when they attempt to reveal the implicit structures at work, they tend to tap outside the cymbals. Karine Hahn’s position in the group precludes any overhanging approach, her position of “learned” musician and scholar issued from the conservatories aiming at professional life in music is completely put in question by a situation that awakens her own negative attitudes towards the oppressive use of the metronome. The experience of the group facing this tool, which she has to endure, results in completely challenging her representations and changes the nature of her expert eyes. This doesn’t modify her knowledge but puts it in perspective in the light of a context. It’s in the sense of this tension between the inside and the outside of a given practice that the militantism of the PaaLabRes collective concerning “informal” artistic research is situated: only actual experience can produce a knowledge of the issues at stake, and then you have to be capable to detached yourself from it in order to develop reflexivity.
To conclude this round-table survey of the first ten contributions to the fourth edition, the two main editors, Jean-Charles François and Nicolas Sidoroff, present L’Autre Musique, an account of a workshop in which the situations of collective artistic production are susceptible to provoke meaningful discussion on the subject of a particular issue, in this case graphic scores and their actual implementation in performance. The experimental hypothesis was as follows: the juxtapositions and superimpositions of research accounts (as is so often the case in the usual formatting of international conferences) fail to achieve meaningful debates. They remain in the realm of information rather than producing in-depth exchanges of ideas, because no common practice takes place, creating a context where the same objects are discussed with full knowledge of the facts. It’s from a common experience that different sensibilities to actions that are effectively lived together can emerge, whereas passive listening of academic presentations tends to only produce polite reactions (or definitive rejections).
Therefore, the paalabres.org fourth edition makes a modest contribution to exploring the various possible ways of reporting on practices, trying to find editorial solutions that are respectful of artistic content. The often-elusive ideal is to find ways to “put into practice” reporting and documentation in processes identical of those of action and research, to find a happy coincidence between artistic objects, narratives of practices and critical reflection.
PaaLabRes Fourth Edition, Future Contributions
Several contributions are currently under development:
Pom Bouvier, back-and-forth Lyon – St Julien Molin-Molette between listening to environments and improvisations that immediately follow.
György Kurtag Jr, work on live computer music production with young children.
Yves Favier, Jean-Charles François, György Kurtag and Emmanuelle Pépin, “CEPI Trajects” a series of encounters around dance/music/sceno-active improvisation in Valcivières, Bordeaux, Lyon, Esino, Nice, Budapest and Cabasse. Journeys between places, a special time for reflection.
Reinhard Gagel, “OHO! Offhandopera – Impromptu Music Theatre”. How to improvise an opera.
Karine Hahn, continuation of the publication of excerpts of her thesis “(Re)sonating Practices on the Dieulefit (Drôme) Territory: Another Way of Making Music”.
These contributions will be published as soon as possible.
Other contributions are being considered for the future:
Anan Atoyama, her work on the occupation of stage space and issues of climate migration.
Jean-François Charles and Nicolas Sidoroff, on live musical accompaniment for silent films.
Marina Cyrino and Mathias Koole, lectures/performances on the flute and guitar in improvised music.
Kristin Guttenberg, on her practice of dance/music improvisation in unexpected spaces.
Anan Atoyama, Vlatko Kučan and Jean-Charles François on the musician’s and dancer’s body in space.
Gilles Laval on the European journeys of his project “100 guitars” and the idea of a nomadic university.
Noémi Lefebvre, collective readings aloud from her book Parle.
Mary Oliver on her experiences of musician improviser with dance artists.
Pascal Pariaud on working with children from a primary school near Lyon on producing sounds with various means.
Nicolas Sidoroff on fanfares in political demonstrations.
Tam Thi Pham, Vietnamese musician and dan-bau player, on her practice of traditional music from Vietnam and experimental improvisation.
The PaaLabRes Collective:
Anan Atoyama, Samuel Chagnard, Jean-Charles François, Laurent Grappe, Karine Hahn,
Gilles Laval, Noémi Lefebvre, Pascal Pariaud, Nicolas Sidoroff, Gérald Venturi.
Références bibliographiques
ARDOINO, Jacques. (1999). Éducation et politique. Paris : Anthropos Economica, coll. Éducation (2e éd.).
BECKER, Howard S. (2004). Écrire les sciences sociales, commencer et terminer son article, sa thèse ou son livre. Paris : Economica, coll. Méthodes des sciences sociales (éd. orig. Writing for Social Scientists. How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article, University of Chicago Press, 1986, trad. Patricia Fogarty et Alain Guillemin).
BOURDIEU, Pierre. (1980). Le sens pratique, Paris, Éditions de Minuit.
BODINEAU, Martine & co. (2018). « Édito », dans Agencements, Recherches et pratiques sociales en expérimentation, n°1, p. 7-9. doi.org
HARAWAY, Donna J. (2007). « Savoirs situés : la question de la science dans le féminisme et le privilège de la perspective partielle », dans Manifeste cyborg et autres essais : sciences, fictions, féminismes, édité par Laurence Allard, Delphine Gardey, et Nathalie Magnan. Paris : Exils Éditeur, coll. Essais, p. 107-142 (trad. par Denis Petit et Nathalie Magnan, éd. orig. Feminist Studies, 14, 1988).
HARAWAY, Donna J. (1988). « Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective », in Feminist Studies 14(3), p. 575‑99.
KERGOAT, Danièle. (2009). « Dynamique et consubstantialité des rapports sociaux », dans DORLIN, Elsa, Sexe, race, classe : pour une épistémologie de la domination, Paris : PUF, coll. Actuel Marx confrontation, p. 111-125.
OURY, Fernand & THÉBAUDIN, Françoise. (1995). Pédagogie institutionnelle, Mise en place et pratique des institutions dans la classe. Vigneux : Éd. Matrice.
SIDOROFF, Nicolas. (2024). « La recherche n’existe pas, c’est une pratique ! » Agencements, Recherches et pratiques sociales en expérimentation, n°10, p153-57. doi.org
1. The other dimensions are: individual, interindividual, groupal and organizational.
2. Howard Becker gave this advice concerning writing: [Consider] “who is responsible of the actions your sentence describes” [2004 (1986), p. 13].
3. This position towards the publication of improvisation recordings outside the participants doesn’t prevent the use of sound recordings as a working tool in various re-listening situations. The recording is then used as a form of mirror to reflect on the general activity of a collective.
4. Using the term « materials » [matériaux] enables to summon up more diversity and plurality than, for example, « documents », which has a strong formal imaginary, or « data » [données] that has a strong numerical imaginary. But the term of materials doesn’t work easily with a specific verb, whereas activity and gesture should be qualified with a specific verb. The verb « to document » can then be used with this meaning: gather and organize various materials at the heart of practice.
In 2022, Famoudou Konaté, “great representative of Guinea”s Malinke musical tradition”[1] published a remarkable book, Mémoires d’un musician africain, Ma vie – mon djembe – ma culture [Memories of an African musician, My life – my djembe – my culture], written in collaboration with Thomas Ott, who “was a university professor of music pedagogy in Berlin”.
Far from being a simple autobiography, the author offers a thorough account of the various artistic, social and political issues that an African musician had to face in the period from 1940 to the present day: growing up in a traditional village in Guinea, touring the world as an artist representing independent Guinea, learning to read and write as an adult, becoming a teacher in Guinea and Europe, to reflecting deeply on his own practice and the tradition in which it is embedded. Famoudou Konaté tells us with a wealth of detail and analysis about many aspects of his own life, touching on domains such as musical practice, ethnomusicology, African history, geopolitics, sociology of artistic practices, instrument building, playing techniques, pedagogy of oral music, and to unify it all, the presentation of a rich philosophy of life. However, this book doesn’t pretend to be recognized as “academic”, anyone can have access to the global overview of his practice, with additionally numerous narratives, stories and tales, that illustrate with humor the artistic and autobiographical information.
In his introduction to the book, Thomas Ott explains its genesis. After learning to read and write while touring the world with the Ballets Africains, Konaté took the habit of writing “a great number of autobiographical notes (…) in French over many years” (page 15, my translation). Thomas Ott’s contribution to the book was to classify these notes, to translate them into German,[2] and assemble them into a meaningful form. He describes two happy turning points in Famoudou’s life:
Firstly, his selection to join the Ballets Africains representing Guinea as principal djembe player, while according to the village tradition, he had to get married and give up his musical practice.
And then, much later, he left the Ballets Africains, which had become for him an oppressive organization thus limiting the extension of his internationally recognized artistic posture. He then became an independent artist, thanks in part to the teaching of his music and culture in his village in Guinea and in European institutions.
At every turning point in Konaté’s life, the ambivalence that can be observed in any practice is revealed, requiring him to trace his own pathway among a weave of contradictions, enabling him to acquire a clear universal perspective in his multidimensional accounts. The conditions in which all actual practices are carried out is it occur in obscurity, in the midst of elements that play against each other. As in improvisation, the actors have to trace their way for better or worse, starting from what was already built up, without having enough time to reflect in a rational fashion. But this path is not like writing, where each individual word weaves a global meaning with the series that has just been read and the one that is about to be read. In oral practice, the contradictions, the complexities, have to be faced in the present, and you must play with them without thinking of the consequences. With a sufficient lapse of time, however, it is possible to write some reflexive notes and succeed in clarifying globally the uncertainties of circumstances. In this sense, practice is not consciously ideologic, even if the ideologies can be unconsciously expressed in the behavior of the human body.
Thomas Ott tells us that Famoudou Konaté’s music was for him “the bridge towards Africa in general”. He gives the following precisions:
True to the saying “Who only knows the music knows nothing about the music”, very soon I began to take an interest in Africa’s political, social, and economic problems. (Page 19)
For my part, I will say that I don’t know Konaté’s music or the African music and dance very well, but thanks to reading his book, I have a more precise idea of what is globally at stake within these contexts, with all the useful information he gives on the musical, artisanal, political, social, economical and cultural aspects of his artistic practice and the links he is able to weave between all these domains.
The Creation of the Guinea Ballets Africains
In 1958, General De Gaulle’s government proposed to the French African sub-Saharan colonies their independence with an association within a “Communauté franco-africaine”. Only one country, Guinea, on Sékou Touré’s initiative (he became Guinea’s first president), rejected in a referendum this association. In less than two months, France withdrew all its administrative and economic support, thus ending all relationships.
In order to assert complete independence, Guinea needed to be recognized as a nation throughout the world. It absolutely had to affirm its African cultural identity and to develop diplomatic tools to represent it. This led to the creation of the Ballets Africains (based on the model of ensembles already in existence) bringing together the country’s best music and dance artists. The essence of the new nation had to be represented, its specific tradition, free from outside influences, in a single evening, at the end of which any audience would be able to understand what it was all about. To achieve this, there seemed to be no other choice but to conform to the laws of the dominant representation of the time, that is, the one determined by Western thought in both cultural manifestations and diplomacy. To create the spectacle showing the tradition therefore seemed the means to achieve these objectives.
This task contradicting the village traditional practices may appear harmless, given that indeed it is the traditional ways that are presented on stage and not water-downed or completely distorted practices. Yet this small detail of formalization in order to be understood by those who lead the world, profoundly changes the name of the game. The point for me here is not to look for any kind of authenticity that might be found at the origin of a tradition. In fact, oral traditions have the capacity to constantly reinvent themselves according to events that take place. It’s simply a question of underlining the tension that exists between on the one hand asserting independence from the colonial power by focusing on autochthone cultures, and on the other hand asserting Guinea’s existence as a new nation on the international scene. Guinea then had to conform to the current formats: to become a nation, to adopt a flag, and to stage its identity in the forms invented by Western modernity.
In order to build the narrative of the Guinean nation, the cultural differences that might exist in the country have to be partially erased, and the practices must be detached from the global contexts in which they are embedded. This means inventing artistic acts that are separate from their social, political and cultural implications linked to the everyday life in the villages. People having predetermined social functions must be transformed into professional artists.
The choice to enter the Ballets Africains
Famoudou Konaté grew up in his village and was soon recognized for his great ability to play the djembe. He comes from a noble family, which determines his particular role in the village society. He describes this situation as follows:
In Hamana villages, all women, all men, and all children know to which group they belong and what their tasks are within the community:
The hörön (“the free men”) are the nobility. They govern. In the past, they decided on war and peace and were themselves great warriors. They regulate all aspects related to agriculture. But ultimately, they are responsible for the whole community in all its matters. (Page 91)
For Konaté, the other casts, the “artisans of society”, are divided into three groups: a) leather workers; b) griots; and c) blacksmiths.
Thomas Ott stresses in his introduction to the book that Famoudou Konaté would not have become a professional musician, if he had not been selected to be part of the Ballets Africains created at the time of Guinea’s independence in 1958. This was because members of noble families had to marry on reaching adulthood and were no longer allowed to practice music. Konaté writes:
Anyone called Coulibaly, Keïta or Konaté, as an upper-class member, is in fact not competent to play drums. In my family, he had to stop playing it as soon as he got married. Mamady Keïta and I became professional percussionists only because we were recruited to play in the big State ensembles. (Page 92)
Griots are at the same time historians, storytellers, genealogists, diplomats, counsellors, and musicians whose “working tools are words (language) and sounds (music)” (page 92). For him, in the tradition, the use of musical instruments is reserved to them, but music is not for them an “end in itself, but a means of expression in their multiple social tasks” (page 94).[3] According to Konaté, blacksmiths are the ones who build djembes, and as such “the drummers often come from blacksmith families” (page 92), while griots are most often playing balafon or kora.
So here we have the first fundamental contradiction between respect for tradition and access to a certain modernity. Famadou Konaté, having already acquired a reputation as a great djembe player, had to choose between staying in his village and ceasing to play this instrument, or to become part of a world of live spectacle, where objects are created separately from everyday life, to be presented in a limited timeframe to an audience that is a priori “non initiated”. In the village tradition, the status of music remains ambiguous. The caste system predetermines roles, with the griots being obliged to be musicians, but as Konaté states above, music is not for them an “end in itself”, music is always inscribed in a global context. Yet there is no activity (work, ceremonies, festivities) without the very important presence of music. Learning music takes place outside any pedagogical method. There is no obligation to achieve a specified excellence, but reputations create hierarchies, comparisons and preferences. Famoudou’s reputation is that he is the best djembéföla in his village and beyond, but now he has to prove it to be recruited as a soloist in the Ballets Africains competing with all those coming from all parts of the country. The status of music changes when one moves from a highly localized context to the notion of a constituted nation: Konaté is not judged as an African man but strictly speaking as a musician. Saved by Guinea’s independence and the creation of the Ballets Africains, he can continue playing the djembe, his passion in life. Growing up in the tradition in which djembe playing is inscribed enabled him to come first in the competition to enter the Ballets, but through this act he became a professional specialist in the European sense of the term.
So, on the one hand, you have a village tradition that tends not to differentiate political and social aspects from religious, cultural and artistic expressions – quite opposite of Western rationalities that strongly specialize various functions and thought domains. On the other hand, the aim is to bring together the best musicians and dancers from this type of tradition on a national level. But Guinea’s vast territory is not culturally homogeneous, which means that it is necessary to create music that takes these differences into account. Even if the Ballets Africains practice of staging and setting music and dance remains completely oral, the reconciliation of differences creates a situation of a music that needs to be fabricated prior to the performance on stage. Famoudou cites the case of Arafan Touré, who was second soloist in the Ballets Africains, originating from Basse-Guinée, and having a completely different rhythmic approach, difficult to reconcile with his own playing (page 88). He also mentions the case of Mamady Keïta in these terms:
My relationship with Mamady Keïta was marked by a great friendship and mutual respect (…). He came from the village of Balandugu, near Siguiri, 150 km from Kouroussa. We both belong to the same Malinke culture, nevertheless there are a few musical and cultural differences between our two regions (Hamana and Wassulu), and neither of us had a perfect knowledge of the other’s culture. (Page 89)
The Ballets Africains, between Emancipation and Oppression
The second source of ambivalence in Konaté’s life can be found in the ways the Ballets Africains were effectively run, at once a source providing an opening onto the world, an international artistic success, and also a repressive system that tended to reduce the members of the ensemble to an existence of servile executants. The opportunity offered by the Ballets represented an extraordinary privilege for a villager, but the working conditions were sometimes tantamount to an unworthy status as human beings.
The chance for Famoudou Konaté to be selected to be part of Ballets Africains goes far beyond the only fact that he could devote himself completely to the art of djembe playing. In the first place, during the 25 years he played with the Ballets Africains, he took great pride in representing to the world the culture of his country with the highest artistic levels of excellence:
As can be imagined, from an artistic point of view, a total dedication to our work and the highest quality of performance were expected from us, musicians and dancers. It was under this law that we had to present ourselves, as we had to bring honor to our country throughout the world. (Page 52)
The Ballets Africains toured the world several times, only few countries were not visited by the ensemble during this period. According to Famoudou, this was an “enormous privilege” for Africans (page 65). It was an opportunity for him to compare different lifestyles and cultural attitudes, especially in relation to the division at the time between the Communist world and the West. It is also the opportunity to face up both to the immense success with audiences extremely interested in discovering world cultures, and to the prejudices and racist attitudes encountered in everyday life.
Above all, it was an opportunity for him to learn reading and writing, something that he couldn’t do as a child because there was no school in his village:<:p>
The numerous travels with the Ballets represented for all of us who had practically never left our home villages in Guinea, an enormous broadening of our perspectives. I found it particularly important to learn speaking and reading French, as I’d never been to school. That’s why I was grateful that we were given French courses on our first journey. (Page 97)
This enabled him to keep a rich logbook made up of meaningful reflections and anecdotes. Eventually, this allowed him to write this autobiographical book based on all these notes accumulated through the years.
This immense international success, this opening onto the world, this access to education must nevertheless be paid for by the corruption of the Ballets’ direction, and the oppression of a system that severely limits the freedom of its members. Working conditions are often harsh, lodging undignified, and salaries too low for ensuring a normal life, with fines imposed for any infringement of the rules. Relationships between men and women within the ensemble were strictly forbidden, and an internal police force kept a watchful eye on the rooms to enforce this rule.
When the group was playing in the presence of President Sékou Touré, everything was going well, but otherwise the repressive system was in full swing, with its endless trail of intrigues. At a certain point, Sékou Touré improved the Ballets‘ artists living conditions by granting them the status of civil servants. But after his death in 1984, the new power neglected artistic policies, and relations within the Ballets deteriorated considerably. It was at this moment that Konaté left this prestigious ensemble.
Artistic Independence Acquired Thanks to Teaching
Leaving the Ballets was by no means a simple thing to do, but little by little, Famoudou Konaté acquired his artistic independence. Above all, he established regular contacts with German university musicians who came to study with him in his village in Guinea, and who regularly invited him in Germany to give concerts and lead workshops. His contribution during the year 1990-2000 in the development in different countries of the abilities of non-Africans to seriously practice the music of his own culture is very substantial.
The idea of teaching djembe playing to adults who didn’t grow up in his tradition, although often educated in conservatories of “classical” European music, is a challenge for him: he has to develop a methodology that both stays within the orality framework and enables students to progress towards technical skills that are not separated from the musical and cultural meanings of instrumental playing.
Another challenge is that, in Guinea itself, social structures are in turmoil (urbanization, mining, influence of communication technologies) meaning that the young people tend to lose contact with tradition. Here too, in his concern to maintain alive and transmit his art, its ways of playing and the cultural context in which it evolves, he has to invent efficient methods for teaching in his own village and beyond in Africa.
In his approach to teaching djembe, Konaté had to invent methods appropriate to the diversity of the public he addressed, whether Africans or Europeans. He had to invent them from scratch, because the notion of teaching didn’t exist in the village where he grew up: based on established models present in everyday life, each child had to develop his or her own playing without the help or supervision of anyone else. How to reconcile the idea, for those who are not inserted in this cultural world, of instilling principles, and of letting them gradually determine their own playing styles in an autonomous way. He describes the dimension of the problem in the following example:
In 1987, when I arrived in Germany and gave my very first workshops, I had enormous difficulties teaching the phrases of djembe solos. The reason was simple: the solos were not catalogued in my head in a way that would have enabled me to pass them on. The accompaniment phrases on the three lower drums posed far less problems to me. Little by little, I managed to systematize them and to teach them accordingly. What helped me was my experience with European students and their learning difficulties. I am very grateful to them for these exchanges. However, concerning the solos, it’s not sufficient simply to repeat what the master is doing. What you have to achieve is free and autonomous improvisation. (Page 239)
For him, what is at stake is “learning and teaching without pedagogy”, as one of the sub-chapters of his book is entitled. He draws a distinction between teaching music in European conservatories, centered on learning how to read and play notated scores (“certain students cannot play without having notated everything down beforehand”) and the oral character of his music which doesn’t separate the head from the body:
According to my experience, writing down notes is useful if you want to remember later what you’ve learned with the teacher. But in learning situations and in playing music, the head and the body should be entirely free. We Africans are accustomed to using the head and the body together. In the end, everything is recorded in our memory, and we master it through playing. If, instead, we were asked to play reading the notes, it would be for us a mental headache! (Page 236)
To be able to teach in a multicultural context that mixes orality and writing, he has to systematize his own rhythmic practices, while keeping in mind that people must absolutely go beyond the stage of this systematization to better achieve in a global manner the very essence of the music.
In this new phase in Konaté’s life, situations of tension between local tradition and globalized modernity again arise. The choices available go beyond a conservative option of maintaining tradition at all costs, or a progressive option which would consist in erasing them. In each case, a tortuous pathway must be traced through effective practices. In the village of his childhood teaching music or instruments didn’t exist, everyone had to find their own way based on stable, everyday conditions that seemed natural. In today’s world to which he is confronted, particularly in order to free himself from the Ballets Africains, teaching becomes a necessity, and learning has to be reinvented to both maintain tradition alive and to make it evolve strongly, within the framework of a silent tension, but in this case a very friendly one, between African and European conceptions.
Conclusion
It’s rare to find a book written by a practitioner in which all the aspects relevant to various life contexts are addressed in three ways: a) a detailed description of what is at stake in the artistic practices; b) a very elaborated reflection on the meaning of the minutest elements of practice; and c) the account, often humoristic, but also dramatic, of real-life situations.
In this way, all the subjects are treated in depth: the history of his family, his childhood, his first steps with playing the djembe, colonial domination, the journey (going on adventure) to visit his brother. The Ballets Africains, the political context of independent Guinea, the tours all over the world, the working conditions in this ensemble. And then, the post 1987 period of artistic and teaching independence in Africa and Europe. In 1996, he became honorary professor at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Chapter by chapter, we also gain access to a critical description of his own culture: the social order in the village, the role of music and dance, the festivities, and the more problematic aspects such as excision and the rigid distribution of roles, especially between men and women. There is an important chapter on the “individual and social functions of music” (p.169-223), on instruments and the ways they are built, their techniques, their history and the various contexts in which they are used. The book concludes on a personal retrospective on the experiences he encountered and the reflections they have stimulated over time. He proposes a series of working pathways for the “conservation of African music” and maintaining its oral characteristics. For him, it’s a question of defining in a very universal sense who has the right to participate in this tradition: “music knows neither ‘races’ not colors” (p.239). The impact of modernity on traditions is also discussed, especially concerning the preservation of practices (recordings, videos) and the question of author’s rights. For Konaté, the confrontation between tradition and modernity is “mixed”. He talks about Africa’s economic problems, of traditional and modern medicine, of the evils of intensive tourism, of racism that he experienced in Europe and elsewhere, and of the “ecological living conditions, past and present.”
1. Extract from the back cover, Famoudou Konaté, with the collaboration of Thomas Ott, Mémoires d’un musicien africain, Ma vie – mon djembé – ma culture, Paris L’Harmattan, 2022.
2. This book was first published in German in 2021 with the following title: Famoudou Konaté, Mein Leben – meine Djembé – meine Kultur, Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen eines afrikanischen Musikers. Herausgegeben von Thomas Ott (2021 Schott Music GmbH & Co. KG. Mainz, Allemagne).
This article gives an account of a workshop on “graphic scores”, which the two authors led in 2018. This account will be accompanied by critical commentaries. The intention here, through this workshop and this article, is to propose an alternative to the normative format of professional meetings in the world of academic research. The aim is to go beyond the simple juxtaposition (and often superimposition) of research presentations, in favor of a more direct exchange issued form collective practices enabling the opening to more substantial debates.
In the realm of artistic research, the professional meetings are today, for many reasons, completely formatted in formulas in ways that favor juxtaposed (or parallel) communication of research projects, at the expense of a real collective work resulting in debates on fundamental issues. The normative format that has slowly become instituted within the framework of these meetings (conferences, seminars) allows all the chosen persons to present their work on the basis of an equal speaking time. To achieve this, a 20-minute presentation time has been imposed in conferences, followed by a 10-minute period for questions form the public. When the number of participants exceeds the time capacity of the entire conference, parallel sessions are organized. This subdivision of time and space tends to favor autonomous groups with particular interests and therefore avoid any confrontation between forms of thought considered as belonging to categorizations that are foreign to each other. Or on the contrary, parallel sessions may involve the description of similar approaches that would have great interest in confronting each other.
The main reason for organizing international conferences in this kind of standard format relates to the usual process for evaluating university research in Anglo-Saxon universities and applied all over the world: “publish or perish”. Participation to prestigious conferences is recognized as a proof of the value of a research project, it gives access, in the best cases, to publications in various journals. Consequently, the personal participation to a conference is conditional on a formal presentation of one’s own research. The currency of exchange has become the line in the academic curriculum vitae.
The time devoted at the end of each presentation to give a voice to the people present in the room, tends to be limited to questions rather than the formulation of a debate, not only because of the lack of time, but also because of the idea that research should be evaluated in terms of proven results. If what is presented is true, it should not be the object of a discussion. The object of discussion might concern the proof itself in the context of power struggles, or throwing some light on what remains unclear, but it doesn’t concern the construction of a debate between the specificity of a research project and its inscription in the complexity of the world. The presentation of problematic issues concerning the subject at hand in a conference is left to prestigious personalities invited, delivered from the height of their long experience, in the initial phase of the “keynote address”. In fact, debates take place during the numerous breaks, meals, at coffee machines, and other non-formal activities, most often in very small groups with common affinities. The elements of debate do not emerge under these conditions as democratic expression that would go deeper than just the informative equal-time round-table.
The format of academic conferences that was just described can be viewed as a practice juxtaposing all kinds of highly relevant information and ensuring interactions between invited people. The research presentations themselves describe pertinent practical and theoretical aspects and at the same time open the way to effective encounters. However, in these times of difficulties concerning transportation due to the climatic crisis and pandemics, you might wonder whether these kinds of information exchange might not be limited to videoconferences. If face-to-face encounters become more and more difficult to organize, then the rare opportunities to meet effectively should open the way to other types of activity, meaning that the focus should be placed on sharing problems that we have to face, in forms of practices that are much more collective and unique compared to the day-to-day routines of each research entity.
At first sight, the idea of a workshop seems appropriate to this program, as it’s linked to the necessity for the members taking part to be effectively present in order to create, through a specific collective practice, something that makes sense and from which theoretical elements can be manipulated. But the usual workshop formulas (as well as that of “masterclasses”) is in principle focused on a practice that is unknown to the participants and which is instilled by those responsible of its animation. Alternatively, you can envision workshop formats in which the agency is only there to allow the emergence of a common practice, and at the same time the emergence of debates around this practice. In this kind of set-up, there is a initial proposition with clear instructions enabling to collectively enter into a practice, then to let happen an alternance between: doing-discussing-inventing new rules, and so on. It’s precisely what we attempted to achieve during the example presented in this article.
The workshop in question took place on March 14, 2018, during the 3rd study day, “seminar-workshop” organized by Frédéric Mathevet and Gérard Pelé, within the sound art and experimental music research group L’Autre musique (Institute ACTE–UMR 8218–Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University–CNRS–Ministry of Culture), under the title of Partition #3 “Donner-ordonner” (Score #3 “Providing-Prescribing” or “Giving-Ordering”). Three study days were organized in the Paris area, during the year 2017-18 with the following intention:
These sessions question the relevance of the notion of “score” in relation to new sound and musical practices and, more broadly, by opening up to all forms of contemporary creation.
Lautremusique.net – Laboratoire lignes de recherche. Partition #3.
The study days resulted in a publication: L’Autre Musique Revue #5 (2020).
It’s in this context that we ran a two-hour workshop, with about twenty participants working in the domains of dance, music and artistic research.
Description of the Dispositif in Place at the Start of the Workshop
The starting situation of the workshop necessitated a particular approach, in order to arrive as quickly as possible at a) a collective practice, b) one that could be continued on the basis of effective participation of the people present, and c) one that could result in debates, bringing out affinities, differences and antagonisms. To achieve these objectives, the initial situation had to meet several requirements:
To be able to describe orally the situation in a few words that would be immediately understood by all.
The situation should define a practice that everyone can do immediately, with no special skills required.
To develop a practice that would be at the center of the seminar’s subject matter – in this case the practice of graphic scores, from the point of view of both their elaboration and their interpretation.
To develop a practice open to questions and problematics, and not as something imposed from the outset as a definitive solution.
Here is the description of the initial situation:
In a single simultaneous movement, to individually produce an action with three coherent elements:
A drawing with a pencil on a sheet of paper.
A gesture that includes the graphic production; a gesture that can start outside the drawing, include the drawing, then continue after the drawing.
A sound sequence produced by the voice or the mouth (the vocal tract).
The action should not exceed three five seconds. The action must be repeatable in exactly in the same configurations.
This action, which combines visual art, music and dance, should be individually thought in a coherent manner as a “signature”. In a way, it defines the singular personality of the person who produces it, it should enable any outsiders to identify an individual.
Each member present reflects for a short time to prepare his or her “signature”. The protagonists are in a circle around a very large table. As soon as everybody is ready, each signature is presented one after another several times. Then an improvisation takes place, with the rule of only being able to reproduce your own signature at a chosen time (and any number of times). The idea of improvisation here is limited the placement of one’s own signature in time. After a while, it’s possible, to begin introducing variations on one’s own signature.
Conduct of the Workshop
The workshop takes place in a seminar room with a large table at its center, with chairs to sit around it, with not much space to circulate or make large body movements.
The workshop starts with an introduction to the PaaLabRes collective, to which the two co-authors are members, and to the general objective of the workshop, which is not, as in a usual workshop, to present an original practice, but is completely turned towards the possibility of a debate on graphic scores emerging from the setting-up of a collective practice. The idea is to be first in a practical situation, and then to discuss it.
The following description is based on the audio recording of the workshop. A few moments are described without the presence of the verbatim. The spoken words have been transcribed as such, and slightly modified when oral expression is not clear or sometimes partly inaudible.[1]
Phase 1
0′:
The initial situation of the “signatures” is orally explained. Among those present, there is some difficulty in understanding that the aim is to realize only a single action with three simultaneous tasks and not three elements separately produced.
P:
“Is this something that’s addressed to others?”
The answer is yes, the signature must also be able to be transmitted.
P:
“Will others be able to reproduce it?”
For the time being it’s not the case, but eventually it should be possible to do it.
Time is given to allow participants to experiment with their signatures. This initial phase lasted 15 minutes (including the general presentation of the workshop).
Phase 2
15′:
The signatures are compared. Each signature is produced twice in a row, and two table rounds took place.
21′:
An improvisation is taking place. The participants are only allowed to produce exactly their own signature. Not anyone else’s. The improvisation is only about placing signatures in time. Participants have to try to place their signature at moments when it can be heard and when it can contribute in some way to what’s happening.
P:
“Can we repeat the signature in a continuous way?”
The answer is yes, but it’s also possible to produce only one fragment of it.
P:
“Does it mean that we are only allowed to do it once?”
No, you can do it as many times as you wish. Each time the signature must be recognizable.
P:
“Do we have to continue doing the gestures?”
Yes, and also the drawing on paper.
P:
“Should we keep the same rhythm, the same tempo?”
Yes, in this first improvisation, after that we’ll see.
23′:
Improvisation 1. Duration: 2’ 41”.
26′ 30”:
Second improvisation proposed by the workshop leaders: now you can make some variations around your own signature, either by changing elements (faster, slower, louder, softer, etc.), or by enriching, ornamenting with other elements.
27′ 30”:
Improvisation 2. Duration: 2’ 25”.
The various drawings produced during the first two improvisations are shown to everyone. It can be observed that these are indeed graphic scores.
A first discussion is proposed.
Pz:
“We can continue to experiment. By exchanging our drawings.”
P:
“By making the sounds of others?”
Pz:
« “We keep one part of our signature, but we play someone else’s score. (…) You have to take at least one part of your signature…”
P:
“You mean with the sound?”
Pz:
“From the other’s signature, you can reinterpret your own signature.”
P:
“You take you own sound, not the sound of the other?”
Pz:
“In fact, you use this score to play your own signature. [Brouhaha] You can change your movement. We’ll draw on top of it.”
P:
I do not draw on her score, I take another piece of paper, because you have to redraw.”
Commentary 1[3]
After the two improvisations with rules determined by the workshop leaders, the only tangible element that you have at disposition are the drawings on paper. The sounds have gone up in smoke and the gestures can be partly identified in the drawings they produced but are also vague elements that linger in memory. In these conditions, the object-paper immediately assumes the form of score, as privileged site of what survive in a stable manner over time. The written score on paper is the locus that determine, in the modernist conception, the presence of an author. Can one find the same attitude in relation to sounds and gestures? It’s not at all certain. At the onset of exchanges of feelings, after the improvisations, one can see that there exists in the workshop a sense of respect for other’s properties: you should not draw on top of the score of another person. The score is sacred, therefore you are not permitted to rewrite over it. The sounds and gestures are not in this cultural circle put on the same degree of intellectual property than what constitutes the immutability of what is written on a score.
In improvisation, There doesn’t to be any prohibition on reproducing exactly what another person is creating, even if it’s impossible to do so with absolute precision . Of course, there is an affirmation of a personal identity in the exchanges during an improvisation, but not to the point of refusing the influences exerted by other participants. You are not in a situation where the exact reproduction of a sound object or a gesture leads to the cultural death of the model. This recalls an anecdote of a trombonist having the project to learn the didjeridoo in an isolated Aboriginal community during the 1970s. The ethnologists told him never to reproduce what he heard of the didjeridoo players’ productions, as it was the equivalent of stealing their soul and taking away their reason for living. In our own practices, we are a long way from that idea.
The notion of the graphic score’s autonomy in relation to any kind of interpretation, linked to the separation between composer and performer, resulted in assuming historically a dual function: a) the graphic score can be considered as an object susceptible to result in a musical performance (or other); or b) it can be exposed in a museum or art gallery as an object belonging to the visual arts. Of course, it could also be both at the same time.
Pz:
“In fact, it’s as if you had a way of interpretating it with your own vocabulary, you perform with your own vocabulary. You just have one syllable, a sound or a gesture, but here you have a graphic score, and it will bring you somewhere else, because it’s not the same [as actual sound or gesture].”
Each piece of paper with a drawing, now becoming a score, is given to the next person on the right.
37′:
Improvisation 3 based on Pz ‘s proposal. Duration 3’.
Phase 3
40′:
On the previous discussion preceding Improvisation 3, a participant had proposed another situation:
Pa:
“Replay the improvisation [just performed] and you have to make the score of the totality [of what you hear]. This is to test the reversibility [hearing to drawing, drawing to hearing]. The [recording of Improvisation 2] will be replayed, and you’ll have to make a score according to what you hear. To replay what we just performed and to draw according to what we hear.”
[Through this process, you can test the reversibility of the signatures: can you identify gestures and drawings in relation to what we hear?]
Pa:
“Draw the score corresponding to the sounds you hear. Inevitably all the sounds at the same time.”
P:
“We draw what we hear, in fact?”
P:
“We draw what we want.”
Pa:
“What you hear.”
P:
We are not obliged to use the codes of what we did?”
Pa:
“No. It’s one of the first course that I’ve given here in 1979, it was called “sensorial approach”, you had to put your hand in a bag, and you had to draw tactilely…”
46’50”:
The recording of Improvisation is replayed and at the same time new graphic productions are made in relation to what is heard.
48’50”:
The new drawings circulate to be seen by everybody. Looking at the graphics gives way to numerous commentaries.
P:
“Can we keep some of them?”
P:
“Who did this one? The star! Oh-la-la!”
Pa:
“The proof is there, I think…”
P:
“The language…”
P:
“Clearly…”
P:
“Why should things be this way…?”
P:
“Are they not?”
The process of reading the scores continues with various comments.
P:
“Here we can really see a beginning and an ending.”
The question of representation of temporal unfolding is raised versus a global representation without beginning and end.
Pn:
« “I didn’t think in terms of timelines,[4] in fact. And it even struck me to see things that had a beginning and an ending… Ah! they do exist!”
JCF:
“It’s the deformation of musicians!”
Pn:
“So, rightly, it was for me a question, because paper was naturally seen as a barrier… So, a spatialized writing… But OK, I had started out on something…”
P:
“You were stuck, why?”
Pn:
“The timeline. In fact, these are processes that maybe could be isolated. To be able to circulate from one to the other, to be able to go backwards.”
Pa:
“There are not many representations that are free of this timeline.”
P:
“Sound is time, after all.”
Pa:
« “Nevertheless, you can find some examples. I’m thinking of the work by T., in which there’s no timeline.”
JCF:
“But that’s not the case with the first improvisation. Experiencing time is completely different. When you improvise and make some gesture, it’s like playing an instrument, there’s no timeline. In fact, the time is now. Therefore, it’s in the reversibility that you find a very different situation.”
Commentary 2
Two questions emerged:
a) You can keep a score, it’s a tangible object of memory.
b) The choice between a representation based on a timeline or a global representation outside time.
On the one hand, graphic representations tend to be considered as objects with a definitive character, which can be preserved if they are judged worthy of preservation. Graphic productions tend to be seen as fixed representations of sounds that are realized over time. The dominant model is that of musical scores, which in Western perspectives constitute the privileged object for identifying a work. And with a time representation that goes from left to right, as in written texts. Under these conditions, any drawing, any image can be considered as a graphic score, on condition that the codes and modes of reading are precisely defined.
On the other hand, an issue arises of a representation based on time unfolding, versus a global representation of all the various elements in play, without beginning or end. There is a recognition that musicians in particular are formatted by the linear representation of sounds in time. There is the constat that the great majority of graphic scores is based on a timeline representation. There are few exceptions that show global forms of representation (as with topographies or cosmologies presenting simultaneously a diversity of elements).
The issue is whether the conception of time represented on a score remains the same in the case of improvised music, sometimes thought as a present that is eternally renewed with no concerns for what just happened and for what’s about to emerge. The question of the reversibility of things depends directly on the presence of a linear visual organization. If only the present moment counts, nothing can be reversed or inverted.
P:
“Is it possible to try – because my brain is formatted – is it possible to do it again, for those who thought in time to be out of time, and for those who thought out of time to be in time? Because I am really formatted, then it interests me to do it without a linear thinking.”
P:
“Yes, the same.” [Everyone speaks at the same time]
JCF:
“The possibility for those who wish to do it with the eyes closed.”
P:
“With the left hand.”
58′:
The recording of Improvisation 3 is replayed to repeat the same exercise with the new rules.
1h. 00′:
The new drawings just produced are passed around again.
1h. 03′:
Discussion opens.
P:
“When I was linear, it really stressed me out. I felt tense, stuck in the line, whereas the first time it was much easier.”
P:
“It wasn’t tense for me, but I found that it produced something different. [The first time corresponded] to how I felt, but it was completely unreadable. Linear representation, it corresponds to something, it’s easier to transmit.”
P:
“So, I said to myself that when it’s not linear, I’m going to listen globally, and I realized that I couldn’t listen globally. As soon as I heard something, I wanted to draw it and I couldn’t be in the totality of the thing, I was drawn in by the details, somewhere there was still some linearity, it’s thus stayed linear.”
P :
“I think that when it’s not linear, you are more inclined to accept easily the fact that in any case your interpretation will be partial and subjective, you mix elements, it’s more pleasant, you let yourself to be taken along.”
P:
“So, I worked in this way, in high-low, and that opened up the space inside. It was really very pleasant to listen and to draw according to pitch.”
JCF:
“I found that you could really be focused on the gesture of what you heard, rather than identifying the sounds. In any case, what strikes me in particular is that in the initial signature, there is really a coherence between the visual, the gesture and the sound, that you find in part in the temporal presentation, but only in part, but that you no longer find at all in the nonlinear representation… You lose the identification of the signatures.”
Pa:
“For example the duration of the sequence: what we’ve just done, what we’ve just heard, we write (describe?) how much time it lasts.”
[Everyone speaks at the same time]
How do we perceive the duration of the recording that has just been played?
P:
“Does it have to be really precise?”
[Brouhaha]
P:
“You’ll be able to verify. We don’t care about checking the time, the question is to know who’s the most accurate. You have to write it down, otherwise we’ll be influencing each other.”
P:
“Let’s write it down.”
On a piece of paper, all participants write the estimate duration of the recording of Improvisation 3. Results: 3’, 3’30”, 1’30” [laughs], 2’41”, 2’27”, 4’, 1’40”,2’… The answer was: 2’.
NS:
“The problem is that we all pretty much agree to think that it starts on the first sound and ends with [he produces a vocal sound]. Except that, in fact, when you said: “What do you hear?”, I’d already started [before listening to the recording of Improvisation 3] . A situation of variation… Then, when do you decide that it starts and when you decide that it ends? You can read a sheet linearly like that as well as like that [paper noises as he rotates the sheets in all possible ways]. Then, after that, you find this one in the street, it’s not at all obvious that it should be read this way or that way. Then, where do you start reading? It’s not at all obvious. In a concert, it’s fairly clear, the light goes down, there’s the thing, here, yes there it is, ah that’s it, it’s starting. And on stage, people relax, ah, it’s finished. There is a real thing about the implicit of the end.
Phase 4
1h. 12′:
One participant proposed making sounds based on the score (signature) of another person.
The proposition is adopted with the following precisions: groups of three are formed to realize in common a single score.
1h. 17′:
Performance of group 1. Duration: 30”.
NS:
“What are the instructions that you gave to yourselves, how did you work at it?”
P(g1):
“We divided the score in four parts. Here you can see that we divided this part [he shows]. 30” there… We agreed on the attacks…”
P(g1):
“Attacks and birds.”
1h. 19′:
Group 2 performance. Duration: 40”. One of the participants recites a text, the other ones produce various noises.
P(g2):
“At first, it’s crap, because we are three and there are approximately four lines. We decided that the fourth line would be a sort of reservoir… (…)”
P(g2):
[In English:] “Sometimes I used the score, sometimes I improvised…”
P(g2):
“So, each of us had a line and a playing mode, and then from time to time we’d pick up on the fourth line, therefore we were improvising…”
P:
“Oh! yeah, organized!”
P:
“You agreed to improvise!”
P:
“I only do that. To each her or his own way!” [Laughs]
Commentary 3
Apart from the ironic tone, which suggests that you should not take spoken words too seriously, we can see that there are difficulties in considering the possibility of middle paths between composition, meaning here that things are fixed prior to the performance, and improvisation, which must remain free of any preparation. This conception may be due to the tendency to consider on-stage the performance as absolute, erasing all the various mediations necessary for it to materialize. Whether the performance be a composition or an improvisation makes no difference, the underhand “tricks” must remain in the backstage, otherwise the mystery of the production presented on stage could suffer. Improvisation in particular, because it implies an absence of preparation of precise events, is often considered not to have resulted from previous events, such as education of the artists, their technical exercising, the elaboration of their own sound or dance style and repertoire of possibilities, their career path, the interactions they may have had in the past with their colleagues, or even the organization of rehearsals.
1h. 21′:
Group 3 performance. Duration: 1’ 04“.
P(g3a):
“We didn’t use any translation. We took the thing as it was.”
JCF:
“Without discussions?”
P(g3a):
“We simplified things, we just said: we have three categories of registers, three types, and then we just read directly.”
1h. 24′:
Group 4 performance. Duration: 1’10”.
P(g4):
“Well, our procedure was just to say that we’ll all start there.” [Laughs]
P(g4):
“I said to myself that it looks like spoken words. In fact, it really was like the writing of a language.”
P(g4):
“Yes, we thought that was the way to do this.”
P(g4):
“I thought of a radio show on Radio Campus Paris…”
P(g4):
“Still, I found this very pleasant to do. I wanted to continue.”
P:
“But you took a score that wasn’t yours.”
P(g4):
“We did it on purpose. We chose not to take our own score despite the instruction.”
P(g4):
“I didn’t see that. I thought it was better for all three of us to be neutral.”
Px:
[Participant outside group 4, the one whose score was used]: “It disturbed me a little, because I had a very precise idea…”
P(g4):
“Therefore it was your score”.
Px:
“Yeah, I didn’t think that you could do things so well. It’s terrible. Because of you I’ll presenting my projects all over the place, and making monumental flops…”
P(g4):
“It’s not just the score, there are also the performers!”
Commentary 4
Here, you are right at the core of the difficulties surrounding graphic scores. Is their principal link in terms of creativity relevant to composition on written scores or to the interpretation of graphisms? Are they really the occasion of negotiation between graphists and interpreters on reading codes or on the limits of their respective roles? If the ball is completely in the camp of the interpretation of scores, left to the world of the instrumentalists, vocalists, sound artists, and dancers (etc.), then any result is acceptable, including any aberrant reading of graphics (for example play “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…”). Graphics don’t count, if you cannot link eventual interpretations to visual signs. In this context, Nelson Goodman (1968, p.188) analyzed a graphic score by John Cage (as part of the Concert for piano and orchestra, 1957-59)) as in no way constituting a notational system, which according to him, should guarantees the ability to recognize a musical work each time it’s being played in relation to the signs present in the original score.
Historically, the composers who were pioneers of graphic scores (notably Earl Brown and Morton Feldman) were not satisfied with the sound results, when their compositions lacked any particular codes that would have obliged the performers to respect them. This happened at the very moment when the performers were not yet able to really understand what was at stake, to really perceive what was expected of them. Later, Cornelius Cardew, while he was himself a performer of his own music and collaborating with many performing musicians, developed a graphic score, Treatise (1963-67) resembling an anthology of graphic signs, an utopian version of a complete freedom left to performers (see paalabres.org, second edition, Treatise region). According to John Tilbury, who was one of the important performers of Treatise, the instrumentalist is faced with a double bind between respecting the codification of signs and improvising by ignoring the written signs. The performer, faced with an absence of codes given by the composer, is in a situation on the one hand of impossibility of being pedantic by assigning for each sound on the score a singular sound (this for 193 pages!) and on the other hand of a moral impossibility to ignore totally the content of the score. Such was the situation of Eddie Prevost who, being completely immersed in the sounds of the music that was unfolding, started to improvise taking less and less account of the visual aspects contain in the score (Tilbury 2008; p. 247).
1h. 27′:
Group 5 performance (by the two workshop leaders). Duration: 1’23”
JCF:
“The idea was to go across the score, to have only whispering, to go across and have a silence before and after.”
NS:
“In fact, we decided to do that, but we’d completely forgotten that here was written a 4’ 15”. So, we had to do that. And after that, I said to myself: well, no… it doesn’t work, then why not make a gesture.”
P:
“But the story of the silence is that you perhaps didn’t read correctly, it was in 4/4 beats.”
Commentary 5
Thanks to this narration, the question of the ownership of what has just been performed is raised. You can detail the “dissemination of author’s right” (Citton, 2014) associated with the latest performances.
Let’s go through the workshop performance’s narrations in reverse order. If you tried to tell things chronologically, how would you determine the beginning? And why at this moment, and not a little earlier?
Here is the account going back in time:
• [Phase 4:] 3 (or 2) people collectively invented to play starting with…
• [Phase 3:] … signs on paper written by a different person, starting from…
• [Phase 2:] … a recording produced by the entire group, starting from…
• … a proposition from one person to experiment a second time, after…
• … discussions and sharing of everyone’s realizations …
• … of a first proposal from another person to represent on paper what
the group just performed, starting from…
• [Phase 1:] … an initial protocol of two people, the workshop leaders, starting from…
• … trial-and-error (with plural multiples) in different situations of this same
idea of protocol…
If you try to list all the instances in which we’ve used this protocol of signatures, it exceeds a dozen situations, and by far the fifty or so people involved in various ways in such experiments. All the proposals expressed have influenced us in determining the content of the workshop of this day of March 2018. It even happened that one of us two was not present to the experiments that took place, but had only a report on them: that’s another form of influence…
This already long journey insists on actions that can be categorized as artistic. But you should also consider, for example: the size and form of the room (organization, architecture), the way the furniture is laid out (according to what occurred beforehand and what will happen after in this room), the circumstances of the lunch break, the style of paper and pens, felt pens, pencils available, the life fragments that each person brings into the room, etc.
After this little narrative-panorama leading to these performances, how to answer the question: to whom do they belong? If you consider this question as interesting, it is certainly extremely complex. But you can also consider this narrative-panorama (and so many others) as blowing up the notion of property rights. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)[5] long ago showed already in detail “How property is impossible” (in 10 propositions, his chapter IV, 2009).
Phase 5
1h. 30′:
Discussion opens.
NS:
“In the questions raised at the beginning, I noted the issue of notation, we haven’t stopped to take notes, we’ve got lots of well-filled papers. I raided my aunt with her old sheets of paper from the 1980’s. I said to myself: I’m going to take that and see what to do with it, but in the end, they all have been used! So, we have shuffled a lot of ideas, in fact it was notation in relation to creation, to interpretation, and so on. Maybe we can go back over what each of us experienced this moment on these things, and then there’s the idea of notation in the “Providing, Prescribing” context, which was the theme of this seminar day. Then, how do you understand the idea of “Providing, Prescribing” in relation to what we did, what each of you have experienced what we have done. Perhaps, we could go round the table, without any obligation to speak. We can dialogue together.
P:
“I’m completely convinced by what we’ve done. My impression is that I don’t have enough hindsight to be able to put the right words on what happened. In fact, many very different things happened. In any case, it was a great moment in terms of time and exchanges. For what is “prescribed”, we all had to sort out what we had, or at least to be obliged to make some choices. We all had to go through the graphics, especially during the last part. In any case, in terms of form, presentation and method, I find it quite convincing. Or it would need perhaps more time for being able to clarify all what just happened.”
P:
“I pass!”
P:
“It’s really cool. The question I have is: how could you go from this kind of experimentation to a creation in the sense of a spectacle, of a public performance? It’s extremely interesting to do, to practice, and I suppose that it gives a lot of matter to experiment with… so that each person can propose things. Then, around this table, there is a number of us who are already used to graphic scores and to their interpretation. I’m wondering how you go from there to turn it into an artwork. And also, about what Frédéric [Mathevet] said about what was good about graphic scores, that it could enable us to take a step on the side when improvising and to invent new things. In fact, I wonder if it really allows to invent new things. Here, in spite of everything, whatever happens, you always end up in the same kind of things…”
Commentary 6
Once again, you must face the ambiguity of meaning in the context of the use of graphic scores, between the presence of a score, which in the Western modernist perspectives constitutes an “artwork”, and the multitude of possible interpretations, which underlines their opening up to experimentation and improvisation. For the participant who has just spoken, experimentation should lead to a definitive artwork before it can be presented on stage. But at the same time, for him, the experimentation in itself seems an attractive activity.
The first question that arises in this context is about the “new”: the value of an artwork is not in the repetition of what already exists, in the plagiarism of scores already written, but in bringing in new elements. In the case of experimentation and improvisation, the concept of the new might be more modest: you are in the presence of micro-variations around already existing elements that are inscribed in a context of immediate collective production. This context is susceptible to generating moments that are not so much conductive to the creation of new perspectives as the creation of constantly renewed situations. So what are the values specifically linked to graphic scores interpretation? Do they not open up a space of freedom, away from the qualitative evaluation considerations of recognized historical artworks and the requirements in play at the level of their performance? In what way are the performances realized during the workshop less valuable than a lot of performances on stage?
The second question concerns the hegemony of the public stage, what we call here “live spectacle”, a highly marked inheritance from what has been developed since the 19th Century. Not only does the existence of a score only make sense if it’s performed on stage, before a public that has access to its publication, but in the case of improvisation, the only intangible element is the performance “on stage”, in presence and in the present, as the only space in which improvising makes sense. But in the case of improvisation, there’s some worry concerning the feeling that the audience isn’t included in the process, that situations should be developed where everyone present is being part of the collective production. Then, the pleasure of experimentation as such can be viewed as an alternative to the stage and to the elaboration of an “artwork”, on condition to find ways to include the public as an active member in the process, and to break out of the logics that separate professionals from amateurs.
Jean-Charles François explains the context in which the initial situation was elaborated:
“Simply, one of the contexts in which we did this, was on the occasion of an encounter between musicians and dancers (2015)17 at the Ramdam near Lyon). The idea of this encounter was to develop common materials between music and dance. Hence that idea of gestures and sounds linked together. Then, one day, a visual artist joined the group. The question was: what could we do to bring him into the game? And so, we developed this situation. In fact, the project was really focused on improvisation, that is developing situations in which common materials could be elaborated to be eventually used in improvisation, over the long term. So, it was done in that context, rather than with the idea of creating a graphic work, to make a piece around graphic situation.”
One participant asks for clarification on the situations developed in this context:
JCF:
“We created a lot of protocols for entering into an improvisation in which dancers and musicians had to do something in common. Then, based on the elaborated materials, we asked them to develop freely in improvisation. We did this over 5 weekends and a certain number of situations were created. The idea of signatures was the first one we used, because it’s a good way to get acquainted with each other, to get to know the people present.”
P:
“Did it produce a lot of variety? Very different things? To what extent? Gestures, sounds?”
NS:
“Today, in the situation of gestures-graphics-sounds signatures, gesture hasn’t been developed much. But at the Ramdam, the dancers helped us to do all these things. Even starting with a table, by the end everybody was playing on the chairs around the table, we were moving around. And what’s interesting, is that they helped us to do things with sounds too, in the sense that danced intelligence, in fact, is already multiple. I tried to do it, but I was limited, attempting to swing, making big gestures, all the while trying to relax a little. And also the question of the specialization between dance and music: when you work on this, precisely with these dancers, the distinction between dancers and musicians is something that doesn’t hold very long, even if there is a path towards music and a path towards dance. Actually, in real life, it doesn’t hold for that long, and all the protocols we did amount to questioning these things on a regular basis.”
P:
And compared to what I said this morning [she had given a paper presentation as part of the seminar], for me, it’s gesture, with the sound you’re talking about. Even Laban really works with sound. When I am speaking, I can notate it in terms of effort, of its pushing: ‘p… p…’; throwing, spitting, hitting, all these are vocal gestures in fact. Then, the story of the pens (and so on), it’s gesture with, even if it’s producing some sound, you can see that there’s a kind of congruence between gestures and sounds. And it’s true that I have the tendency to speak only about gestures. At the same time, it’s great to bring out the sound from the gesture. Here, I loved your last gesture, because it has a sound, a real sound. With the recording, we didn’t see it, but we heard it, in fact it’s a real sound. I think it’s good to talk at the same time of sound and gesture, also because somehow you dissect to produce two materials, which… In the end it’s not indigestible.”
P:
“So, there’s also at stake something of the order of performance. For me performance is something physical, which isn’t played like an actor plays, but which is simply a matter of putting the body into play, and this is a common state that can be found in all kinds of performance. You can have in the sound here, on the effort, you can have a gesture, that on stories, on the abilities of what you can do on a sort of production, such as a movement of the mouth, of the tongue, you produce sound…”
P:
“It makes me think of the difficulties, when working on sound with choreographs, visual artists, people who aren’t musicians, of how to communicate with others. It makes me think of working with a choreograph who said: ‘I want a fresh sound’. In fact, what he meant by fresh sound is not at all what the other is doing. So, by using either the gesture or the sound, you end up with very different images of what a sound is, what a gesture is, and then, all that allows to communicate between artists that are different. You understand things in completely different ways.”
P:
“I went through something similar with some architects, they were talking about a Riclès [a peppermint spirit] image: Riclès, it’s fresh!”
P:
“Chewing gum! What was really interesting for me was something I’d already practiced: to notate, then translate it again, take it again, replay it, all that… But with dance you have many scores like that, where frankly the choreographer comes up with his or her own scores. And then you look at them, and you don’t understand anything. It’s the same today, you don’t understand anything, no matter what it remains abstruse. But for me there, I thought it was a good thing to be able to appropriate a text… Because with the scores of the choreographers, you don’t dare to do it, I don’t dare. Yes, all of us work with scores, but to do anything you want with scores is very interesting. In this case, it interested me to think: ‘yes, of course, it’s unreadable, I don’t know what it is, but I’m doing it’.”
Commentary 7
Here, you have an important element linked to graphic scores: they allow to “do” something, to access a “getting into action”. People in the habit to working from written, visual elements, are often at a loss when it comes to improvising, which means doing without what constitutes the basis on which they function. The score is merely the pretext (text before “the text”) for doing something, putting the emphasis on the “doing something”. The score is the means to get into action, in overcoming the fear resulting from its absence. Once this fear mastered, once the action effective, the graphic score can be thrown away or ignored (see the Group 2 above), as it somehow lost its importance in relation to the action it prompted. Whether the score is “unreadable” is of no importance with regards to the realization of a “doing” that fully assumes all the meaning.
On this issue, it should be noted that graphic scores very often take on their full meaning when it comes to learning improvisation practice. As a pedagogical tool, they provide a convenient transition between the habits of sight-reading scores and doing without any written support in improvisation. As in the case of “sound painting” or gestural conducting of improvisation, this type of teaching practice tends not to liberate those who get into improvisation from the hegemony of the visual over the sonic. The principal difficulty lies not in the pathway from traditionally notated score to graphic score, but with what will take place afterwards, if the aim is to access a situation of oral/aural communication that places the essential emphasis on listening and making sounds (and/or gestures) in improvisation. This applies to the musical realm and might be very different in the dance domain.
P:
“You can allow yourself to interpret without the pressure of the author, to be detached from the issue of the author. Therefore, this could even be done with choreographers. Certainly, we don’t allow ourselves to do that, but it’s something that you should be able to seize, and also in a certain way, if it’s drawn in this way, it should allow you to seize it afterwards. It all depends on the approach taken. If this is transmitted, somehow, you’ll be able to seize it.”
P:
“I don’t know, it’s also designed to create art works.”
Commentary 8
Once again comes back the necessity to create an “artwork”, in order to be able to present something professionally acceptable to an audience. To achieve this, you need to create situations that guarantee the development of practices that are inaccessible to amateurs. Experimentation in collective workshops can be strongly encouraged provided that at a given moment a creative demiurge (term that can be declined in the feminine) will seriously take over by selecting the most interesting moments of the experimentation to produce an artistic object. Those who took part in the experimentation process now play the role of little obedient soldiers.
In the professional world, there’s a lingering tendency to sacralize the one who assumes full artistic responsibility for a collective performance. In the context of this present workshop, it is said concerning this issue, how “allowing yourself to interpret without the pressure of the author” is a delicious transgression, but that cannot be done in the framework of a professional work resulting in a presentation on stage. However, the impression of being completely integrated into the creation process persists, and that’s what can be written in the performance program notice.
These rather ironic comments having been written, then, you can also take seriously the following proposal: can a given practice reach the status of an achieved work of art while respecting the rules of equality and of democracy within a collective, in a co-construction of the final result? Can an experimental process be developed over a long term with a continuity between experimental situations and public presentations? To work in such a context, any determined “method” (of a compositional nature) will not fit. It will be necessary to continually vary the modes of interaction according to the work’s progress, as was particularly the case during the present workshop over a very short time span. The supporting tools cannot be limited to a single situation, as in the following examples: improvisation, writing scores, using audio or video support, images, narratives, charts, defining protocols, and so on. The diverse supports can be summoned along the way of the needs of the collective. Without forgetting to include in the process all the “domestic’ elements linked to the artistic work itself: cooking, housework, children, administrative aspects, relationships with institutions, organization of the space, scheduling, raising funds, etc. Another essential element has to be taken into consideration: it will take much longer for a collective to achieve a satisfactory result, than for a composer or a choreographer working on their own on exclusive plans written down in advance. But complete achievement will undoubtedly remain unattainable, and so will emerge as the salient element of an approach which, as in the case of improvisation, will eternally restart over again and again.
P:
“If it cannot be interpreted, if you’re given something that cannot be interpreted in some way …”
P:
“That’s in this respect that a score is not a gift, it’s not meant to give something.”
P:
“In fact what is given is that moment when, together, in a group, you learn to build your own signs. We’ve determined ourselves our own instructions for use, and thus we’ve built collectively together a reading defined with the people present.”
Pe:
“After all, these are not only signs. We don’t know what a sign is, but according to the things mentioned by Tim Ingold, there wasn’t necessarily something of the order of the sign, there was something practical, which proceeded from movement. You don’t play with the sign, but you replay it, well, you go over it again…”
P:
“… you translate…”
Pe:
“… you have taken the same pathway, then…”
P:
“… it’s a pretext to…”
Pe:
“… a point of entry. And also in relation to what you were saying, about this idea that it could not be interpreted and all that. This being so, there are scores that are virtually unplayable, but when you look at them, they put you in a certain universe. Perhaps, you will not be able to transform them into sound, it’ll remain a purely visual thing, but if you look in detail, you’ll see lots of scores, you’ll be able to imagine things, and after that you’ll be able to play it, it will become worthwhile to play it. Already – in front of details – you say to yourself, this is a music that gives you something. You can also imagine that this music is a drawing. The things by Cage, where the margin for interpretation…”
JCF:
During the 1950-60s, we lived through something like this, that is, a large number of composers producing graphic scores, and they were also very frustrated by the results, because, for example, the performers tended to produce clichés, as nothing was prescribed. A certain frustration could be also found with the performers, because they found themselves in a sort of middle ground, in which you had both the imposition of graphics, but a non-imposition over its interpretation: the performers had to start with a given data that they didn’t choose. It was both imposed, and you had to invent everything. This was the time when performers of contemporary music turned more to improvisation, that is, to completely taking hold of things without the help of a composer. What’s interesting today is the renewed great interest for graphic scores, which has reappeared in recent years – it never disappeared in fact – but maybe in a different context.”
Pg:
“The term of ‘graphic score’ certainly refers to something precise. For me, for example, my scores represent real graphic preoccupations. Besides, I don’t use any score-editing software, I use graphic design software. For example, I take a blank page, and create something graphic, and sometimes I make choices according to a grammar principle, but above all I make a graphic choice so that the eye is satisfied, so as to find an equilibrium, a dynamic, and so on. For me, it’s a highly coded graphic score.”
JCF:
“There’s a book from the 1970s by architect Lawrence, RSVP Cycles (1970), I don’t know if you are familiar with it?”
Pg:
“We’ve talked about it…”
JCF:
“Your approach reminds me of this.”
P:
“I really appreciated this day. With your methodology, you said t we had to physically recognize – or so I didn’t quite understand – we had to recognized each other, I don’t know what the intention behind it was.”
JCF:
“The primary intention was that we didn’t know each other and it’s a mean to…”
P:
“… present ourselves.”
P:
“The signature, in a more physical way…”
JCF:
“Yes that’s it, to get to know each other in a non-verbal way, but well… it was just a beginning…”
P:
“I never done that before. I would like to do it in relation to the experience of walking. And to discuss, to select the sound, what sounds to keep, what sounds will be transmitted. To choose sounds, to be attracted to sounds. In working together, we harmonize things. But in what I’ve experienced, I cannot transcribe all the sounds at once, I have to make choices…”
2h. 00′:
Frédéric Mathevet, organizer: “We take a 15-minute pause. Then, we’ll start again at 4:30 pm, we have the day until 7:00. That’s going to imprint itself in our heads. For the round table.”
[End of recording and workshop]
Conclusion
Within the space of two hours, it was possible to develop real practical situations, already familiar for the people present at the workshop, provoking animated discussions. These discussions focused at the same time on the immediate modalities of the practical situations, on the invention of variations around these situations, and a debate on the aesthetics and ethics that these practices evoked on the spot. From this debate emerged all the major aspects of the problematics linked to the use of graphic scores:
The interpretation of visual objects in dance and music domains, the relationships between ‘creators” (composition, choreography, stage direction, ensemble conducting) and “performers”.
The question of intellectual property of graphic scores
The multiple functions of graphic scores, between artistic production and specific tool within a more general process.
Experimental situations in relation to professional performances on stage.
The meandering nature of experimental situations in relation to the precise elaboration of a definitive “artwork”.
The body presence, providing dual access to dance movements and sound production, enabling to establish meaningful relationships between dance and music in relation to a visual object assimilated to the field of visual arts.
It seems obvious that the fleeting expressions during the discussions could not imply an in-depth analysis of the concepts addressed, nor an immediate awareness of their meaning on the part of everyone present. That’s why it was necessary to take up what was said during the workshop in a series of our own “commentaries”. Interpreting what people said helps us to think but is by no means a way of analyzing or explaining what those persons think or do. The aim of opening a debate arising from a common practice and from the particular history of each participant has been completely achieved. You cannot predict what this first collective approach might have produced if the workshop had been extended over two or three days, but we’re in the presence of fairly promising beginning.
Obviously, all the questions pertaining to graphic scores could not be tackled during the workshop, the debates have not exhausted the issues.
In conclusion, the practical set-up that we’ve just described seems to be a credible alternative to be developed during professional meetings linked to research (notably artistic). The juxtaposition of ideas, research reports, and various communications can be done through teleconferences (synchronic) and other digital tools (asynchronic). As international face-to-face gatherings becomes increasingly a rare occurrence due to climatic and pandemic evolutions, the invention of alternative situations where effective encounters around practices and the debate based on elements developed in common takes place, becomes a very important condition of our artistic and intellectual survival.
1. In this text P= workshop participant. When someone takes the floor several times in a very short time, the identification is P+a letter (Pz for example). The only persons that are identifies by their names are the two workshop leaders: JCF=Jean-Charles François, NS=Nicolas Sidoroff.
2. It should be noted that the papers on which the workshop participants produced their signatures have been lost. The examples given are taken from a similar situation in Budapest in January 2023.
3. The exchanges during the workshop between moments of practice allow to explicit a certain number of elements connected with the situation, and a second phase is necessary to carry further the ideas that are expressed. It’s the function of the commentaries in frame, written after the fact by the two authors.
4. See Tim Ingold (2007, 2011) on the notion of “lines”. As it happens, Tim Ingold was invited to present a paper in the seminar, in the session immediately preceding our workshop.
5. “Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the ‘father of anarchism’.”(wikipedia)
Bibliography
L’Autre Musique revue, #5 Partitions, 2020. See L’Autre Musique.
Cage, John (1957-58). Concert for Piano and Orchestra. Editions Peters, London, New York.
Cardew, Cornelius (1963-67). Treatise. The Gallery Upstairs Press, Buffalo, N. Y. 1967.
Citton, Yves. (2014). /Pour une écologie de l’attention/. Paris : Éd. du Seuil, coll. La couleur des idées.
Goodman, Nelson (1968). Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976.
Halprin, Lawrence (1970) The RSVP cycles: creative processes in the human environment, G. Braziller, 1970.
Ingold, Tim (2007). Lines, A Brief History. Routlege.
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph (2009).
Tilbury, John (2008). Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981), A life Unfinished. Matching Tye, near Harlow, Essex: Copula.
In October 2023, Karine Hahn brilliantly defended her doctoral thesis in sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Science Sociale, on “Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit, Drôme: une autre manière de faire la musique” [“(Re)sonating Practices on the Dieulefit (Drôme) Territory: Another Way of Making Music“.] Karine Hahn is a harpist, sociologist, Director of the “Formation à l’Enseignement » at the Lyon CNSMD, and a member of PaaLabRes collective since its foundation. In the perspectives of this 4th Edition, Karine’s thesis represents a particular important text for its meticulous investigation of everyday musical practices in a specific environment, and their critical analysis. Our intention is to publish large extracts of the thesis in this 4th Edition in serial form.
As a first installment in this process, e are publishing here an extract from the third part of the thesis: “La mise en accord des musiciens avec leur territoire : construire en commun, une expressivité démocratique“ [“Tuning musicians to their territory: building in common, a democratic expressivity”], and more precisely “the Metronome Episode”, a significative moment when one of the an ensemble’s leading members proposes the use of this tool to find a solution to the problems of rhythmic collective accuracy.
Karine Hahn’s thesis is focused on the history and current practices at Dieulefit’s music school, the Caem [Carrefour d’Animation d’Expression Musicale], in existence since 1978, and its inscription in the geopolitical context of the town of Dieulefit, a high-place of resistance, and its surroundings.
In her general introduction, Karine describes the Caem in this way:
This music school, founded in 1978 in the small town of Dieulefit, in the Drôme department, by parents with the wish to “to welcome everyone who wants to come to make music”, was presided at its foundation by Josiane Guyon. (p.2)
The Caem displays a) a commitment for civic engagement based on an awareness of social and cultural inequalities; b) a determination to share with no exclusion; c) an involvement of all partners in the everyday life of the music school; d) an absence of normativity, and the idea of a constant invention of practices. For Karine “what’s intended is (…): to provide a space, instruments, and teaching, to make accessible for all a practice that you have developed yourself” (p. 3).
As part of her research, Karine Hahn decided to join in 2013 one of Caem’s ensembles, the Tapacymbal fanfare [Tapacymbal: phonetically “do you have a cymbal”], “playing flugelhorn for two years, then the small tuba.” The Tapacymbal fanfare is one of around twenty ensembles withing the Caem, part of the music school’s emphasis on “the extremely strong development of collective practices” (p. 108), and an affirmed link between music teaching/learning and the various existing ensembles. Initially Tapacymbal was “a collective workshop for citizen animation” (p. 151), then evolved into a more autonomous status as the “Fanfare Dieulefitoise issue du Caem” [“Dieulefit Fanfare issued from Caem”]. Karine describes its functioning in the following manner:
In Tapacymbal, certain characteristics of a fanfare are clearly present – the importance given to a repertoire implicitly inherited from the “orphéon”[1] coupled with the development of a festive, even carnivalesque dimension. But the musical elaboration is done with other strong characteristics, some shared with other Caem ensembles and pedagogical periods: the presence of conductor is forbidden who might assume an authoritarian role; the importance for all to speak up, both musically and verbally; the handling of musical information by participants; the continual reactivation in new discussions of choices previously made; a focus on rhythmic elements. (p.152)
To introduce the third part of her thesis, Karine proposes to pay attention to the description of “musical moments” in which a way of making sound is collectively fabricated:
The ways of doing things reveal a musicians’ ability to tune into and with their territory, with modalities and according to criteria that are unique to them. The question of the rhythmic setting up offers a particularly dense means of questioning the relationship between the individuation and the collective. Moreover, these musicians are committed to making differences possible by circumscribing them, through their ways of doing things, to something that can take place in their functioning, a form of revendication (in the sense of claim, Laugier, 2004) of their common practice. More generally, the translation, and adjustment operations, the spaces for debates and the circulation of the different musical components create the foundation of a committed musical theory, which creates in the Dieulefit surroundings the conditions for a democratic form of expressivity. (p.42)
The section of the thesis entitled “Metronome Episode” which we publish below, is a particularly interesting example of tensions in the realm of practice between a) multiple levels of ability that exist in a given ensemble that need to be combined; b) a relationship to available tools that varies a lot among members of an ensemble; c) very diverse representations of music in its everyday practice by a group. On this last point, the most obvious tension analyzed by Karine Hahn can be found in the reference music education institutions dominated by “classical” music and the amateur practices more open to a variety of aesthetics that meet the expectations of those who participate in it. Karine, in her simultaneous role deliberately divided between critical investigation of the Tapacymbal fanfare practices and her committed participation in this ensemble, becomes herself one of the people to be observed and analyzed. Her own conception of musical practices (and its application in the case of metronome use) is thus only one of the possible representations within an ensemble in which each person expresses a slightly different point of view.
The object-metronome makes a drastic intrusion in the practice of a group that usually resists rather vehemently any external authoritarian imposition. Its sudden appearance triggers a cluster of contradictory elements, which will be positively resolved in solutions that don’t quite correspond to institutionalized norms. The metronome episode is for Karine a particularly significant moment of the encounter between a theory embodied in an object and its more or less effective influence on the practical solutions it is supposed to incarnate.
Part II: “The Metronome Episode”
Karine Hahn
The scene took place during one of the rehearsals of the Tapacymbal fanfare, in the old college hall, in March 2017. Tapacymbal was working on the rhythmic setting of Sydney Bechet’s Egyptian, in an arrangement proposed by Christian, the band’s clarinet and soprano saxophone player. To put together this piece represents for the group a certain challenge, especially at the level of its rhythmic setting. For a while these rhythmic issues occupied the essential part of the rehearsals. However, for some time then, no new materials or ideas came to me to enrich my analysis, which seems to me to indicate a stability of these ingredients and a saturation of the terrain of my field research. I had already noted that the rhythmic complexity, or the setting of polyrhythms were not impeding either the assertion of musical discourse or the ensemble cohesion. The plurality of the relationships to pulsation and the various attempts to reach a common pulsation had already definitively emerged during the different rehearsals and performances – whether as part of the fanfare’s daily practices, or in other Caem activities, such as the project with Miss Liddl.
But during this rehearsal on the evening of Thursday March 9, after several attempts at playing, “rien ne va plus”. And if this assessment is first expressed in these terms by Vincent, taken on by Helen on snare drum and then by several other musicians, it was also for me, at that moment, that “nothing’s going right”: Vincent, the rehearsal’s referent saxophonist, takes out his portable phone with a downloaded free application of a metronome, announcing by this gesture that a working session with this substitute metronome will take place. And, as we will not be able to hear the sound of this metronome while playing, he plugs it on the bass amp present in the room, after setting it on a table, so that the loudspeaker will be high enough that the musicians could not fail to hear it.
I’m bewildered by this imposition of an object that I considered representative of a music world against which the actors involved in the Dieulefit musical practices seemed to have taken a stand, and therefore suddenly seemed to me to call into question the whole theoretical construct in the process of being stabilized, stemming from my field research analyses. What I considered initially as an “accident” forced me to move once more my gaze, to pursue the inquiry starting with this “metronome” object, to realize that the use of this tool had not necessarily the same significance in Dieulefit, as the one assumed by me. As this “metronome episode” unfolds in front of me, as I observe the musicians with whom I’m experimenting how to play together not reacting as I’d expected while elaborating this piece of music, their common ground, I have to build up a new way of distancing myself once more as a musician-teacher. It requires a form of reflexivity on academic approaches embedded in me, sharpening in a new way my ethnographic concerns. And, once this distancing becomes effective, the “metronome episode” might no longer be one as such, adding a temporal density that makes its use no longer an issue of usage, but of valuation. The analysis proposed here follows the meandering path of my conceptions.
Taking a metronome out during a rehearsal, is it an accident?
Taking out a metronome, even before being used, is an act. It is preceded by Vincent’s declaration that “nothing’s going right”, confirmed and relayed by other musicians, verbally or showing signs of exasperation. In summoning the tool, by taking it out of his pocket, Vincent conveys the fact that the group isn’t playing rhythmically together (or not enough). After having experimented several working modalities, he expresses the need for outside aid – here, a technological accessory. This “metronome scene” is both an event and, taken in its temporal density, an “episode” of the Dieulefit rhythmic issues.
The lack of any negative reactions to this proposal, apart from a few sighs and two or three negative expletives [Oh! no…], in an ensemble accustomed to expressing its opinions almost in continuity with the notes that are being played, underlines the fact that the proposal is approved. Vincent’s initiative is even accompanied by:
Wait a minute, we’ll not hear it… take the amp, there…
Yes, you’re right… we’ll put it on the table, to hear it better… Someone has a cable?
Wait, there, yes, I think there is one in the cupboard.
Here’s a “metronome” application set up on a portable phone, connected to a bass amp: three objects – the phone, the metronome, the bass amp – that refer to different functionalities, uses, and representations. The use of the phone probably changes the representation of the metronome that some or the others have – you can consider, without too much fear of extrapolation, that its characteristic as a familiar and personal object decreases both its authoritarian and school-related dimensions. But this interpretation of mine at the time was not confirmed by what the actors had to say: in ensuing discussions, they always made reference to “the metronome”.
What’s more, the use of the object metronome was associated here to another object on which it is connected, the bass guitar amplifier, that has a different and multiple intentionality. In the fanfare rehearsal room, this amp is used in rehearsals to amplify the bass in popular music groups and in the “bœuf” [jazz jam session] workshop. So, there are also representations in the mind of the fanfare’s musicians that are linked to this use, especially on the side of freedom and creativity, that can counterbalance an authoritarian representation of the metronome. Here too, however, this interpretation refers above all to my own need to minimize the normative dimension of the metronome, both in its use and in the interactions occurring in the situation, so that I can understand how it might fit in.
The metronome object, to keep the focus on this object in the mentioned tryptic, confront you to a bundle of intersecting intentionalities. On the one hand, to what extent the use of the tool, in its primarily school meaning, differs from the way it was initially thought – that is to give to the performers a reference for pulse duration in relation to indications of expressive intents through the tempo, corresponding to the wish of the romantic composer for the performer to be as close as possible to his or her intention (Barbuscia, 2021).[2]. On the other hand, the strong representations linked to the metronome, and the relationships the users have or haven’t to this tool, differ with each of the musicians in presence – which means that they find themselves in different relationships to each other with this object. As for my own relationship to the metronome, as a professional musician observing the situation, while participating in it as an amateur tubist, the metronome is like a “repository of constraint in the world”.[3]
The off-beat uses of this heteronomous tool
The affordance theories (Gibson 1979), by proposing to closely observe what comes from the environment when an agent undertakes an action, enable us to take into consideration the different relationships to an object that various people have in order to envision the potential meanings they might invest. In the environment in which I evolve professionally on a daily basis, the use of the metronome is for me foremost an imposition external to the playing context, that is necessarily normative. As a support object par excellence for primarily a pedagogical practice, the metronome corresponds to a propaedeutic conception of musical teaching. Extremely normative and prescriptive, it’s difficult to escape it.
In addition, the metronome is more than just a working tool, it carries of certain values stemming from the context in which ir appeared. While the regular division of time is a culturally recent phenomenon[4], in music, the metronome instigates, as early as 1815, an equal relationship in musical time, which presupposes that you can divide it in a regular manner, creating the “illusion of objectivity in music” (Barbuscia, 2012, p.54). The use of the metronome soon imposed itself. “Promoted by composers as the only efficient ‘remedy’[5] to a default that the musical art had never been able to obviate, the metronome passed, without any difficulty or intermediary phase, from an accessory making a few happy to the indispensable object of any musical practice” (Ibid., p.58). This is consistent with a very strong rationalization of practices, notably towards republican equality – the revolutionary project of the Paris Conservatoire (Hondré, 2002). Equal beats organize the music. The metronome is then the egalitarian instrument par excellence: it is the physical proclamation of political equality. At the same time, it posits a relation to values: you must be with the metronome, assimilating the rhythmically normative performance to a moral issue. Aurélie Barbuscia also underlines the dimension of control conveyed by the instrument (Barbuscia, 2012, p. 63),[6] developing the idea that transgression can be found among the professionals (Ibid., p.67), as a mark of distinction, while amateurs and beginners must remain within the respect of a norm.
While my relationship to this tool is necessarily built with this background,[7] the other musicians in Tapacymbal don’t belong to the same environment, or not exclusively. They potentially refer to other kinds of metronome use, some of them considering it as a simple tool. Of course, the tool, necessarily normative because it is institutional, prescribes a certain use. The action aimed by its use is indeed, in all the different cases, to work towards achieving a common rhythm. But the way in which the actors use it, precisely in the choosing when to produce their sound in relation to the proposed beat, doesn’t necessarily fabricate the same meaning from one ensemble of musicians to another. While globally the use is the same, its application differs, and the valuation is not the same.
The percussionists here consider the metronome as a propaedeutic object, a tool on which to rely, but less for themselves than for others. Jean-Louis, on the bass drum, often mentions the fact that he must “play the role of a metronome”, similar to the measuring stick[8] that this new tool partially replaces, while waiting for Hélène, at the snare drum, to “gain in stability”, so that he could “drop this role and enjoy a bit more”. In this case, the physical metronome replaces the snare drum and the bass drum, allowing these musicians to concentrate on other musical aspects. Likewise, Vincent, in a deadlock over the working methods to play the piece, proposes a tool he hopes to lean on, in the sense that the other musicians will potentially be able to take reference from it. But unlike the percussionists, this doesn’t allow him for all that to turn his musical attention on other things: the focus then is on appraising whether or not the musicians are in sync with this external reference. Vincent, who as the fanfare referent feels particularly concerned by the choices of working methods, finds himself in a new, self-created constraint. While he practically never plays the role of timekeeper for the group, by bringing this telephone-metronome, this object forces him to be the referent appraising whether or not the musicians correctly play the impacts of the beats at the same time with it.
But in fact, it’s not the way it works. For most of the instrumentalists present, their use of the metronome is neither on the side of the normative imposition of an off-the-ground pulsation, nor on the side of a tool proposing a reference for playing in homorhythm. When the group begins to work with the metronome, all the fanfare musicians concentrate in a new way on rhythmic issues, and, after about half an hour of constant trial and error with the metronome, they succeed in playing together on a common pulsation, but not with the metronome pulsation that continues its regular scansion beats out of the bass amp. Here, the musicians use the metronome to find their own way of playing this new piece rhythmically together – the application isn’t uniquely set in motion as a “make believe” of playing with a metronome.[9] But they use it as a mediation tool, an external reference that helps them to focus on rhythmic issues, letting of course it play its role to the full, but in a certain way out of sync with the imposed norm – in a certain way that doesn’t stick to the metronome pulse, and without aiming to do so. The metronome thus has the same significance for action than in the institutional framework of a music class or an ensemble rehearsal – that is to help with rhythmic accuracy, eventually within an ensemble. And at the same time, it will be used to avoid using it. The valuation they attribute to the object and to what it enables them to do is different from that attributed to this object in a normative framework.
Thus, the use of the metronome, if prescribed by the object, doesn’t indicate the status and the power, the powers, granted to it – the metronome, conductor or reference point, the tool allowing to work towards being collectively with its beats, or to find a common pulse, eventually aside from the metronomic pulse. It undoubtedly doesn’t have the same significance for all the musicians present, and it can be considered as one of the playing and interacting spaces in-between the musical Dieulefit practices and the “under-layer” of the musical institutionalized practices on the national territory. This metronome implies different types of musical conceptions, which are as many constraints that are then discussed and negotiated in situation.
The Agency of the Metronome
The metronome, with its various intentionalities it carries here, is therefore also an object that makes people do something. This tool is mobilized for its intended purpose (to provide a fixed and repeated reference point of time divisions), it also has a power of agency, a capacity to generate one or more actions.[10] By replacing the bass drum musician, the metronome assumes the function of a person. A unique and collective reference point, chiming a regular pulse from which the musicians cannot escape, the object becomes a form of embodiment of a conductor – but referring to a figure of the conductor who would act like this object, only “beating time”,[11] even as this figure of a conductor is rejected. This leads during the rehearsal time to a form of double bind, to which the musicians will have to resolve, through their playing, and particularly through their discussions. The metronome is thus able to “make the musicians to do something”, to incite them to find solutions for playing together rhythmic settings. Here, it is accepted as mediation enabling of “finding a collective pulsation”, that will allow the musicians to play during perambulation, while at the same time not appearing as an authoritarian figure who would oblige the musicians to be at the same time with the metronome.
The object-metronome, during this Tapacymbal rehearsal, also makes people do something other than just repeating the same musical phrases attempting to get as close as possible to the amplified pulsation and/or to a common pulse. On the one hand, it triggers some sense of humor, which is both a safeguard and a sign of a possible drift that shouldn’t be overlooked, particularly that of the military band marching beat. In this way, Christian comments the starts of each playing sequence with the metronome by “Ein, zwei, drei, vier!”, a trait he reinforces when the musicians succeed in playing rhythmically together by calling out “Third Reich!” Christian is beside me, the most professionalized of the musicians present, having played in improvisation collectives, and perhaps because of that, the one for whom this tool most embodies the figure of the authoritarian conductor. But during the rehearsal break, in discussing the metronome, he insists, still with the tone of a joke, that “even so, it does allow you to play with each other…” These humoristic touches symbolically mobilize a particularly evocative universe for the Dieulefit residents. The form of saying marks a limit or a vigilance. It indicates that emerges a form of relationships to rhythmic accuracy that can be interpreted differently from the meaning intended by the musicians present at this rehearsal. They can be analyzed as a regulator of the use of the object metronome. On the other hand, the use of the metronome provokes a debate: it triggers a discussion that initially took place during the rehearsal break, and then continued into a collective debate at Vincent’s home, with the quasi-totality of the musicians.
Internal Time and External Time
[During the rehearsal break, in the same room.]
Vincent [reacting to a remark by a musician that I didn’t hear]: And the metronome, among other things, allows you to… to… it’s the thing that we all have experienced, you plug in the metronome and you have the impression that it’s irregular.
Luc : hum hum, yes, …
Vincent : Because we’ve integrated, we’ve integrated a regularity in relation to what we felt, and we have to adapt this regularity to the others.
Christian : Sometimes it’s the fault of the batteries too… [Laughs]
Cathie : Which means that the metronome, it’s completely inhuman…
Vincent : It’s inhuman, but makes you aware of your perception of time, and of the fact that it’s not always exactly the same as those you’re playing with. All the discussions where you say “but it’s you who’s speeding, but no it’s you, it’s you who’s irregular, but no it’s you”, it’s just the work to achieve a time perception that would be the same at a given moment. And after all, to make music, it’s just to get into the same irregularity. We don’t give a damn about the metronome. Except that it’s the tool that allows us to become aware of this.
Christian [slightly ironically, now getting out of his other parallel conversation]: but it even allows you to play with others…”
Vincent, who develops in his musical practice a strong reflexivity, is particularly interested in this kind of exchanges. The question of an individual perception of time, in relation to a metronomic reference perceived as fluctuating and plural, according to individuals, is a subject that motivates him and that he has already discussed outside the Tapacymbal context. It can also be interpreted in the light of the tension noted by Alfred Schütz (2006 [1984]) between internal time and external time, and the forms of communication created by the fact of playing together – a musician facing a work, or potentially a group of musicians:
In our problematic, it is essential to have a better understanding of the time dimension in which music takes place. […] [I]nternal time, the duration, is the very form of music’s existence. Of course, playing an instrument, listening to a record, reading a page of music, all these events take place in an external time, the time that you can measure with metronomes and clocks with which the musician “counts” to ensure the right “tempo”. […] [W]e consider internal time to be the very vehicle where the musical flow takes place. One can measure external time; there are minutes and hours, and the length of the sound grooves that the phonograph needle has to travel. There is not such measure for the dimension of internal time in which the listener live; there is no equivalence between its parts, if there are parts. (p.23)
“To make music, it’s just to get into the same irregularity” is an answer to this tension.[12] Observing musicians “making music together” then consists in identifying how the flows of internal times are linked, and how their synchronization (including in a choice of heterochrony) is ordered in a external, common time.
Alfred Shütz:
It seems to me that all possible communication presupposes a relationship of “syntony” between the one who makes the communication and the receptor of communication. This relationship is achieved through the reciprocal distribution of the experience unfolding in the internal time of the Other, through the experience of a very strong live present shared together, through the experience of this proximity in the form of an “We”. (p.27)
The Situation of Rhythmic Work Confronted to the Sculpture
of a “Soft Metronome”
After the rehearsal, the discussion continues over a drink in Vincent’s home, which is also the site of his carpentry workshop. On the upright piano, at the entrance to the living room, near some objects and an open black mechanical metronome, there is a solid wooden sculpture that represents a mechanical that seems to have the same characteristics as Dali’s “soft watches”[13] — a kind of “soft metronome”, in proportions quite similar to a traditional metronome, with a larger base. This artistic object that diverts a mechanical object, and which a certain number of the fanfare musicians know well as they fairly regularly pay a visit to Vincent, also possesses a certain agency: the capacity to propose a re-reading of the metronome, of which it is a subversive representation, just after a rehearsal animated with this tool by the one who owns and displays this sculpture to the view of all the invited fanfare musicians. This diversion repositions the metronome as an object and not any more as a tool – a parallel that could be drawn to the telephone, which, during the rehearsal, was diverted into a metronome, shifting it then from object to tool. Above all, this representation of a soft metronome, that evokes an improbable beat, necessarily irregular and nonchalant, out of time, and at the same time frozen in its fluctuating movement in wood, brings about a subversive dimension to the object it diverts.
In the moment of this discussion during the “coup à boire” at Vincent’s, this object doesn’t arouse much reaction, perhaps because it’s already familiar to most of the musicians. It’s also in a part of the living room a little set back from where we’re sitting. When, moving over, I discover it and exclaim, in an already high sound level ambiance, only a few react, and these interventions are relayed only by laughter – Vincent’s in particular, who quickly returns to his discussion:
Valérie: “Yes, yes, I know it!”,
Christian: “No wonder we can’t play in rhythm!”
Benjamin: “Hey, say, Vincent, that’s the one you should bring to rehearsal!”
Like Christian’s jokes, the display of this “soft metronome” can perhaps be read as an adjustment that enables the mobilization of the metronome object, but with a shift, leading either to not taking it seriously, or to breaking down rigid representations that are frequently assigned to it, and enter into dissonance with the Dieulefit “common higher principles”.
Thus, what the metronome makes the Dieulefit fanfare do is 1) a common work on pulsation, allowing them to “get into the same irregularity”; 2) some humor, ensuring an adjustment between what the tool imposes and its use in the Tapacymbal context (strolling together, yes, marching in step together, no); 3) a deflection of its tool dimension into an artistic object; 4) a collective discussion on what is to feel a tempo and search together a common pulsation. Besides, two characteristics of the way of making music in Dieulefit, already encountered, emerge strongly from this situation. On the one hand, discussion and debate are essential and constitutive procedures in the construction of musicality. On the other hand, even in this very constrained and situated rehearsal situation, facing a metronome, a heteronomous tool par excellence, and as the objective is to create some common ground, the relationships to the object, as well as what its use provokes, are as heterogeneous as the musical forms present in the Dieulefit territory.
Part III : Reaching Agreement in and through Musical Practices,
within a Territory
Metronome Gap Made Possible
So, at the Dieulefit fanfare, this metronome may be for some musicians “just a metronome”, for others it’s at the same time a normative object, a tool it would be a pity to do without, the possibility of a working method among others, an object that can be associated with other ones, and even deflected and subverted. If it is used here, it’s because it doesn’t represent a danger in the eyes of the musicians – who know how to protect themselves from the metronome “fateful consequence[s]” developed by Jacques Bouët (Bouët 2011).[14]
For all that, the use of the metronome, in the situation described above, can also by read as a gap between what engenders adhesion reactions, that is to do what Vincent proposes, and even to help him in making his proposal possible, and to realize that in a certain manner. The collective creates the possibility of this gap by circumscribing it, through their manners of doing, to something that can take place in their functioning. Group playing, humor, definition of limits, discussion and debate mark the refusal to consider the metronome as the ultimate referent and reduce it to what it also is: an object and a tool enabling a form of experimentation.
Coordinating and Adjusting to Create a Common Ground in the Dieulefit Surroundings
In Dieulefit, the issue of “reaching an agreement” among musicians appears to be really central. It’s done in ways, and according to criteria, that are specific to the actors involved in these practices. The desire of “reaching agreement” between musicians to play together cannot be taken for granted. While it can be considered as a musical necessity arising from the musical contexts played, or as a social evidence in certain contexts of normative practices, some collectives defend playing contexts that allow for an absence of reaching agreement, at least prior to periods of common artistic practices.[15] Moreover, the way Tapacymbal operates that makes it possible to join a group before knowing how to play, or to perform an instrumental solo without having mastered its rhythmic framework, indicates that its neither the musical stakes of the repertoires played, nor the norms implicit in group formats, that animate this desire of “reaching an agreement”, to find an adjusted manner of practicing music in Dieulefit.
My hypothesis is that musicians here decide to reach agreement, and on what they might agree, not only according to the modalities that fit them, but according to the ones that enable them to put into practice and to nurture “what they hold on to” and “that hold them on” (Bidet & al. [Dewey], 2011). These practices participate notably to give substance to some “common higher principles” identified in this article as the manners of making the Caem, Tapacymbal, the Festival 4th Résonnants, and which can also be found in spheres other than musical, particularly in the Dieulefit residents’ relationship to history, and in a few various tales told here and there. Reaching agreement among musicians is therefore done in and with their territory. The choice on which the musicians coordinate together to create a common ground, the modalities of adjustment, debate and circulation, are a way of building a territory of the music of Dieulefit surroundings, while at the same time fabricating some musical practices.
A Choice of Observation of Actions that are Situated, but taken in a Temporal Density
What remains to be seen, then, as close as possible to musical fabrication, is how and what is at play in this agreeing process among musicians as they construct their music. The profusion of musical practices in Dieulefit, paired with a terrain that developed over several years, provides a very dense analytical material that I treated in the two first parts of this thesis. Because this way of reaching agreement is depends on actions that are situated (Ogien & Quéré, 2005), but situated in dense temporal layers, this third part draws on situations that are described and then analyzed as events chosen among other possible actions, because identified at the end of my analyses as characteristic to the ways of making music in this territory.
Let’s pause for a moment to consider the temporal density of situated actions. Each situation, very closely observed, reveals “events” – as for example the fact of taking out a metronome. The metronome is an event in relation to my observations, because from where I stand in the understanding of how the group functions at this precise moment, coupled at the same time with the density of my representations of the tool, the metronome is for me unexpected, out of step with the identified and expected ways of doing things. While working on the rhythm has been a constant feature of the fanfare at least since I joined it, the first approaches to rhythmic work methods were far from the normativity of this tool. During my first interview with Jean, before joining the fanfare, told me[16] how he and his drummer friend Nico had spent at least one hour with Dédé to turn around an iron barrel hammering in rhythm, getting this trumpetist to feel the rhythmic turn that he had to play in Libertango.
Bringing out the metronome in a rehearsal is also an event, because it can be identified as triggering certain actions. Bringing it out during rehearsals is not part of the group’s habits, and the gap with the normal proceedings provokes exchanges that are themselves transformed. But rhythmic preoccupations on the one hand, and discussions on musical preoccupations on the other hand, are part of Tapacymbal usual way of doing things. To analyze the scene with the metronome as an “episode” is therefore above all a construction of the onlooker, due in part to the constitution of my own eye, to the intermittence of the ethnographic eye, and to the form of the setting of the enigma. But this reading of events is articulated with a very thick temporal density, brought to light by at the same time the duration of the field survey, the diversity of the contexts in play I was able to observe, and the indices that really occurred during the rehearsals.
So, whether it’s Egyptian, whcih Tapacymbal has been working on for a few months, here with the help of the metronome, or even more so Oye Como va, which the fanfare has been playing for several years, and which was often experienced in concert situations, the rhythmic issues have been structuring the rehearsals since their first reading. Moreover, the pieces are constantly revisited, with a concern for finding together a common rhythm that is constantly retried and tested. Likewise, the Thursday night’s rehearsals only show intermittently the musical practice of the Tapacymbal’s instrumentalists. The playing time between rehearsals, that varies a lot from one instrumentalist to another, can be very substantial – the working session at Valérie’s home, described in the first part of the thesis, shows that there are procedures in operation that only take place during this actual time, and impact the playing during collective rehearsal. In another rehearsal, Christian addresses the group to suggest a rhythmic element that had not been identified on the score, because he feels he can do so in view of the way the ensemble is playing the piece: a manner of playing that “functions” becomes a problem because he feels it’s possible to institute it as such. In these situations of synchronization, the issue of listening is central – both for the musicians playing, and for the description that can be made of them in observation situation (Weeks, 1996).
Here, the process of reaching agreement among musicians in and with their territory is negotiated for the most part around rhythmic adjustments, in situations that were transcribed and analyzed in the first part of this article. These rhythmic adjustments produce something other than a simple rhythmic set-up. They say something of the relation to a norm, to some outside references, whether or not carried by a conductor. Apart from the fact that these musicians consider the musical parameters in the way they interact (the flutist in Miss Liddl changes the attack of a note, then its pitch to match what is rhythmically expected), the rhythmic question, like the metronome, is solved in such a way as to allow for discussions and circulations and the possibility of a strolling that draws the audience into this process of reaching agreement.
Moreover, the process of reaching agreement through musical practice with and within its territory is achieved here through circulations – of musical elements, of roles, of voices – and through translation operations and adjustments, so that each voice counts and can be heard, carried, claimed (in the sense of claim, Laugier 2004), and participate in the common way of doing things. Some of these operations are described in the second part of the thesis, the analysis of which has made possible to throw some light on these ways of doing. The analysis of these musical practices shows that these ways of doing things concern and are supported by a committed music theory, which creates in the Dieulefit surroundings the conditions and the sound of democratic forms of expressivity.
Conclusion
(Extracts from “In Conclusion – Renewing One’s View to a Situation of Rehearsal”, p. 397)
To understand Tapacymbal through the logic of Dewey’s inquiry enables to consolidate us in our view of musical practices as an opportunity for investigations and experimentations, as instrumentalists, at the same time, fabricate music in ways they define in the course of their practice. Here, the constant problematization puts musical constructions back into play on a daily basis. Ways of coordinating and adjusting are elaborated in such a manner that plurality is guaranteed and visible, thus working through music on meanings that are what the musicians hold on to, and what holds them.
Observing and analyzing the implementation of Tapacymbal practices while participating in them, led me in the second part of the thesis to consider the actors of the Dieulefit’s musical practices as a community of investigators. The constitutive elements of their way of doing things, identified at the time, can be found here in the very precise forms of musical constructs, caught up in very dense temporal thicknesses. The way they are committed in structuring their music school, their ensembles and the festival, is also constitutive of their musical practices, and at the same time reinforce them. To identify these manners of doing things in closely observed musical practices, at the core of the fabrication of music wasn’t immediate, and referring to Dewey allowed me to strengthen an intuition that could not easily get rid of a reading of the situation as a simple problem of rhythmic setting up[17]. Thus, the duration and recurrence of my participation to Tapacymbal’s rehearsals and performances enabled me to consider anew these ways of doing things and their meaning, especially as I saw questions that, as a musician in the ensemble, seemed to me settled, being constantly brought back into play opening up new lines of investigation – something I wouldn’t have been able to identify in a shorter time span. The difficulty in sharpening my eye mainly resided in the strength of the highly integrated rhythmic isochrone approach, which constituted a screen for listening to rhythm other than in relation to a normative reference, with time sliced in isochrone pulsations. While this didn’t prevent me from thinking beyond various time organizations, as in this case by patterns and polyrhythms, nor from theoretically making it possible to consider them otherwise, it remain for a long time in my feelings and in my playing, and therefore in my listening, a background that was difficult to ignore, and I had to draw on my musician’s experiences to get rid of it. (…)
This music-social isochrone representation doesn’t only correspond here to my musician’s profile trained in specialized music education institutions: it’s also effective within Tapacymbal, as constitutive of one part of their repertoire. But it’s only one of several conceptions at work. A clearly differentiated practice would undoubtedly have obliged, and therefore allowed, to find other ways of observing rhythmic issues.
The idea there was to both listen with an isochronous approach, partly constitutive of the practices, and to construct the hypothesis that these musicians perhaps also had other manners of considering their own rhythmic set-up, opening ways to other kinds of listening. The “metronome episode” was in this sense a turning point[18] in my own investigation, leading me to consider that isochronous, or even heteronomous, pulsation was for these fanfare musicians one way among others to envision rhythmic issues, but that, with safeguards in place, it didn’t exclude other ways of doing things and should therefore be considered in the midst of a plurality. What I read as a double infringement of the technical object, that is summoning the metronome when nobody is forcing them to use it, and not to obey to the regularity of the metronome even though they do use it, is a form of hijacking of the object and appropriation of the tool.
1. In France, “orphéon” originated at the beginning of the 19th Century, in the form of workers’ choral ensembles. It gave rise later to local brass bands.
2. The following development is largely based on Aurélie Barbuscia’s article, “la pratique musicale, entre l’art et la mécanique. Les effets du métronome sur le champ musical du XIXe siècle” [Musical practice, between art and mechanics. The effects of the metronome on the musical domain during the 19th century.], Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, n°45, 2012.
3. Quoted by Gaspard Salatko, seminar Dynamique de la culture & anthropologie des activités artistiques et patrimoniales on the issue of « Agency in questions », co-animated by Emmanuel Pedler and Gaspard Salatko, Centre Norbert Elias, EHESS Marseille, February 25, 2021.
4. The rationalization and the levelling of time relations exceed the sole musical issues, which is imbedded in a global movement of society. Notably, the decimalization time units dates from the end of the 18th Century (Souchier, 2019), and fifty years after, the rail traffic implement the first unifications of timetables (Baillaud, 2006). But the fact that musical practices were very quickly influenced by this movement is not insignificant.
5. Report written in 1815 by Henri Montant Berton, member of the music section of the Académie Française, quoted by Barbuscia, 2012, p.58
6. « The subject-creator ambitions to reinforce his control over the very manner to interpret his work, by increasingly exerting his authority over the performer, who is invited to restitute as closely as possible his original intentions.” (Barbuscia, 2012, p. 63; see also Menger, 2010).
7. On the one hand, this background involves a form of unconsciousness among musicians – in the sense of a practice so integrated that it achieves the status of evidence for the musicians who convene this support object as soon as a rhythmic issue is raised. On the other hand, it contains a form of necessary conscientization – a relationship to rhythm and pulsation, built with a logic corresponding to that of the metronome, being indispensable during the academic studies.
8. It is indeed the object “metronome” that Jean-Louis invokes here – an object that seems here to have obliterated the other models of reference – cf. infra the development at the end of the chapter.
9. This refers to certain uses of scores and parts, discussed in the chapter on the fanfare, where certain musicians who cannot decipher the musical codes written on the score or part declare that they need them in order to play (Cheyronnaud, 1984).
10. This analysis is based on the seminar Dynamique de la culture & anthropologie des activités artistiques et patrimoniales on the issue of « Agency in questions », co-animated by Emmanuel Pedler and Gaspard Salatko, Centre Norbert Elias, EHESS Marseille, February 25, 2021.
11. The composer Hector Berlioz proposed such an image of the conductor in its short story Euphonia, “a utopia that describes a city completely devoted to music, thanks to the benefits of a ‘despotic’ government” (Buch, 2002, p. 1006): “An ingenious mechanism that could have been found five or six centuries earlier, if you had taken the trouble to look for it, and which endures the impulse of the movements of the conductor without being visible to the audience, marking, in front of the eyes of each performer, and very close to him, the beats of the measure, also indicating in a very precise manner the various degrees of forte or piano.” Hector Berlioz, “Euphoria ou la vie musicale”, Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, 11-17, April 28, 1844, pp.146-147. Buch (2002, p.1007) gives the precision that « this text was reprinted by Berlioz, with slight modifications, in Les soirées de l’orchestre; you can find a separated edition in Editions Ombres, Toulouse, 1992.”
12. Vincent’s conclusion that “To make music, it’s just to get into the same irregularity. We don’t give a damn about the metronome” can also be read more simply as a form of response to the double constraint he imposed on the group when he took out his phone with this application. Vincent didn’t anticipate that, with this tool, the group would succeed to find a common pulse but not exactly with the metronome – and he’d doubtlessly have trouble, like me, to determine precisely why the group succeeded to stabilize in this way. Once the goal attained, he drops the tool, even if the tool itself hasn’t been used in an expected and normative manner: what matters now is to be able to play this piece together in a common rhythm, for strolling.
13. « The surrealist oil-on-canvas by Salvatore Dali, La persistence de la mémoire (The Persistence of Memory), painted in 1931, represents liquefying watches, playing with the contrast rigidity/passage of time, a preoccupation of the artist as intimate as it was linked to the questioning of modern physics (Dali, 1951).
14. « This ingenious marriage between physical time and musical time arranged by Maëtzel [in reality invented by Winkel (Barbuscia, 2012)] was a little forced. In fact, it had a fateful consequence that the homo metronomicus is no longer aware nowadays: the irregular pulsation oscillations were excluded from musical time, except in rubato and the like. (Bouët, 2011). Brouët’s thesis of “recovered pulsations [… from] before the metronome era” is developed further in the analysis of working on rhythm.
15. I think in particular of the “Voice, Music Body” encounters animated by Giacomo Spica Capobianco – even if it could be argued that participation in such encounters is already a form a prior agreement. See the article « Creative Nomad Creation » in the present PaaLabRes Edition
16. This part of the interview is recounted in the third section of the first part of the thesis concerning Tapacymbal, when Jean tells me about the instrumentalists of the ensemble before I joined the group.
17. It’s also a problem of rhythmic set-up, but to consider it only on this angle doesn’t allow to see what is otherwise at play, and the way it is being played.
18. It’s why I kept this title to emphasize a way of “setting the enigma” of my thesis
Quoted Publications
Barbuscia Aurélie, 2012, « La pratique musicale, entre l’art et la mécanique. Les effets du métronome sur le champ musical au XIXe siècle », Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, n°45, pp. 53 – 68.
Baillaud Lucien, 2006, « Les chemins de fer et l’heure égale », Revue d’histoire des chemins de fer n°35, pp. 25 – 40.
Bidet Alexandra, Louis Quéré et Gérôme Truc, 2011, « Ce à quoi nous tenons. Dewey et la formation des valeurs », in John Dewey, La formation des valeurs, Paris, La Découverte, pp. 5 – 64.
Bouët Jacques, 1997, « Pulsations retrouvées. Les outils de la réalisation rythmique avant l’ère du métronome », Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie, n°10, pp. 107 – 125.
Buch Esteban, 2002, « Le chef d’orchestre : pratiques de l’autorité et métaphores politiques », Annales. Histoires, Sciences sociales, n°4, pp. 1001 – 1028.
Cheyronnaud Jacques, 1984, « Musique et Institutions au village », Ethnologie française, n°3, pp. 265 – 280.
Gibson James, 1979, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company.
Emmanuel Hondré, 2002, La Marseillaise, Éditions Art et culture.
Menger Pierre-Michel, 2010, « Le travail à l’œuvre. Enquête sur l’autorité contingente du créateur dans l’art lyrique », Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Éditions de l’EHESS, pp. 743 – 786.
Quéré Louis et Albert Ogien, 2005, Le vocabulaire de la sociologie de l’action, Paris, Ellipses.
Schütz Alfred, 2006 [1951], « Faire la musique ensemble. Une étude des rapports sociaux », Sociétés, n°93 pp. 15 – 28.
Weeks Peter, 1996, « Synchrony lost, synchrony regained: The achievement of musical co-ordination », Human Studies n°19. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Netherlands, pp. 199 – 228.
Extrait de la Partie III de sa thèse de doctorat
« Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit, Drôme :
une autre manière de faire la musique »
2023
En octobre 2023, Karine Hahn a soutenu brillamment une thèse de doctorat en sociologie à l’École des Hautes Études en Science Sociale, portant sur « Les pratiques (ré)sonnantes du territoire de Dieulefit, Drôme : une autre manière de faire la musique ». Karine Hahn est une harpiste, sociologue, directrice de la Formation à l’Enseignement de la Musique au CNSMD de Lyon et membre depuis sa fondation du collectif PaaLabRes. La thèse de Karine est particulièrement importante pour PaaLabRes, par son enquête minutieuse sur les pratiques musicales au quotidien dans un environnement spécifique et sur leur analyse critique. Notre intention est de publier de larges extraits de cette thèse dans la quatrième édition, sous la forme d’un feuilleton.
En guise de première livraison dans ce processus, nous publions ici un extrait de la troisième partie de cette thèse (« La mise en accord des musiciens avec leur territoire : construire en commun, une expressivité démocratique »), et plus précisément « l’épisode du métronome », un moment significatif où l’un des membres importants de l’ensemble propose l’utilisation de cet outil en vue de trouver une solution à des problèmes de mise en place rythmique.
La thèse de Karine Hahn est centrée sur l’histoire et les pratiques actuelles de l’école de musique de Dieulefit, le Caem, Carrefour d’Animation d’Expression Musicale, en existence depuis 1978 et de son inscription dans le contexte géopolitique de la ville de Dieulefit, haut-lieu de résistance, et de ses environs.
Dans son Introduction générale, Karine décrit le Caem dans ces termes :
Cette école de musique, créée en 1978 dans la petite ville de Dieulefit, dans la Drôme, par des parents ayant la volonté « d’accueillir tous ceux qui veulent venir faire de la musique », est présidée à sa fondation par Josiane Guyon. (p. 2)
Le Caem affiche a) une volonté d’engagement citoyen à partir de la prise de conscience des inégalités sociales et culturelles ; b) une volonté de partager sans exclusion ; c) une implication de tous les partenaires dans la vie quotidienne de l’école de musique ; d) une absence de normativité et l’idée de l’invention constante des pratiques. Pour Karine « l’intention active est (…) : se procurer un espace, des instruments, des enseignements, rendre accessible à tous une pratique que l’on a soi-même développée » (p. 3).
Dans le cadre de sa recherche Karine Hahn a décidé de se joindre en 2013 à l’un des ensembles du Caem, la fanfare Tapacymbal, « au bugle pendant deux ans puis au petit tuba ». La fanfare Tapacymbal est un ensemble au sein du Caem parmi une vingtaine d’autres faisant ainsi partie de l’accent mis par cette école de musique sur « le développement extrêmement fort des pratiques collectives » (p.108) et une liaison affirmée entre l’enseignement de la musique et les différents ensembles existants. Au départ Tapacymbal est « un atelier collectif d’animation citoyenne » (p.151), puis évolue vers un statut plus autonome de « Fanfare Dieulefitoise issue du Caem ». Karine décrit son fonctionnement de la manière suivante :
Dans Tapacymbal, certaines caractéristiques d’une fanfare sont bien présentes – importance donnée au répertoire, héritage implicite de l’orphéon doublé du développement d’une dimension festive voire carnavalesque. Mais l’élaboration musicale s’y fait avec d’autres caractéristiques fortes, pour certaines partagées avec d’autres ensembles et temps pédagogiques du Caem : l’interdit d’un chef qui endosserait un rôle autoritaire ; l’importance des prises de paroles, et musicales et verbalisations ; la manipulation des informations musicales par les participants ; la réactivation continue des choix opérés remis à discussion ; une centration sur les éléments rythmiques. (p.152)
Pour introduire la troisième partie de sa thèse, Karine se concentre sur la description de « moments de musique » où se fabrique collectivement une manière de faire du sonore :
Les manières de faire mettent au jour une mise en accord des musiciens dans et avec leur territoire, avec des modalités et selon des critères qui leur sont propres. Notamment, la question de la mise en place rythmique offre une prise particulièrement dense pour interroger les rapports d’individuation et de collectif. Par ailleurs, ces musiciens s’attachent à rendre possible les écarts en les circonscrivant par leurs manières de faire à quelque chose qui peut prendre place dans leur fonctionnement, forme de revendication (au sens de claim, Laugier, 2004) de leur faire commun. Plus largement, les opérations de traduction, d’ajustement, les espaces de débat, et la circulation de différentes composantes de la musique fondent une théorie musicale engagée, qui crée dans le pays de Dieulefit les conditions d’une expressivité aux formes démocratiques. (p. 42)
La partie de la thèse intitulée « Épisode du métronome », que nous publions ici, est un exemple particulièrement intéressant de tensions dans le domaine d’une pratique entre a) des niveaux de capacités multiples au sein de l’ensemble qu’il convient de combiner, b) d’un rapport aux outils mis à disposition qui varie fortement entre les membres de l’ensemble, c) de représentations très diverses par rapport à la musique dans sa mise en pratique quotidienne par un groupe. Sur ce dernier point, la tension la plus évidente analysée par Karine Hahn, se trouve entre les institutions d’enseignement de la musique de référence dominées par la musique « classique » et la pratique des amateurs plus ouverte à des formes variées d’esthétiques répondant à l’aspiration de ceux et celles qui y participent. Karine, dans son rôle simultané volontairement partagé entre l’enquête critique des pratiques de la fanfare Tapacymbal et sa participation engagée dans cet ensemble, devient elle-même, une des personnes qu’il convient d’observer et d’analyser. Sa propre conception des pratiques musicales (et sa mise en application dans le cas de l’usage du métronome) n’est donc qu’une des représentations possibles au sein d’un ensemble où chaque personne exprime un point de vue sensiblement différent.
L’objet métronome fait une irruption drastique dans la pratique d’un groupe qui résiste d’habitude plutôt avec véhémence à toute imposition autoritaire extérieure. Son apparition soudaine déclenche un faisceau d’éléments contradictoires qui va se résoudre positivement dans des solutions qui ne correspondent pas tout à fait aux normes instituées. L’épisode du métronome est pour Karine un moment particulièrement significatif de la rencontre d’une théorie incorporée dans un objet et de son influence plus ou moins effective sur les solutions pratiques qu’il est censé incarner.
Partie II: L’épisode du métronome
Karine Hahn
La scène se situe lors d’une des répétitions de la fanfare Tapacymbal, dans la grande salle de l’ancien collège, en mars 2017. Tapacymbal travaille à la mise en place d’Egyptian de Sydney Bechet, dans un arrangement proposé par Christian, clarinettiste et saxophoniste soprane à la fanfare. Monter cette pièce représente un certain défi pour le groupe, notamment au niveau de ses enjeux rythmiques et de sa mise en place. Depuis quelques séances, cette question rythmique constitue le cœur des répétitions. Pour autant, depuis quelques temps ces séances ne m’apportent plus de nouveaux matériaux ni de nouvelle accroche dans mon analyse, ce qui m’apparait alors l’indice d’une stabilité de ces ingrédients et d’une saturation de mon terrain. J’avais déjà repéré que la complexité rythmique, ou la mise en place d’une polyrythmie, n’étaient un frein ni à la prise de parole musicale, ni à la tenue de l’ensemble. La pluralité des rapports à la pulsation et les formes de recherche d’une pulsation commune avaient déjà émergé très nettement de différents temps de répétitions et de prestations — qu’il s’agisse de la fanfare dans ses pratiques quotidiennes, ou d’autres activités du Caem, comme le projet avec Miss Liddl.
Mais en cette répétition du jeudi 9 mars au soir, après quelques tentatives de jeu, « rien ne va plus ». Et si ce constat est d’abord exprimé en ces termes par Vincent, repris par Hélène à la caisse claire puis par quelques autres musiciens, c’est aussi pour moi, à ce moment-là, que « rien ne va plus » : Vincent, saxophoniste référent de la répétition, sort son téléphone, une application gratuite de métronome préalablement téléchargée sur son portable, annonçant par ce geste un travail avec ce métronome de substitution. Et, comme on ne pourra pas entendre le son sortant de ce téléphone tout en jouant, il le branche sur l’ampli basse présent dans la salle, après l’avoir monté sur une table, afin que l’enceinte soit à une hauteur telle que les musiciens ne pourront s’en extraire.
Je suis déboussolée par cette imposition d’un objet pour moi représentatif d’un monde de la musique contre lequel les acteurs des pratiques musicales à Dieulefit semblaient positionnés, et qui donc me parait d’un coup remettre en cause toute la construction théorique en train de se stabiliser, issue de mes analyses de terrain. Ce que j’ai d’abord regardé comme un « accident » m’a obligé à déplacer une nouvelle fois mon regard, à poursuivre l’enquête à partir de cet objet « métronome », à repérer que l’utilisation de cet outil n’avait pas nécessairement, à Dieulefit, la même signification que celle que j’y investissais. À mesure que se déploie devant moi cet « épisode du métronome », observant les musiciens avec lesquels je suis en train d’expérimenter comment jouer ensemble ne pas réagir comme je l’imagine pour construire, en fabriquant ce morceau de musique, leur commun, je réalise une nouvelle mise à distance de mon regard de musicienne-enseignante. Elle nécessite une forme de réflexivité sur les approches académiques que j’ai intégrées, affûtant d’une nouvelle manière mon attention ethnographique. Et, une fois cette mise à distance opérée, « l’épisode » du métronome n’en est peut-être plus un, se doublant d’une épaisseur temporelle qui fait de son utilisation non plus une question d’usage, mais de valuation. L’analyse proposée ici suit ce cheminement du regard qui a été le mien.
Sortir un métronome en répétition, un accident ?
Sortir le métronome, avant même son utilisation, est un acte. Il est précédé de la déclaration de Vincent évaluant que « rien ne va plus », confirmée et relayée par d’autres musiciens, verbalement ou montrant des signes d’exaspération. Convoquant l’outil, en le sortant via son téléphone de sa poche, Vincent pose le fait que le groupe ne joue pas en place, ou pas ensemble, ou pas assez. Après avoir expérimenté plusieurs modalités de travail, il manifeste le besoin d’une aide extérieure — ici, un accessoire technologique. Cette « scène du métronome » est à la fois un évènement, et pris dans une épaisseur temporelle – un « épisode » de la question rythmique à Dieulefit.
L’absence de réactions négatives à cette proposition, à part quelques soupirs et deux- trois exclamations négatives [« oh non… »], dans cet ensemble habitué à s’exprimer quasi en continu entre les notes jouées, signe le fait que la proposition est acceptée. L’initiative de Vincent est même accompagnée :
Attends, on ne va pas l’entendre… prends l’ampli, là.
Oui, t’as raison… on va le monter sur la table, on entendra mieux… Y en a pas un de vous qui aurait un câble ?
Attends, là, si, je crois qu’il y en a un dans le placard.
Voici donc une application « métronome » mise en route sur un téléphone portable, branché sur un ampli basse : trois objets — le téléphone, le métronome, l’ampli basse — qui renvoient à des fonctionnalités, des utilisations et des représentations différentes. L’utilisation du téléphone change sans doute la représentation que les uns et les autres se font du métronome — on peut sans trop craindre d’extrapoler considérer que sa caractéristique d’objet familier et personnel minimise la dimension tant autoritaire que scolaire de l’objet. Mais cette interprétation que je fais alors n’a pas ensuite été confortée par les propos des acteurs : dans les discussions qui ont suivi, il a toujours été fait référence « au métronome ».
Par ailleurs, l’utilisation de l’objet métronome a été ici associée à un autre objet sur lequel il est branché, l’amplificateur de guitare basse, qui a lui des intentionnalités différentes et multiples. Dans la salle de répétition de la fanfare, cet ampli sert à sonoriser la basse dans les groupes de musiques actuelles et l’atelier bœuf qui viennent y répéter. Il y a ainsi chez les musiciens de la fanfare des représentations liées à cette utilisation, notamment du côté de la liberté et de la créativité, qui peuvent contrebalancer une représentation autoritaire du métronome. Mais là aussi, cette interprétation renvoie avant tout à mon besoin de minimiser la dimension normative du métronome, tant dans l’utilisation de l’objet que des interactions qui sont en train de se jouer en situation, pour que je comprenne comment il peut y prendre place.
L’objet métronome, pour garder le focus sur cet objet dans le triptyque évoqué, nous met ici face à un faisceau d’intentionnalités croisées. D’une part, ce à quoi sert l’outil, dans son utilisation scolaire actuelle première, diffère de ce pourquoi il est initialement pensé — à savoir donner aux interprètes un repère de durée de pulsations par rapport à des indications d’intentions expressives via le tempo, répondant à la volonté du compositeur romantique que l’interprète soit au plus près de son intention (Barbuscia, 2012)[1]. D’autre part, les représentations fortes liées au métronome, et les rapports d’utilisateur ou non à cet outil, diffèrent chez chacun des musiciens en présence — ce qui fait qu’ils se retrouvent dans des relations différentes les uns les autres à cet objet. Quant au rapport que j’entretiens au métronome, en tant que musicienne professionnelle observant la situation, tout en y prenant part en tant que tubiste amateur, le métronome s’apparente à un « dépôt de contrainte dans le monde »[2].
Des usages décalés de cet outil hétéronome
Les théories de l’affordance (Gibson, 1979), en proposant d’observer de près ce qui provient de l’environnement quand un agent engage une action, permettent de prendre en considération les différents rapports à l’objet des uns et des autres pour envisager les significations qu’ils y investissent potentiellement. Par l’environnement dans lequel j’évolue professionnellement au quotidien, l’utilisation du métronome est pour moi avant tout une imposition extérieure au contexte de jeu, nécessairement normative. Objet par excellence d’étayage dans une pratique avant tout pédagogique, le métronome correspond à une conception propédeutique de l’enseignement de la musique. Extrêmement normé et normatif, il est difficile de s’y soustraire.
Par ailleurs, plus qu’un instrument de travail, le métronome est porteur de certaines valeurs issues de son contexte d’apparition. Si la division régulière du temps est un phénomène culturellement récent[3], en musique, le métronome instaure, dès 1815, un rapport au temps musical égal, qui suppose que l’on peut le découper de manière régulière, créant l’ « illusion d’objectivité en musique » (Barbuscia, 2012, p.54). L’utilisation du métronome s’impose très vite. « Promu par les compositeurs comme le seul « remède »[4] efficace à un mal auquel l’art musical n’a jamais su obvier, le métronome passe, sans difficulté ni phase intermédiaire, de l’accessoire faisant le bonheur de quelques-uns à l’objet indispensable à toute pratique musicale » (Ibid., p.58). Ce qui va dans le sens d’une très forte rationalisation des pratiques, notamment vers l’égalité républicaine — projet révolutionnaire du conservatoire (Hondré, 2002). Les temps égaux organisent la musique. Le métronome est alors l’instrument égalitaire par excellence : il est la proclamation physique de l’égalité politique. Dans le même temps, il pose un rapport aux valeurs : il faut être avec le métronome, assimilant l’exécution rythmiquement normée à une question morale. Aurélie Barbuscia souligne elle aussi la dimension de contrôle véhiculée par l’instrument (Barbuscia, 2012, p.63)[5], développant l’idée que la transgression se situe alors du côté des professionnels (Ibid., p.67), comme une marque de distinction, là où les amateurs et apprentis doivent se situer dans le respect d’une norme.
Si mon rapport à cet outil est nécessairement construit avec cet arrière-fond[6], les autres musiciens de Tapacymbal ne se situent pas, ou pas exclusivement, dans ce même environnement. Ils se réfèrent potentiellement à d’autres types d’usage de ce métronome, certains le considérant comme un simple outil. Certes l’outil, nécessairement normatif puisqu’institutionnel, prescrit un usage. L’action visée par son utilisation est bien dans les différents cas de travailler à se mettre dans un rythme commun. Mais la manière dont les acteurs s’en servent, précisément, dans le choix du moment où émettre leur son par rapport à la battue proposée, ne fabrique pas nécessairement la même signification d’un ensemble de musiciens à un autre. Si l’usage est globalement le même, son utilisation diffère, et la valuation n’est pas la même.
Ainsi, les percussionnistes ici envisagent le métronome comme un objet propédeutique, un outil sur lequel prendre appui, mais moins pour eux-mêmes que pour les autres. Jean-Louis, à la grosse caisse, évoque souvent le fait qu’il doive « jouer le rôle de métronome », qui ici s’apparente au bâton de mesure[7] que ce nouvel outil vient partiellement supplanter, en attendant qu’Hélène, à la caisse claire, « gagne en stabilité », pour pouvoir « lâcher ce rôle et [s’] éclater un peu plus ». Là, le métronome physique prend le relais de la caisse claire et grosse caisse, et permet à ces musiciens de se concentrer sur d’autres aspects musicaux. De même Vincent, dans une impasse sur les modes de travail de la pièce, propose un outil sur lequel il espère se reposer, dans le sens où les autres musiciens vont potentiellement pouvoir prendre référence dessus. Mais contrairement aux percussionnistes, cela ne lui permet pas pour autant de porter son attention musicale ailleurs : elle se focalise ensuite sur le fait de distinguer si les musiciens sont calés ou non avec ce repère extérieur. Or Vincent, qui en tant que référent de la fanfare se sent ici particulièrement concerné par le choix des méthodes de travail, se retrouve dans une nouvelle contrainte qu’il se crée lui-même. Alors qu’il ne constitue pour ainsi dire jamais le repère rythmique du groupe, en convoquant ce téléphone — métronome, cet objet lui impose la place de référent pour discerner si oui ou non les musiciens arrivent à jouer les impacts des temps en même temps que lui.
Mais de fait, ce n’est pas ce qui se passe. Pour la plupart des instrumentistes en présence, l’usage qu’ils font du métronome ne se situe ni du côté de l’imposition normative d’une pulsation hors-sol ni du côté d’un outil proposant une référence sur laquelle se caler en homorythmie. Lorsque le groupe commence à travailler avec le métronome, l’ensemble des musiciens de la fanfare se concentre d’une nouvelle manière sur la question rythmique, et à force de tâtonnements, après une grosse demi- heure de travail avec le métronome, ils arrivent à jouer ensemble sur une pulsation certes commune, mais à côté de la pulsation du métronome qui continue à scander régulièrement ses temps sortants de l’ampli basse. Ici, les musiciens utilisent bien le métronome pour trouver leur manière de jouer rythmiquement ensemble ce nouveau morceau — l’application n’est pas uniquement mise en route pour « faire comme si » on allait tenter de jouer avec un métronome[8]. Mais ils s’en servent comme d’un outil faisant médiation, une référence extérieure qui aide à porter son attention sur la question rythmique, lui faisant certes jouer pleinement son rôle mais d’une certaine manière, en décalage avec la norme imposée — d’une certaine manière qui ne colle pas à la pulsation du métronome, et sans chercher à le faire. Le métronome a donc à la fois la même signification pour l’action qu’il ne l’aurait, par exemple, dans un cadre institutionnel de cours de musique ou de répétition d’un ensemble – à savoir aider à une mise en place rythmique, éventuellement au sein d’un ensemble. Et dans le même temps, il va servir à ne pas s’en servir. La valuation qu’ils attribuent à l’objet et à ce qu’il permet de faire diffère de celle attribuée à cet objet dans un cadre normatif.
Ainsi, l’utilisation du métronome, si elle est prescrite par l’objet, ne dit pas le statut et le pouvoir, les pouvoirs, qu’on lui accorde — le métronome chef ou repère, l’outil permettant de travailler à être collectivement, chacun et chacune, avec ses battements, ou à trouver une pulsation commune, éventuellement à côté de la pulsation métronomique. Il n’a sans doute pas la même signification pour l’ensemble des musiciens en présence, et peut être regardé comme un des espaces de jeu et d’interaction entre les pratiques musicales dieulefitoises et la « sous-couche » des pratiques institutionnalisées de la musique sur le territoire national. Ce métronome implique différents types de conceptions musicales qui sont autant de contraintes qui sont alors discutées, négociées, en situation.
L’agency du métronome
Le métronome, avec les différentes intentionnalités qu’il porte ici, est donc aussi un objet qui fait faire quelque chose. Outil mobilisé pour ce à quoi il sert principalement (fournir un repère fixe et répété de division du temps), il a aussi un pouvoir d’agency, une capacité à engendrer une ou plusieurs actions[9]. En se substituant à la place du musicien à la caisse, le métronome prend la fonction d’une personne. Repère unique et collectif, scandant une pulsation régulière et à laquelle les musiciens ne peuvent se soustraire, l’objet devient une forme d’incarnation du chef d’orchestre — mais renvoyant à une figure du chef qui agirait comme cet objet, ne ferait que « battre la mesure »[10], et ce, alors même que cette figure de chef est refusée. Cela amène dans le temps de la répétition une forme de double contrainte à laquelle les musiciens, par le jeu, et notamment par la discussion, vont devoir répondre. Le métronome est ainsi à même de « faire faire quelque chose », d’inciter les musiciens à trouver des solutions de mise en place rythmique. Ici, il est accepté comme médiation permettant de « trouver une pulsation collective », qui va permettre le jeu dans la déambulation, tout en ne figurant pas une figure autoritaire qui obligeraient les musiciens et les musiciennes à être en même temps que le métronome.
L’objet métronome, pendant cette répétition de Tapacymbal, fait faire aussi autre chose que la répétition de mêmes phrases musicales en tentant de se rapprocher de la pulsation sonorisée et/ou d’une pulsation commune. D’une part, il déclenche de l’humour qui est à la fois un garde-fou et signifie une possibilité de dérive à ne pas occulter, notamment celle de la battue de l’orchestre militaire. Ainsi Christian commente les départs à effectuer avec le métronome d’un « Ein, zwei, drei, vier ! », trait qu’il renforce lorsque les musiciens arrivent à marcher ensemble en rythme, lançant un : « Troisième Reich ! ». Christian est, à mes côtés, le plus professionnalisé des musiciens en présence, ayant évolué dans des collectifs d’improvisation, et par la même peut-être celui pour qui cet outil incarne le plus la figure d’un chef autoritaire. Mais à la pause de la répétition, dans la discussion autour du métronome, il insiste, toujours sous le trait de la plaisanterie, sur le fait que « ça permet, quand même, de jouer avec les autres… » Ces traits d’humour mobilisent symboliquement un univers particulièrement évocateur chez les habitants de Dieulefit. La forme du dire marque une limite, ou une vigilance. Elle indique que l’on arrive à une forme de rapport à la mise en place qui pourrait être interprétée autrement que le sens visé par les musiciens présents à cette répétition. Ils peuvent être analysés comme un régulateur de l’utilisation de l’objet métronome. D’autre part, l’utilisation du métronome amène à un débat : elle déclenche une discussion qui a lieu dans un premier temps avec quelques instrumentistes pendant la pause de la répétition, et se poursuit ensuite en débat collectif chez Vincent, avec la quasi-totalité des musiciens.
Temps interne et temps externe
[À la pause de la répétition, dans la même salle.]
Vincent [réagissant à une remarque d’une musicienne, que je n’ai pas entendue] : Et le métronome entre autres permet de… de… c’est le truc qu’on a tous vécu, tu branches le métronome et t’as l’impression qu’il est irrégulier.
Luc : humhum, oui, …
Vincent : Parce qu’on a intégré, on a intégré une régularité par rapport à ce qu’on sentait, et qu’il faut adapter cette régularité aux autres.
Christian : Parfois c’est à cause des piles aussi… [Rires]
Cathie : Ce qui veut dire que le métronome, c’est complètement inhumain, quoi…
Vincent : C’est inhumain, mais ça permet de prendre conscience de ta perception du temps, et de prendre conscience qu’elle n est pas forcément exactement la même que ceux avec qui tu joues. Tous les débats où on se dit “ mais c’est toi qui accélères, mais non c’est toi, c’est toi qui es irrégulier, mais non c’est toi ”, c’est juste le travail d’arriver à une perception du temps qui soit la même à un moment donné. Et après tout, faire de la musique, c’est juste se mettre dans la même irrégularité. On s’en fout du métronome. Si ce n’est que c’est l’outil qui nous permet de prendre conscience de cela.
Christian [un peu ironique, sortant pour l’occasion de son autre conversation parallèle] : mais ça permet, quand même, de jouer avec les autres, quand même…
Vincent, qui développe dans sa pratique musicale une forte réflexivité, est particulièrement intéressé par ce type d’échanges. La question d’une perception individuelle du temps, par rapport à un repère métronomique perçu comme fluctuant et pluriel, selon les individus, est un sujet qui l’anime et qu’il a déjà débattu en dehors du contexte de Tapacymbal. Elle peut se lire aussi au regard de la tension repérée par Alfred Schütz (2006 [1964]) entre temps interne et temps externe, et les formes de communication engendrées par le fait de jouer ensemble – musicien face à l’œuvre ou potentiellement groupe de musiciens :
Dans notre problématique, il est essentiel d’avoir une meilleure compréhension de la dimension temporelle dans laquelle la musique a lieu. […] [L]e temps interne, la durée, est la forme même de l’existence de la musique. Bien sûr, jouer d’un instrument, écouter un disque, lire une page de musique, tous ces évènements ont lieu dans un temps externe, le temps qu’on peut mesurer par des métronomes et des horloges avec lesquels le musicien “compte” pour s’assurer le “tempo” qui convient. […] [N]ous estimons le temps interne comme étant le véhicule même où le flux musical a lieu. On peut mesurer le temps externe ; il existe des minutes et des heures et la longueur des sillons sonores que doit traverser l’aiguille du phonographe. Il n’existe par une mesure telle pour la dimension du temps interne où vit l’auditeur ; il n’y a pas d’équivalence entre ses parties, si parties il y a. (p.23)
« Faire de la musique, c’est juste se mettre dans la même irrégularité » est alors une réponse à cette tension[11]. Observer les musiciens « faire la musique ensemble » consiste alors à repérer comment les flux des temps internes se lient, et comment s’ordonne leur synchronisation (y compris dans un choix d’hétérochronie) dans un temps externe, commun.
Alfred Shütz:
Il me semble que toute communication possible présuppose un rapport de “syntonie” entre celui qui fait la communication et le récepteur de la communication. Ce rapport se fait par la répartition réciproque du flux de l’expérience dans le temps interne de l’Autre, par un vécu d’un présent très fort partagé ensemble, par l’expérience de cette proximité sous la forme d’un “Nous”. (p.27)
Confronter la situation de travail rythmique à la sculpture d’un « métronome mou »
Après la répétition, la discussion se poursuit autour d’un verre dans la maison de Vincent, qui est aussi le site de sa menuiserie. Sur le piano droit, à l’entrée du salon, à quelques objets près d’un métronome mécanique noir ouvert, une sculpture en bois plein représente un métronome qui semble avoir les mêmes caractéristiques que les « montres molles » de Dali[12] — une sorte de « métronome mou », dans des proportions assez similaires à un métronome traditionnel, avec une base plus large. Cet objet artistique qui détourne un objet mécanique, et qu’un certain nombre de musiciens de la fanfare connaissent pour passer assez régulièrement chez Vincent, possède lui aussi une certaine agency : la capacité à proposer une relecture de l’utilisation du métronome, dont il est une représentation subversive, à la sortie d’une répétition animée avec cet outil par celui qui possède et expose cette sculpture à la vue des musiciens de la fanfare invités. Ce détournement replace le métronome comme objet et non plus comme outil — ce que l’on pourrait mettre en parallèle avec le téléphone, qui, pendant la répétition, a été détourné en métronome, le déplaçant alors d’objet à outil. Surtout, cette représentation d’un métronome mou, qui évoque un battement improbable, nécessairement irrégulier et nonchalant, hors temps, et en même temps figé dans son mouvement fluctuant dans du bois, amène une dimension subversive à l’objet qu’il détourne.
Dans le moment de cette discussion lors du « coup à boire » chez Vincent, cet objet ne suscite pas de larges réactions, sans doute parce qu’il est déjà familier à la plupart des musiciens. Il est aussi dans une partie du salon un peu en retrait par rapport à là où nous sommes attablés. Lorsque, me déplaçant, je le découvre et m’exclame, dans une ambiance sonore au niveau déjà élevé, seuls quelques-uns réagissent, et ces interventions ne sont relayées que par des rires — ceux de Vincent notamment, qui retourne vite dans sa discussion :
Valérie : « oui oui je le connais ! »,
Christian : « tu m’étonnes qu’on n’arrive pas à jouer en rythme ! »
Benjamin : « Hé, dis, Vincent, c’est celui-là que tu devrais nous amener en répétition ! »
Comme les blagues de Christian, l’exposition de ce « métronome mou » peut être lue comme un ajustement permettant la mobilisation de l’objet métronome mais avec un décalage, menant soit à ne pas le prendre au sérieux, soit à faire tomber des représentations rigides qui lui sont fréquemment attribuées et entrent en dissonance avec les « principes supérieurs communs » de Dieulefit.
Ainsi, ce que le métronome fait faire à la fanfare de Dieulefit, c’est (1) un travail commun de pulsation permettant de « se mettre dans la même irrégularité » ; (2) de l’humour, assurant un ajustement entre ce qu’impose l’outil et son utilisation dans le contexte de Tapacymbal (déambuler ensemble, oui, marcher au pas, non) ; (3) un détournement de sa dimension d’outil en objet artistique ; (4) une discussion collective sur ce qu’est ressentir un tempo et chercher ensemble une pulsation commune. Par ailleurs, deux caractéristiques des manières de faire la musique à Dieulefit, déjà rencontrées, ressortent avec force de cette situation. D’une part, la discussion et le débat sont des procédures essentielles et constitutives de la construction du musical. D’autre part, même dans cette situation très restreinte et très située de répétition, face à un métronome, outil hétéronome par excellence, et alors qu’il s’agit de faire commun, les rapports à cet objet, ainsi que ce que son utilisation provoque, sont aussi hétérogènes que les formes musicales présentes sur le territoire de Dieulefit.
Parie III : Se mettre en accord,
dans et par des pratiques musicales, avec le territoire
Rendre possible l’écart du métronome
Ainsi, à la fanfare de Dieulefit, ce métronome peut n’être pour certains des musiciens « qu’un métronome », pour d’autres à la fois un objet normatif, un outil dont il serait dommage de se priver, la possibilité d’une méthode de travail parmi d’autres, un objet que l’on peut associer à d’autres, et même détourner, subvertir. S’il est utilisé ici, c’est qu’il ne représente pas un danger aux yeux des musiciens — qui savent se prémunir des « conséquence[s] funeste[s] » du métronome développées par Jacques Bouët (Bouët, 1997)[13].
Car pour autant, l’utilisation du métronome, dans la situation décrite ci-dessus, peut aussi être lue comme un écart, qui engendre des réactions d’adhésion, à savoir faire ce que Vincent propose, et même l’accompagner dans la mise en place de sa proposition, mais d’une certaine manière. Le collectif fonde la possibilité de cet écart en le circonscrivant, par leurs manières de faire, à quelque chose qui peut prendre place dans leur fonctionnement. Jeu en groupe, humour, pose de bornes, discussions et débat, marquent le refus de poser le métronome comme ultime référent, et le ramènent à ce qu’il est aussi : un objet et un outil permettant une forme d’expérimentation.
Se coordonner et s’ajuster pour faire commun dans le pays de Dieulefit
À Dieulefit, la question d’une « mise en accord » des musiciens apparaît bien centrale. Elle se fait avec des modalités, et selon des critères, qui sont propres aux acteurs de ces pratiques. La volonté d’une « mise en accord », entre musiciens pour jouer ensemble, ne va pas de soi. Si elle peut paraître une nécessité musicale issue des contextes musicaux joués, ou une évidence sociale dans certains contextes de pratiques normées, des collectifs défendent des contextes de jeu permettant une absence de mise en accord, en tous cas préalable, à des temps de pratiques artistiques communs[14]. Par ailleurs, le fonctionnement notamment de Tapacymbal, qui rend possible de venir jouer au sein du groupe avant de savoir jouer, de proposer en prestation un solo instrumental sans en maîtriser la carrure rythmique, indique que ce ne sont ni les enjeux musicaux des répertoires joués, ni les normes implicites aux formats de groupe, qui animent cette volonté de « mise en accord », de trouver une manière ajustée de pratiquer la musique à Dieulefit.
Mon hypothèse est qu’ici les musiciens décident de se mettre en accord, et de ce sur quoi ils s’accordent, non seulement selon des modalités qui leur ressemblent, mais selon celles qui leur permettent de mettre en œuvre et d’alimenter « ce à quoi ils tiennent », et « qui les tient » (Bidet & al. [Dewey], 2011). Notamment, ces pratiques participent à donner corps aux « principes supérieurs communs » dégagés, dans les deux premières parties, des manières de faire le Caem, Tapacymbal, le festival des 40èmes Résonnants, et que l’on retrouve aussi dans d’autres sphères que le musical, notamment dans le rapport des habitants de Dieulefit à l’histoire, et dans quelques récits épars rapportés çà et là. La mise en accord des musiciens se fait ainsi dans et avec leur territoire. Les choix de ce sur quoi les musiciens se coordonnent pour faire commun, les modalités d’opération d’ajustement, de débat, de circulation, sont une manière de faire territoire, cependant qu’ils fabriquent des pratiques musicales, de la musique du pays de Dieulefit.
Un choix d’observation d’action situées, mais prises dans une épaisseur temporelle
Reste ainsi à observer, au plus près de la fabrication du musical, comment se joue et ce qui se joue dans cette mise en accord des musiciens, cependant qu’ils construisent leur musique. La profusion des pratiques musicales à Dieulefit, couplée à un terrain qui s’est déroulé sur plusieurs années, offre un matériau d’analyse très dense mobilisé dans les deux premières parties de la thèse. Parce que cette mise en accord se joue sur des actions, situées (Ogien & Quéré, 2005), mais qui se situent dans des épaisseurs temporelles denses, cette troisième partie prend appui sur des situations décrites puis analysées comme des évènements, convoquées parmi d’autres actions possibles parce que repérées à l’issue de mes analyses comme caractéristiques des manières de faire la musique sur ce territoire.
Arrêtons-nous un moment sur la question de l’épaisseur temporelle des actions situées. Chaque situation, regardée de très près, donne à voir des « évènements » – comme le fait de sortir un métronome. Et il en est un au regard de mes observations, à la fois parce que de là où j’en suis dans la compréhension du fonctionnement du groupe à ce moment-là, couplé à l’épaisseur de mes représentations de l’outil, le métronome est pour moi inattendu, décalé par rapport aux manières de faire repérées et attendues. Si le travail autour du rythme est une constante de la fanfare au moins depuis que je l’ai rejoint, les premières approches de méthode de travail rythmique sont éloignées de la normativité de cet outil. Lors du premier entretien que j’ai avec lui avant de rejoindre la fanfare, Jean me raconte[15] comment avec son ami batteur Nico, ils ont passé au moins une heure avec Dédé à tourner autour d’un tonneau en fer pour le marteler en rythme, et faire ressentir à ce trompettiste la tourne rythmique qu’il devait jouer dans Libertango.
Sortir le métronome en répétition est aussi un évènement parce qu’il peut être identifié comme déclenchant certaines actions. Le sortir en répétition n’est pas dans les habitudes du groupe, et l’écart avec le déroulé provoque des échanges qui sont eux-mêmes transformés. Mais la préoccupation rythmique, d’une part, et les discussions autour des préoccupations musicales, d’autre part, sont, elles, dans les manières de faire habituelles de Tapacymbal. Instruire la scène avec le métronome comme « épisode » est donc avant tout une construction de regard, dû pour partie à la constitution de mon propre regard, à l’intermittence du regard ethnographique, et à la forme de la mise en énigme. Mais cette lecture évènementielle s’articule avec une épaisseur temporelle très dense, mise au jour à la fois par la durée de l’enquête de terrain, la diversité des contextes de jeu que j’ai pu observer, et les indices en présence sur le temps même des répétitions.
Ainsi, qu’il s’agisse d’Egyptian que Tapacymbal a abordé depuis quelques mois, travaillé ici à l’aide du métronome, ou plus encore de Oye Como va dont il est question ensuite, que la fanfare joue depuis plusieurs années et qui a été très souvent éprouvé en situation de concert, la question rythmique est structurante des répétitions depuis leur première lecture. Par ailleurs les morceaux sont constamment remis en chantier, avec une préoccupation de se retrouver sur un rythme commun qui est constamment rejoué et éprouvé. De même, les répétitions du jeudi soir ne font voir la pratique musicale des instrumentistes de Tapacymbal que par intermittence. Le temps de jeu entre les répétitions, très variable d’un instrumentiste à l’autre, peut être très conséquent — la séance de travail chez Valérie, décrite en première partie de la thèse, montre qu’il y a des procédures à l’œuvre qui ne se passent que dans ce temps-là, et influent sur le jeu en répétition collective. Dans une autre répétition, Christian fait une remarque au groupe pour suggérer un élément rythmique qui n’avait pas été identifié sur la partition, parce qu’il évalue pouvoir le faire au regard de la manière dont l’ensemble joue alors le morceau : une manière de jouer qui « fonctionne » devient un problème parce qu’il évalue qu’il est alors possible de l’instituer comme tel. Dans ces situations de synchronisation, la question de l’écoute est centrale — à la fois pour les musiciens en situation de jeu, et pour la description que l’on peut en faire en situation d’observation (Weeks, 1996).
Ici, la mise en accord des musiciens dans et avec leur territoire se négocie pour beaucoup autour de réglages rythmiques, dont des situations sont retranscrites et analysées en première partie de ce chapitre. Ces ajustements rythmiques fabriquent autre chose qu’une simple mise en place. Ils disent quelque chose du rapport à une norme, à des repères extérieurs, portés ou non par un chef. Outre le fait que ces musiciens considèrent les paramètres musicaux dans leur interaction (on voit la flûtiste de Miss Liddl changer l’attaque d’une note puis sa hauteur pour correspondre aux attendus rythmiques), la question rythmique, comme le métronome, est réglée de sorte qu’elle permette des discussions, des circulations, rende possible une déambulation qui embarque du public dans cette mise en accord.
Par ailleurs, la mise en accord par la pratique musicale avec et dans son territoire se fait ici par des circulations — d’éléments musicaux, de rôles, des voix —, des opérations de traduction et d’ajustements, faisant en sorte que chaque voix compte et puisse être entendue, portée, revendiquée (au sens de claim, Laugier 2004), et participer au faire commun. Certaines de ces opérations, dont l’analyse a permis de mettre à jour ces manières de faire, ou d’en confirmer certaines déjà mises à jour, sont décrites en seconde partie. L’analyse de ces pratiques musicales montre que ces manières de faire portent et sont portées par une théorie musicale engagée, qui crée dans le pays de Dieulefit les conditions et le son d’une expressivité aux formes démocratiques.
Conclusion
(Extraits de « En guise de conclusion – Renouveler son regard pour lire une situation de répétition », p.397)
Lire Tapacymbal en mobilisant la logique d’enquête de Dewey permet de consolider le regard porté sur les pratiques musicales comme occasion d’enquêtes et d’expérimentations, ce faisant que les instrumentistes fabriquent de la musique selon des modalités qu’ils définissent dans le temps même de la pratique. Ici, la problématisation constante remet en jeu, au quotidien, les constructions musicales. Les manières de se coordonner et les ajustements sont élaborés d’une manière à ce que la pluralité soit garantie et visible, travaillant ainsi par la musique des significations qui sont ce à quoi ces musiciens tiennent, et ce qui les tient.
L’observation participante et l’analyse de la mise en œuvre du festival des 40èmes Résonnants ont mené dans la deuxième partie de la thèse à considérer les acteurs des pratiques musicales à Dieulefit comme une communauté d’enquêteurs. Les éléments constitutifs de leurs manières de faire repérés alors se retrouvent ici dans des formes très précises de la constitution du musical, prises dans des épaisseurs temporelles denses. Les engagements qu’ils mettent en œuvre dans la structuration de leur école, de leurs ensembles, du festival, sont également constitutives des pratiques musicales observées, qui dans le même temps les renforcent. Repérer ces manières de faire dans les pratiques musicales observées de très près, au cœur de la fabrication du musical, n’a pas été immédiate et convoquer Dewey m’a permis de muscler une intuition qui peinait à se défaire d’une lecture de la situation qui la considérerait comme un simple problème de mise en place[16]. Ainsi, la durée et la récurrence de ma participation aux répétitions et sorties de Tapacymbal m’ont permis d’envisager à nouveaux frais ces manières de faire et leur sens, notamment parce que j’y voyais des questions qui, en tant que musicienne de l’ensemble, me semblaient réglées, être constamment mises en chantier, de nouvelles enquêtes ouvertes — ce que je n’aurais pas pu repérer sur un temps plus restreint. La difficulté à affûter mon regard a résidé principalement dans la force de l’approche rythmique isochrone très intégrée, qui constituait un écran pour écouter le rythme autrement que par rapport à une référence normée, avec un temps découpé en pulsations isochrones. Si elle n’empêchait pas de penser par-dessus des organisations du temps variées, comme ici par cellules et polyrythmies, ni d’élaborer théoriquement la possibilité de les envisager autrement, elle est restée longtemps dans mon ressenti et dans mon jeu, et donc dans mon écoute, un arrière-fond dont il m’a été difficile de faire abstraction, et il m’a fallu puiser dans mes expériences musiciennes pour m’en défaire (…).
Cette représentation musico-sociale isochrone ne correspond pas ici uniquement à mon profil de musicienne formée dans les institutions de l’enseignement spécialisé de la musique : elle est également effective au sein de Tapacymbal, constitutive d’une partie de leur répertoire. Mais elle ne l’est que parmi d’autres conceptions à l’œuvre. Une pratique nettement différenciée aurait sans doute obligé à, et donc permis, de trouver d’autres manières d’observer la question rythmique.
Il s’est agi ici à la fois d’écouter avec une approche isochrone, pour une part constitutive des pratiques, et à la fois de construire l’hypothèse que ces musiciens avaient peut-être aussi d’autres manières d’envisager leur mise en place rythmique, pour se rendre disponible à une autre écoute. « L’épisode du métronome » a en ce sens constitué un tournant[17] dans ma propre enquête, m’amenant à considérer que la pulsation isochrone, voire éventuellement hétéronome, constituait pour les musiciens de la fanfare une manière parmi d’autres d’envisager la question rythmique, mais que, des garde-fous étant posés, elle était ici non excluante d’autres manières de faire et devait de ce fait être considérée au sein d’une pluralité. Ce que j’ai lu comme une double infraction de l’objet technique, à savoir convoquer le métronome alors que personne de les oblige à s’en servir, et ne pas se plier à la régularité du métronome alors même qu’ils s’en servent, est une forme de détournement de l’objet et d’appropriation de l’outil.
1. Le développement qui suit prend largement appui sur l’article d’Aurélie Barbuscia, « La pratique musicale, entre l’art et la mécanique. Les effets du métronome sur le champ musical au XIXe siècle », Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, n°45, 2012.
2. Cité par Gaspard Salatko, séminaire Dynamique de la culture & anthropologie des activités artistiques et patrimoniales autour de « L’Agency en questions », coanimé par Emmanuel Pedler et Gaspard Salatko, Centre Norbert Elias, EHESS Marseille, 25 février 2021.
3. La rationalisation et le nivellement des rapports au temps dépassent la seule question musicale, qui est prise dans un mouvement de société global. Notamment, la décimalisation des unités de temps date de la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Souchier, 2019), et une cinquantaine d’années après le trafic ferroviaire met en place les premières unifications des horaires de trajets (Baillaud, 2006). Mais le fait que les pratiques musicales aient été très rapidement influencées par ce mouvement n’est pas anodin.
4. Rapport rédigé en 1815 par Henri Montant Berton, membre de la section musique de l’Académie française, cité par Barbuscia, 2012, p.58.
5. « le sujet-créateur ambitionne de renforcer son contrôle sur la manière même de son travail en exerçant davantage d’autorité sur l’interprète, invité à restituer le plus fidèlement possible ses intentions originelles » (Barbuscia, 2012, p.63 ; voir aussi Menger, 2010).
6. Cet arrière-fond revêt d’une part à une forme d’inconscient musicien – dans le sens d’une pratique tellement intégrée qu’elle accède à un statut d’évidence pour les musiciens qui convoquent cet objet d’étayage dès que se pose une question rythmique. D’autre part, il contient une forme de conscientisation nécessaire – un rapport au rythme et à la pulsation construit avec une logique correspondant à celle portée par le métronome étant indispensable dans un parcours académique.
7. C’est bien l’objet « métronome » que Jean-Louis convoque ici – objet qui semble ici avoir effacé les autres modèles de référence.
8. Cela renvoie à certaines utilisations des partitions, dont il a été question dans le chapitre consacré à la fanfare, certains musiciens ne sachant pas déchiffrer les codes musicaux inscrits sur une partition déclarant en avoir besoin pour jouer (Cheyronnaud, 1984).
9. Cette analyse prend appui sur le séminaire Dynamique de la culture & anthropologie des activités artistiques et patrimoniales, « L’Agency en questions », co-animé par Emmanuel Pedler et Gaspard Salatko, Centre Norbert Elias, EHESS Marseille, 25 février 2021.
10. Le compositeur Hector Berlioz propose une telle image du chef d’orchestre dans sa nouvelle Euphonia, « utopie qui décrit une ville entièrement consacrée à la musique, grâce aux bienfaits d’un gouvernement « despotique » (Buch, 2002, p.1006) : « Un ingénieux mécanisme qu’on eût trouvé cinq ou six siècles plustôt [sic], si on s’était donné la peine de le chercher, et qui subit l’impulsion des mouvements du chef sans être visible au public, marque, devant les yeux de chaque exécutant, et tout près de lui, les temps de la mesure, en indiquant aussi d’une façon très précise les divers degrés de forte ou de piano. » Hector Berlioz, « Euphonia ou la vie musicale », Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, 11-17, 28 avril 1844, pp.146 147. Buch (2002, p.1007) précise que « ce texte a été repris par Berlioz, avec de légères modifications, dans Les soirées de l’orchestre ; on en trouve une édition séparée aux Éditions Ombres, Toulouse, 1992 ».
11. La conclusion de Vincent, « faire de la musique, c’est juste se mettre dans la même irrégularité. On s’en fout du métronome » peut aussi être lue plus simplement comme une forme de réponse à la double contrainte qu’il a imposée au groupe en sortant son téléphone avec cette application. Vincent n’avait pas anticipé qu’avec cet outil, le groupe allait réussir à trouver une pulsation commune mais à côté du métronome — et il aurait sans doute du mal, tout comme moi, à préciser ce qui fait précisément que le groupe a réussi à se stabiliser ainsi. Il lâche l’outil une fois l’objectif atteint, quand bien même l’outil n’a pas été utilisé de manière attendue et normée : ce qui importe est de pouvoir maintenant jouer ce morceau ensemble, dans un rythme commun, pour déambuler.
12. L’huile sur toile surréaliste de Salvador Dali, La persistance de la mémoire, peinte en 1931, représente des montres se liquéfiant, jouant du contraste rigidité/écoulement du temps, préoccupation de l’artiste autant intime que liée aux questionnements de la physique moderne (Dali, 1951).
13. « Ce mariage ingénieux entre temps physique et temps musical arrangé par Maetzel [découvert en réalité par Winkel (Barbuscia, 2012)] fut un peu forcé. Il a eu de fait une conséquence funeste à laquelle l’homo metronomicus ne songe plus maintenant : les oscillations pulsationnelles irrégulières ont été exclues du temps musical, excepté dans le rubato et assimilé. » (Bouët, 1997). La thèse des « pulsations retrouvées […d’] avant l’ère du métronome » de Bouët est mobilisée plus loin dans l’analyse du travail rythmique.
14. « Je pense notamment aux rencontres « Voix Musiques Corps » animées par Giacomo Spica-Capobianco – et bien que l’on puisse arguer que la participation à de telles rencontres est déjà une forme d’accord préalable. Voir l’article dans la présente édition « Création collective nomade ».
15. Cette partie de l’entretien est relatée dans le troisième de la première partie de la thèse consacrée à Tapacymbal, lorsque Jean me parle des instrumentistes de l’ensemble avant que je ne rejoigne le groupe.
16. C’est aussi un problème de mise en place, mais ne l’envisager que sous cet angle ne permet pas de voir ce qui se joue par ailleurs, et la manière dont cela se joue.
17. D’où le maintien de ce titre, marquant un moment de la « mise en énigme » de ma thèse.
Ouvrages cités
Barbuscia Aurélie, 2012, « La pratique musicale, entre l’art et la mécanique. Les effets du métronome sur le champ musical au XIXe siècle », Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, n°45, pp. 53 – 68.
Baillaud Lucien, 2006, « Les chemins de fer et l’heure égale », Revue d’histoire des chemins de fer n°35, pp. 25 – 40.
Bidet Alexandra, Louis Quéré et Gérôme Truc, 2011, « Ce à quoi nous tenons. Dewey et la formation des valeurs », in John Dewey, La formation des valeurs, Paris, La Découverte, pp. 5 – 64.
Bouët Jacques, 1997, « Pulsations retrouvées. Les outils de la réalisation rythmique avant l’ère du métronome », Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie, n°10, pp. 107 – 125.
Buch Esteban, 2002, « Le chef d’orchestre : pratiques de l’autorité et métaphores politiques », Annales. Histoires, Sciences sociales, n°4, pp. 1001 – 1028.
Cheyronnaud Jacques, 1984, « Musique et Institutions au village », Ethnologie française, n°3, pp. 265 – 280.
Gibson James, 1979, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company.
Emmanuel Hondré, 2002, La Marseillaise, Éditions Art et culture.
Menger Pierre-Michel, 2010, « Le travail à l’œuvre. Enquête sur l’autorité contingente du créateur dans l’art lyrique », Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Éditions de l’EHESS, pp. 743 – 786.
Quéré Louis et Albert Ogien, 2005, Le vocabulaire de la sociologie de l’action, Paris, Ellipses.
Schütz Alfred, 2006 [1951], « Faire la musique ensemble. Une étude des rapports sociaux », Sociétés, n°93 pp. 15 – 28.
Weeks Peter, 1996, « Synchrony lost, synchrony regained: The achievement of musical co-ordination », Human Studies n°19. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Netherlands, pp. 199 – 228.
Cet article présente le récit d’un atelier concernant les partitions graphiques, que les deux auteurs ont animé en 2018. Ce récit sera accompagné de commentaires critiques. Il s’agit ici, par cet atelier et cet article, de proposer une alternative au format normatif des rencontres professionnelles du monde de la recherche universitaire. L’objectif est de sortir de la simple juxtaposition (et souvent de la superposition) des présentations de recherche, en vue d’un échange plus direct fait d’élaborations de pratiques collectives permettant l’ouverture de débats plus substantiels.
Dans le domaine de la recherche artistique, les rencontres professionnelles sont pour beaucoup de raisons aujourd’hui complètement formatées dans des formules qui favorisent la communication juxtaposée ou parallèle des projets de recherche au détriment d’un réel travail collectif débouchant sur des débats autour d’enjeux fondamentaux. Le format normatif qui s’est peu à peu institué dans le cadre de ces rencontres (colloques, séminaires) consiste à permettre à la totalité des personnes sélectionnées de présenter leurs travaux sur la base d’une égalité de temps de parole. Pour arriver à ce résultat un temps de présentation de 20 minutes s’est imposé dans les colloques avec une période de 10 minutes pour des questions venant de la salle. Lorsque le nombre des participants dépasse les capacités temporelles de la durée totale du colloque, des sessions parallèles sont organisées. Ce morcellement tend à encourager des groupes autonomes ayant des intérêts particuliers et donc à éviter toute confrontation entre des pensées considérées comme appartenant à des catégorisations étrangères les unes aux autres. Ou bien tout au contraire des sessions parallèles peuvent comporter la description de démarches similaires qui auraient tout intérêt à se confronter entre elles.
La principale raison de l’organisation des colloques internationaux dans ce type de format normatif, doit être mise en relation avec les règles d’évaluation des enseignants-chercheurs des universités en cours dans les universités anglo-saxonnes et généralisées à la totalité du monde : « publish or perish ». La participation à des colloques prestigieux est reconnue comme la preuve de la valeur d’une recherche, elle donne en plus accès dans le meilleur des cas à des publications dans diverses revues. En conséquence la participation personnelle à un colloque est conditionnelle à la présentation formelle de sa propre recherche. La monnaie d’échange est devenue la ligne de CV universitaire.
La période laissée à la fin de chaque présentation à l’appréciation des personnes présentes dans la salle doit se faire sur la forme de questions plutôt que sur la formulation d’un débat, non seulement à cause du manque de temps, mais aussi surtout sur l’idée que la recherche tend à être évaluée en termes de résultats prouvés. Si ce qui est présenté est dans le vrai, cela ne mérite aucune discussion. L’objet des discussions peut concerner la preuve dans des joutes de pouvoir ou l’éclaircissement de ce qui reste peu clair, mais il ne concerne pas la construction d’un débat entre la spécificité de la recherche et son inscription dans la complexité du monde. La présentation des éléments problématiques du sujet abordé est laissée aux prestigieuses personnalités invitées, du haut de leurs longues expériences, dans la phase initiale d’une « key note address » (conférence initiale de référence). Pour le reste, les débats ont bien lieu lors des nombreuses pauses, repas, cafés, et autres activités non formelles, le plus souvent dans de très petits groupes d’affinité. Les éléments de débat n’émergent pas dans ces conditions en tant qu’expression démocratique plus approfondie que celle d’un tour de table informatif équitable.
On peut considérer que la forme des colloques universitaires qui vient d’être présentée constitue une pratique qui consiste à juxtaposer des informations toutes très pertinentes et d’assurer des formes d’interactions entre les personnes présentes. Les présentations de recherche décrivent elles-mêmes des pratiques et des aspects théoriques qui leurs sont liés et en même temps permettent des rencontres effectives. On peut pourtant se demander si cette pratique d’échange d’informations, dans ces temps de difficultés de transports liées à la crise climatique et aux pandémies, ne peut pas être limitée aujourd’hui aux vidéo-conférences. S’il y a de plus en plus de difficulté à se rencontrer en présentiel, alors les occasions rares de rencontres effectives devraient ouvrir la voie à d’autres types d’acitivité, impliquant de mettre l’accent sur une mise en commun des problèmes auxquels nous devons faire face, dans des formes de pratiques beaucoup plus collectives et uniques par rapport au déroulement quotidien des activités de chaque entité de recherche.
L’idée d’atelier semble à première vue appropriée car liée à la nécessité d’une présence effective des membres qui y participent pour créer à travers une pratique particulière collective quelque chose qui fait sens et dont on peut manipuler les éléments théoriques. Mais le format usuel des ateliers (comme aussi celui des « master classes ») est en principe centré sur une pratique inconnue des personnes qui y participe et qui leur est maintenant inculquée par les responsables de son animation. On peut d’une manière alternative envisager des formules d’atelier où le dispositif n’est là que pour susciter collectivement l’émergence d’une pratique, et en même temps l’émergence de débats sur cette pratique. Dans ce type de dispositif, il y a une proposition de départ avec des consignes assez claires pour commencer une pratique collective, puis peut s’installer une alternance entre : faire-discuter-inventer de nouvelles consignes, etc. C’est précisément ce que nous avons tenté de mettre en place au cours de l’exemple que nous présentons dans cet article.
L’atelier dont il est question s’est déroulé le 14 mars 2018 dans le cadre de la 3e journée d’études, « séminaire-atelier » organisée par Frédéric Mathevet et Gérard Pelé au sein du groupe de recherche en art sonore et musique expérimentale L’Autre musique (Institut ACTE – UMR 8218 – Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne – CNRS – Ministère de la Culture), sous le titre de Partitions #3 « Donner-ordonner ». Trois journées d’études avaient été organisées à Paris dans le courant de l’année 2017-18 dont l’intention était définie de la façon suivante :
Ces séances questionnent la pertinence de la notion de « partition » par rapport aux nouvelles pratiques du sonore et du musical et, plus largement, en ouvrant à toutes les formes de créations contemporaines.
– laboratoire, lignes de recherche, Partitions #3.
Les journées d’études ont donné lieu à une publication par L’Autre Musique Revue #5 (2020).
Dans ce cadre nous avons animé un atelier d’une durée de deux heures, avec la présence d’une vingtaine de personnes travaillant dans les domaines de la danse, de la musique et de la recherche artistique.
Description du dispositif de départ de l’atelier
La situation de départ de l’atelier exigeait une approche particulière, afin d’arriver au plus vite a) à une pratique collective, b) qui susciterait une continuation sur la base de la participation effective des personnes présentes, et c) qui serait susceptible de provoquer des débats, de faire ressortir les affinités, les différences et les antagonismes. Pour parvenir à ces objectifs, il fallait que cette situation de départ se plie à plusieurs nécessités :
Pouvoir être décrite oralement en peu de mots et comprise par tous.
Définir une pratique que tout le monde peut faire immédiatement, sans préalable d’aptitudes particulières.
Développer une pratique qui soit au centre des préoccupations du séminaire, dans ce cas précis, la pratique des partitions graphiques, tant du point de vue de leur élaboration que de leur interprétation.
Développer une pratique ouverte sur des questionnements, des problématiques, et non pas s’imposant de toute pièce comme une solution définitive.
Voici la description de la situation de départ :
Dans un même mouvement simultané produire individuellement une action ayant trois éléments en cohérence :
Un graphisme avec un crayon sur une feuille de papier.
Un geste qui inclut le graphisme ; un geste qui peut commencer en dehors du graphisme, inclure le graphisme, puis continuer après le graphisme.
Une séquence sonore produite avec la voix ou la bouche, l’appareil vocal.
L’action ne doit pas excéder cinq secondes. L’action doit pouvoir se répéter exactement dans les mêmes configurations.
Cette action qui allie arts plastiques, musique et danse doit être pensée individuellement de manière cohérente comme une « signature ». Elle définit en quelque sorte la personnalité particulière de celui ou celle qui la produit, elle doit permettre à toute personne extérieure de reconnaître une individualité.
Chaque membre présent réfléchit quelques instants pour préparer sa « signature ». Les protagonistes sont disposés en cercle autour d’une très grande table. Dès que tout le monde est prêt, chaque signature est présentée l’une après l’autre plusieurs fois. Puis une improvisation a lieu dont la règle est que l’on n’a le droit que de reproduire à des moments choisis sa propre signature (et ceci autant de fois qu’on veut). L’idée d’improvisation ici ne concerne que le placement de sa signature dans le temps. Il est possible après un temps de commencer à faire des variations sur cette signature.
Déroulement de l’atelier
L’atelier se déroule dans une salle de séminaire avec une grande table centrale, des chaises pour s’assoir autour, mais peu d’espace pour circuler ou faire de grands mouvements du corps.
L’atelier commence par une introduction sur le collectif PaaLabRes auquel les deux co-auteurs appartiennent et sur l’objectif général de l’atelier qui ne concerne pas comme dans un atelier normal la présentation d’une pratique originale, mais est complètement tourné vers la possibilité d’un débat sur les partitions graphiques à partir d’une mise en pratique collective. Il s’agit tout d’abord de se mettre en situation, puis d’en débattre.
La description qui suit est basée sur l’enregistrement audio de l’atelier. Quelques moments sont décrits sans la présence du verbatim. Sinon les propos ont été retranscrits comme tels, et légèrement modifiés, lorsque l’expression orale n’est pas claire ou parfois en partie inaudible[1].
Phase 1
0′ :
Le dispositif de départ sur les « signatures » est exposé oralement. Parmi les personnes présentes il y a des difficultés à comprendre qu’il s’agit de réaliser une seule action ayant trois tâches simultanées et non pas trois éléments réalisés séparément.
P :
« C’est quelque chose qu’on adresse aux autres ? »
La réponse est affirmative, on doit aussi pouvoir transmettre sa signature. »
P :
« Les autres vont pouvoir le reproduire ? »
Pour l’instant ce n’est pas le cas, mais il doit y avoir la possibilité de le faire dans l’avenir.
Un temps est donné pour que tous les participants puissent expérimenter leurs signatures. Cette phase initiale a duré 15 minutes (la présentation générale d’atelier incluse).
Phase 2
15′ :
On compare les signatures. Chaque signature est produite deux fois lors de deux tours de table.
21′ :
Une improvisation est lancée. On n’a le droit que de produire exactement sa propre signature. Pas celle des autres. L’improvisation concerne seulement le placement dans le temps de sa signature. Essayer de placer sa signature à des moments où cela pourrait être entendu et où cela pourra contribuer à ce qui se passe.
P :
« Peut-on la faire en continu ? »
La réponse est oui, mais on peut aussi n’en faire qu’un fragment.
P :
« On ne peut la faire qu’une seule fois en tout ? »
Non, on peut la faire autant de fois que l’on veut. À chaque fois la signature doit pouvoir être reconnue.
P :
« Il faut continuer à faire le geste ? »
Oui, et aussi le dessin sur le papier.
P :
« Faut-il garder le même rythme, le même tempo ? »
Oui dans cette première improvisation, après on verra.
23′ :
Improvisation 1. Durée : 2’ 32” :
26′ 30” :
Deuxième improvisation proposée par les animateurs : maintenant on a le droit de faire des variations autour de sa propre signature, soit en changeant des éléments (faire plus vite, faire plus long, plus fort, plus piano, etc.), soit en enrichissant, en ornementant avec d’autres éléments.
27′ 30” :
Improvisation 2. Durée : 1’ 09” (extrait) :
Les différents graphismes produits lors des deux premières improvisations sont montrés à tout le monde. On fait le constat que ce sont bien des partitions graphiques.
Un premier débat est proposé.
Pz :
« On peut continuer à expérimenter. On échange nos dessins. »
P :
« En faisant les sons des autres ? »
Pz :
« On garde une partie de notre signature, mais on joue la partition d’un autre. (…) Il faut prendre une partie au moins de notre signature… »
P :
« Avec le son tu veux dire ? »
Pz :
« A partir de la signature de l’autre, on réinterprète sa propre signature. »
P :
« On prend notre son, pas le son de l’autre ? »
Pz :
« En fait on se sert de cette partition pour jouer notre propre signature. [Brouhaha] Tu peux changer ton mouvement. On va dessiner par dessus. »
P :
« Je ne dessine pas sur sa partition, je prends un papier à côté, parce qu’on redessine. »
Après les deux improvisations dont les règles ont été déterminées par les animateurs, le seul élément tangible qu’on a à disposition est constitué par les dessins sur le papier. Les sonorités se sont envolées en fumée et les gestes peuvent être identifiés en partie dans les dessins qu’ils ont produits, mais sont aussi des éléments flous qui perdurent dans les mémoires. Dans ces conditions l’objet papier prend immédiatement la forme d’une partition, lieu privilégié de ce qui perdure d’une manière stable dans le temps. La partition écrite sur du papier est le lieu qui détermine dans la conception moderniste la présence d’un auteur. A-t-on la même attitude par rapport aux sons et aux gestes ? Ce n’est pas du tout certain. Dès le début des échanges d’impression après les improvisations, on voit qu’il existe dans l’atelier un sens du respect de la propriété d’autrui : on ne dessine pas sur la partition d’une autre personne. Une partition c’est sacré, donc on ne va pas réécrire dessus. Les sons et les gestes ne sont pas dans ce milieu culturel mis au même degré de propriété intellectuelle que ce qui constitue l’immuabilité de ce qui est écrit sur une partition.
Dans l’improvisation, il ne semble pas qu’il y ait interdiction de reproduire exactement ce qu’une autre personne est en train de produire, même si c’est impossible de le faire de manière absolument précise. Bien sûr il y a affirmation d’identité personnelle dans les échanges au cours d’une improvisation, mais pas au point de ne pas accepter les influences que cela produit sur les autres personnes présentes. On n’est pas dans une situation où la reproduction exacte d’un objet sonore ou gestuel entraîne la mort culturelle du modèle. On se rappellera l’anecdote d’un tromboniste dont le projet était d’apprendre le didjeridoo dans une communauté aborigène isolée dans l’Australie des années 1970. Les ethnologues lui avaient dit de ne jamais reproduire ce qu’il entendait des productions par les joueurs de didjeridoo, car c’était comme de leur voler leur âme et leur enlever leur raison de vivre. Dans nos propres pratiques, nous sommes très loin d’en être là.
L’idée de l’autonomie de la partition graphique par rapport à toute forme d’interprétation, liée à la séparation entre le compositeur et l’interprète, a donné lieu historiquement à sa double fonction : la partition graphique peut être considérée comme un objet suscitant une interprétation musicale (ou autre) ou bien peut être montrée dans un musée ou une galerie comme un objet appartenant au domaine des arts plastiques. Elle peut être bien sûr les deux à la fois.
Pz :
« En fait c’est comme si on avait une manière d’interpréter ça, avec notre vocabulaire, on interprète notre vocabulaire. On n’a que juste une syllabe, un son et un geste, mais là on a une partition graphique qui va nous emmener ailleurs, parce que ce n’est pas la même. »
Chaque feuille de papier dessinée, devenue maintenant partition, est donnée à la personne placée à droite.
37′ :
Improvisation 3 à partir de la proposition de Pz. Durée 3 mn.
Phase 3
40′ :
Lors de la discussion précédant l’Improvisation 3, un participant avait proposé une autre situation :
Pa :
« Rejouer l’improvisation et il faut que chacun fasse sa partition de la totalité [de ce que vous entendez]. Pour tester la thèse sur la réversibilité [du graphisme à l’écoute, de l’écoute au graphisme]. Il s’agit de rejouer [l’enregistrement de l’Improvisation 2], de faire une partition en fonction de ce qu’on entend jouer. Rejouer ce que nous avons fait et dessiner d’après ce que nous entendons ».
[Par ce biais, on peut tester la réversibilité des signatures : peut-on retrouver le geste et le dessin par rapport aux sons qu’on entend ?]
Pa :
« Dessiner la partition correspondant aux sons que vous entendez. Forcément tous les sons en même temps. »
P :
« On dessine ce qu’on entend, en fait ? »
P :
« On dessine ce qu’on veut. »
Pa :
« Ce qu’on entend. »
P :
« On n’est pas obligé de rester dans les codes de ce qu’on avait fait ? »
Pa :
« Non. C’est un des premiers cours que j’ai effectué ici même en 1979, cela s’appelait “approche sensorielle”, on devait mettre la main dans un sac, et on devait dessiner tactilement… »
46’50” :
On rejoue l’enregistrement de l’improvisation 2 et en même temps de nouvelles productions graphiques sont réalisées par rapport à ce qu’on entend.
48’50” :
Les graphismes circulent pour être examinés par tout le monde. La lecture des graphismes donne lieu à de nombreux commentaires.
48’50” :
Les graphismes circulent pour être examinés par tout le monde. La lecture des graphismes donne lieu à de nombreux commentaires.
P :
« Il y en a qu’on peut garder ? »
P :
« Qui c’est qu’a fait ça ? L’étoile ! Oh-là là ! »
Pa :
« La preuve est faite, je crois, … »
P :
« Le langage… »
P :
« C’est clair… »
P :
« Pourquoi faudrait-il que les choses soient… ? »
P :
« Elles ne le sont pas ? »
Le processus de lecture des partitions continue avec des commentaires variés.
P :
« Ici on voit nettement un début et une fin »
Se pose la question d’une représentation du déroulement temporel versus une représentation globale sans début ni fin.
Pn :
« Je n’ai pas pensé en ligne[4] de temps en fait. Et ça m’a même frappée de voir des choses qui avaient un début et une fin… Ah, ça existe ! »
JCF :
« C’est la déformation des musiciens ! »
Pn :
« Du coup, justement, cela m’a questionné, parce qu’on prenait naturellement le papier dans ce sens-là comme une barrière… Du coup une écriture spatialisée… Mais bon j’étais parti sur un truc… »
P :
« Tu étais bloquée pourquoi ? »
Pn :
« La ligne temps. En fait ce sont des processus, on pourrait les isoler peut-être. Pouvoir circuler de l’un à l’autre, pouvoir faire marche arrière. »
Pa :
« Il existe peu de représentations qui se soient affranchies de cette ligne de temps. »
P :
« Le son c’est du temps, enfin. »
Pa :
« Il en existe malgré tout. Je pense au travail de T., où il n’y a plus de time line. »
JCF :
« Mais ce n’est pas le cas de la première improvisation. L’expérience du temps est complètement différente. Quand on improvise et qu’on fait le geste, c’est comme si on joue sur un instrument, il n’y a pas de ligne de temps. Enfin, le temps c’est maintenant. Donc, c’est dans la réversibilité, qu’on trouve une situation très différente. »
Commentaire 2
Deux questions ont émergées:
a) On peut garder la partition, c’est un objet tangible de mémoire.
b) Il y a le choix entre une représentation à partir d’une ligne de temps, ou bien une représentation globale hors-temps.
D’une part, les productions graphiques tendent à être considérées comme des objets ayant un caractère définitif, qu’on peut conserver si elles sont jugées dignes de l’être. Les productions graphiques tendent à être considérées comme des représentations figées des sons qui sont réalisés dans le temps. Le modèle dominant est celui des partitions musicales qui dans les perspectives occidentales constituent l’objet privilégié d’identification d’une œuvre. Et avec une représentation du temps allant comme dans les textes écrits de gauche à droite. Dans ces conditions tout dessin, toute image peuvent être considérés comme des partitions graphiques à condition de déterminer précisément des codes et des modes de lecture.
D’autre part se pose la question d’une représentation du déroulement temporel versus une représentation globale de tous les éléments mis en jeux, sans début ni fin. Il y a une prise de conscience que les musiciens notamment sont formatés par la représentation linéaire des sons dans le temps. On constate que la grande majorité des productions graphiques réalisées sont régies par une ligne du temps. Quelques exceptions montrent des formes de représentations globales (comme des sortes de topographies ou bien des cosmologies présentant simultanément des éléments diversifiés).
La question est de savoir si la conception du temps représenté sur une partition reste la même dans le cas des musiques improvisées parfois pensées comme un présent éternellement renouvelé sans se soucier de ce qui vient de se passer et de ce qui va émerger. La question de la réversibilité des choses dépend directement de la présence d’une organisation visuelle linéaire. Si seul l’instant présent compte on ne peut rien renverser ou inverser.
P :
« Est ce qu’on peut essayer – parce que moi j’ai le cerveau formaté – est-ce que c’est possible de refaire, pour ceux qui ont pensé au temps d’être hors temps et ceux qui ont pensé hors temps d’être dans le temps ? Parce que je suis vraiment formatée, donc ça m’intéresse de faire sans pensée linéaire. »
P :
« Oui, pareil. » [Tout le monde parle en même temps]
JCF :
« La possibilité pour ceux qui le souhaitent de le faire les yeux fermés. »
P :
« De la main gauche. »
58′ :
On rejoue l’enregistrement de l’Improvisation 3 pour répéter l’exercice avec les nouvelles règles.
1h. 00′ :
On se passe de nouveau les nouveaux graphismes produits durant l’exercice.
1h. 03′ :
Le débat est ouvert.
P :
« Quand j’étais en linéaire, moi ça m’a tendue vraiment. Je me suis sentie tendue, coincée dans la ligne, alors que la première fois c’était beaucoup plus tranquille ».
P :
« Moi ce n’était pas tendu, mais j’ai trouvé que cela donnait autre chose. [La première fois correspondait] à ce que je ressentais, mais c’était complètement illisible. Linéaire, cela ressemble à quelque chose, c’est plus facile à transmettre. »
P :
« Du coup, je m’étais dit que quand ce n’est pas linéaire, je vais plus écouter globalement, et je me suis rendu compte que je n’arrivais pas à écouter globalement. Dès que j’entendais un truc, je voulais dessiner et je n’arrivais pas à être dans l’intégralité du truc, j’étais prise par les détails, quelque part il y avait encore du linéaire, donc ça restait linéaire. »
P :
« Je pense que quand ce n’est pas en linéaire, tu acceptes plus facilement le fait que de toutes façons ton interprétation sera partielle, subjective, tu mélanges les éléments, c’est plus agréable, tu te laisses emmener. »
P :
« Du coup j’ai travaillé comme ça, en aigu-grave, et ça a ouvert l’espace à l’intérieur. Ça a été vraiment très agréable d’écouter et de dessiner en fonction des hauteurs. »
JCF :
« J’ai trouvé qu’on pouvait se concentrer sur le geste de ce qu’on entendait, plutôt que l’identification des sons. En tout cas, ce qui me paraît très frappant, c’est que dans la signature initiale, il y a réellement une cohérence entre le visuel, le geste, et le son, qu’on retrouve en partie dans la présentation temporelle, mais seulement en partie, mais qu’on ne retrouve plus du tout dans la représentation non linéaire… On perd l’identification des signatures. »
Pa :
« Par exemple la durée de la séquence : ce qu’on vient de faire, ce qu’on vient d’entendre, on écrit (décrit ?) combien de temps ça dure. »
[Tout le monde parle en même temps]
Comment perçoit-on la durée de l’enregistrement qui vient d’être joué ?
P :
« Il faut que cela soit vraiment précis ? » [Brouhaha]
P :
« Tu vas pouvoir vérifier. On s’en fout de vérifier le temps, la question est de savoir qui est le plus juste. Il faut l’écrire sinon on va s’influencer les uns les autres ».
P :
« On l’écrit. »
On écrit sur une feuille de papier la durée estimée de l’enregistrement de l’improvisation 3.
Résultats : 3’, 3’30”, 1’30” (rires), 2’41”, 2’27”, 4’, 1’40”, 2’… La réponse était 2’.
NS :
« La question, c’est qu’on est à peu près tous d’accord pour penser que ça commence à partir du premier son et ça se termine sur [il produit un son vocal]. Sauf, que, en fait, quand on a dit : « qu’est-ce qu’on entend ? », moi j’ai déjà commencé [avant l’écoute de l’enregistrement de l’Improvisation 3]. Une situation de variation… Du coup quand est-ce qu’on décide que ça commence et quand est-ce qu’on décide que ça finit ? Autant un papier en linéaire tu peux le lire comme ça, ou comme ça [bruits de papier en le faisant pivoter sur tous les angles]. Puis, après, celui-là, tu le retrouves dans la rue, c’est pas du tout évident que cela se lise comme ça ou comme ça. Et après, par où tu entres ? Ce n’est pas si évident que ça. Dans un concert, c’est assez clair, qu’il y a le noir, il y a le machin, là oui là ça y est, ah ça y est, ça commence. Et sur scène cela se détend, ah c’est fini. Il y a un vrai truc autour de l’implicite de la fin. »
Phase 4
1h. 12′ :
Un participant propose de faire des sons basés sur la partition graphique (signature) d’une autre personne.
La proposition est adoptée avec les précisions suivantes : on forme des groupes de trois avec une seule partition à réaliser en commun.
1h. 17′ :
Performance du Groupe 1. Durée : 18” :
NS :
« Quelles sont les consignes que vous vous êtes donnés, comment avez-vous travaillé cela ? »
P(g1) :
« On a partagé la partition en quatre parties. Voilà on a partagé cette partie-là [il montre]. Trente secondes, là… On s’est mis d’accord sur des attaques… »
P(g1) :
« Des attaques et des oiseaux. »
1h. 19′ :
Performance Groupe 2. Durée : 1’21“. Un des participants récite un texte, les autres produisent des bruits divers.
P(g2) :
« D’abord c’est la merde parce qu’on est trois et il y a à peu près quatre lignes. On s’est dit que la quatrième ligne serait une sorte de réservoir… »
P(g2) :
[En anglais] « Sometimes I used the score, sometimes I improvised… »
P(g2) :
« Donc chacun avait une ligne et chacun son mode de jeu, et puis de temps en temps on piquait dans la quatrième, on improvisait quoi… »
P :
« Ah ouais ! Organisé ! »
P :
« Vous vous êtes mis d’accord pour improviser ! »
P :
« Je ne fais que ça. Chacun sa technique ! ». [Rires]
Commentaire 3
Au-delà de l’ironie, qui dénote qu’il ne faut pas prendre les prises de paroles trop au sérieux, on peut constater qu’il y a des difficultés à considérer qu’il peut exister des voies moyennes entre la composition, c’est-à-dire ici les choses fixées avant la performance, et l’improvisation, qui doit rester libre de toute préparation. Cette conception vient peut-être du fait qu’on a tendance à considérer la prestation sur scène comme absolue, dont les diverses médiations nécessaires à son apparition sont absentes. Que cette prestation soit une composition ou une improvisation ne change rien à l’affaire, la « cuisine » doit rester dans les coulisses, sinon le mystère de la production présentée sur scène pourrait en pâtir. L’improvisation en particulier, parce qu’elle implique la non-préparation des évènements précis, est souvent considérée comme n’ayant pas résulté d’évènements préalables, comme l’éducation des artistes, leur travail technique, l’élaboration de leur propre sonorité ou style de danse et répertoire d’intervention, leur parcours dans leur carrière, les interactions qu’ils ont pu avoir dans le passé avec leurs collègues, ou même l’organisation de répétitions.
1h. 21′ :
Performance Groupe 3. Durée 1’ 04“, un extrait de 28“ :
P(g3a) :
« On n’a pas usé d’une traduction. On a pris le truc tel qu’il était. »
JCF :
« Sans discussion ? »
P(g3a) :
« On a simplifié, on a simplement dit : on a trois catégories de registres, trois types, on a lu directement là. »
1h. 24′ :
Groupe 4 performance. Durée 1’10”, un extrait de 47“ :
P(g4) :
« Ben nous, notre procédure, on s’est juste dit qu’on commençait toutes là. » [Rires]
P(g4) :
« Moi, je m’étais dit que cela ressemblait à des paroles. En fait c’était vraiment comme une écriture d’une langue. »
P(g4) :
« Oui on s’était dit que c’était par là qu’il fallait faire ça ».
P(g4) :
« Moi j’ai pensé à une émission de radio, sur Radio Campus Paris… »
P(g4) :
« Mais n’empêche, moi j’ai trouvé cela très agréable à faire. Je voulais continuer. »
P :
« Mais vous avez pris une partition qui n’était pas la vôtre. »
P(g4) :
« On a fait exprès. On a choisi de ne pas prendre la nôtre, malgré la consigne. »
P(g4) :
« Moi je ne voyais pas ça. Je pensais qu’il valait être mieux toutes les trois neutres. »
Px :
[participant externe au groupe 4, celui dont la partition a été utilisée] :
« Cela m’a un peu perturbé, parce que j’avais une idée très précise… »
P(g4) :
« Et donc c’était ta partition. »
Px :
« Oui, je ne pensais pas qu’on pouvait faire des trucs aussi bien. C’est terrible. A cause de vous je vais présenter un peu partout mes projets, faire des bides monumentaux… »
P(g4) :
« Il n’y a pas que la partition, il y a les interprètes ! »
Commentaire 4
On est au cœur des difficultés concernant les partitions graphiques. Leur lien principal en termes de créativité relève-t-il de la composition sur partition ou bien de l’interprétation des graphismes ? Sont-elles réellement le lieu d’une négociation entre graphistes et interprètes sur les codes de lecture ou sur les limites des rôles respectifs ? Si la balle est complètement dans le camp de l’interprétation des partitions, laissée au monde des instrumentistes, vocalistes, artistes sonores et artistes de la danse (etc.), alors tout résultat est acceptable, y compris toute lecture aberrante du graphisme (jouer « Au clair de la lune » par exemple). Le graphisme ne compte pas, si l’on ne peut relier les interprétations possibles aux signes visuels. Dans ce contexte, le philosophe Nelson Goodman (1968, p. 188) avait analysé une partition graphique de John Cage (tirée du Concert for piano and orchestra, 1957-58) comme ne pouvant en aucun cas constituer un système de notation, garant selon lui de la capacité de reconnaître une œuvre musicale chaque fois qu’elle est jouée, par rapport aux signes présents dans la partition originale.
Historiquement, les compositeurs pionniers des partitions graphiques (notamment Earl Brown, Morton Feldman) ont été plutôt peu satisfaits des résultats sonores, lorsque leurs compositions étaient dénuées de codes particuliers qui auraient obligé les interprètes à les respecter. Ceci se passait au moment même où les interprètes n’avaient pas encore la possibilité de vraiment comprendre ce qui était en jeu, de voir clairement ce qui leur était demandé. Plus tard, alors qu’il était lui-même interprète de sa propre musique et collaborant avec de nombreux instrumentistes, Cornelius Cardew a développé une partition graphique, Treatise (1963-67) ressemblant à une anthologie de signes graphiques, version utopique d’une liberté totale laissée aux interprètes (voir paalabres.org, deuxième édition, région Treatise). D’après John Tilbury qui a été un des interprètes importants de Treatise, l’instrumentiste est mis devant une double contrainte entre respect de la codification des signes et improvisation ignorant les signes écrits. L’interprète placé devant l’absence de code donné par le compositeur se trouve dans d’une part dans l’impossibilité d’être pédant en assignant à chaque signe de la partition une sonorité particulière (ceci sur 193 pages !) et d’autre part dans l’impossibilité morale d’ignorer totalement le contenu de la partition. Telle était la situation d’un Eddie Prevost qui, s’immergeant complètement dans les sons de la musique au fur et à mesure de son déploiement, s’était mis à improviser en prenant de moins en moins en compte les aspects visuels contenus dans la partition (Tilbury 2008, p. 247).
1h. 27′ :
Performance du Groupe 5 formé par les deux animateurs. Durée : 1’23”.
JCF :
« L’idée, c’était de traverser la partition, d’avoir seulement des chuchotements, de traverser et d’avoir un silence avant et après. »
NS :
« En fait on s’est dit ça, mais on avait complètement oublié qu’il y avait un 4’ 15” là. Du coup, il fallait faire ça. Et après je me suis dit : ben non … cela ne marche pas bien, alors pourquoi pas faire un geste. »
P :
« Mais l’histoire du silence, c’est que vous avez peut-être mal lu, c’était à quatre temps. »
Commentaire 5
Grâce à ce récit, se pose la question de la propriété de ce qui vient d’être performé. On peut détailler la « dissémination du droit d’auteur » (Citton, 2014) associée aux dernières performances.
Reprenons le récit des performances de l’atelier à l’envers. Si on cherchait à raconter les choses chronologiquement, comment faudrait-il déterminer un début ? Et pourquoi à ce moment-là et pas un peu avant ?
Voici le récit en remontant le temps :
• [Phase 4] 3 (ou 2) personnes ont inventé collectivement pour jouer au départ…
• [Phase 3 :]… de signes sur un papier tracés par une personne différente, au départ…
• [Phase 2 :]… d’un enregistrement réalisé par le groupe entier, au départ…
• … d’une proposition d’une personne d’expérimenter une deuxième fois après…
• … discussions et partages des réalisations de chacune…
• … d’une première proposition d’une autre personne sur le fait de représenter sur le papier ce que le
groupe venait de faire au départ…
• [Phase 1 :]… d’un protocole initial de 2 personnes, les animateurs de l’atelier, au départ…
• … d’essais-bonifications (au pluriel multiples) en différentes situations de cette même idée de protocole…
Si on essaye de dresser la liste de toutes les fois où on a utilisé ce protocole de signatures, celle-ci dépasse la dizaine de situations et de beaucoup la cinquantaine de personnes impliquées de différentes façons dans de telles expérimentations. Toutes les propositions exprimées nous ont influencés pour déterminer le contenu de l’atelier de ce jour de mars 2018. Il est même arrivé qu’un de nous deux ne soit pas présent aux expérimentations effectuées, mais en a eu un compte-rendu : c’est une autre forme d’influence…
Ce déjà long parcours insiste sur des actions qu’on peut cataloguer comme artistiques. Mais il faudrait considérer aussi, par exemple : la taille et forme de la salle (organisation, architecture), l’agencement des meubles (en fonction de ce qui s’est passé avant et va se passer après dans cette salle), les circonstances du repas de midi, le style de papier et des stylos, feutres, crayons disponibles, les bouts de vie que chaque personne amène avec elle en entrant, etc.
Après ce petit récit-panorama conduisant à ces performances, comment répondre à la question : à qui appartient-elles ? Si on considère la question comme intéressante, il est sûr qu’elle est énormément complexe. Mais on peut aussi considérer ce récit-panorama (et tant d’autres) comme faisant exploser la notion de droit de propriété. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon[5] a montré il y a déjà longtemps en détail « Comment la propriété est impossible » (en 10 propositions, son chap. IV, 2009).
Phase 5
1h. 30′ :
Le débat est ouvert.
NS :
« Dans les questions du début, moi j’avais noté la question de la notation, on n’a pas arrêté de noter des trucs, on a plein de papiers bien remplis. J’ai dévalisé ma tante avec des vieux papiers des années quatre-vingt. En me disant : je vais prendre ça et on verra bien, mais en fait, du coup, tout a été utilisé ! Donc on a beaucoup monté, en fait, c’était la notation par rapport à la création, à l’interprétation, etc. Peut-être on peut revenir sur ce que chacun a vécu ce moment-là sur ce truc-là, et après il y a l’idée d’une partition “donnée, ordonnée“, qui était le thème de la journée du séminaire. Donc comment comprenez-vous l’idée de “donné-ordonné” vis-à-vis de ce qu’on a fait, ce que chacun a vécu dans ce qu’on a fait. On peut peut-être faire un tour de table, sans obligation de parler. On peut faire un tour avec un dialogue. »
P :
« Moi, je suis absolument convaincu par ce qu’on a fait. J’ai l’impression que je n’ai pas suffisamment de recul pour pouvoir mettre des mots justes sur ce qui s’est passé. En fait il s’est passé plein de choses très différentes. En tout cas, c’est un chouette moment déjà en termes de temps et d’échanges. Pour ce qui est “ordonné”, on a tous été obligés de mettre de l’ordre dans ce qu’on avait, en tout cas faire des choix. Tout le monde devait traverser le graphisme, surtout dans la dernière partie. En tout cas, sur la forme, sur la présentation, sur la méthode, je trouve que c’est plutôt vraiment convainquant. Ou alors il faudrait peut-être plus de temps, pour qu’on puisse vraiment faire apparaître tout ce qui vient de se passer. »
P :
« Je te passe mon tour ! »
P :
« Mais non, mais c’est vachement cool. La question que je me pose, c’est : comment pourrait-on passer de ce genre d’expérimentation à une création dans le sens d’un spectacle, d’une représentation publique ? C’est ultra intéressant à faire, à pratiquer, et je suppose que cela donne plein de matière à expérimenter… pour que chacun puisse proposer des choses. Après, autour de la table il y a un certain nombre d’entre nous qui ont déjà l’habitude des partitions graphiques et de les avoir interprétées. Ensuite, ce que je me demande, c’est comment tu fais à partir de là pour en faire une œuvre. Et aussi, il y avait un des points avec Frédéric (Mathevet) qui disait que la partition graphique, c’était bien, parce que cela pouvait nous permettre de nous décaler un peu quand on faisait de l’impro et d’inventer de nouvelles choses. En fait, je me demande si cela permet vraiment d’inventer de nouvelles choses. Ici, malgré tout, quoi qu’il en soit, on se retrouve toujours dans le même genre de truc… »
Commentaire 6
De nouveau on doit faire face à l’ambiguïté de la signification dans le cadre de l’utilisation des partitions graphiques, entre la présence d’une partition qui constitue dans les perspectives occidentales du modernisme une « œuvre », et la multitude des interprétations possibles qui souligne leur ouverture sur l’expérimentation et l’improvisation. Pour le participant qui vient de s’exprimer, l’expérimentation devrait déboucher sur une œuvre achevée pour pouvoir être présentée sur scène. Mais en même temps, pour lui, l’expérimentation en elle-même, paraît une activité séduisante.
La première question qui se pose dans ce contexte, c’est celui de la nouveauté : la valeur de l’œuvre ne se trouve pas dans la répétition de l’existant, dans le plagiat des partitions déjà écrites, mais dans l’apport d’éléments nouveaux. Du côté de l’expérimentation et de l’improvisation le concept de nouveauté est peut-être plus modeste : ce sont les micro-variations d’éléments déjà-là qui s’inscrivent dans un contexte de production collective immédiate. Ce contexte est susceptible de produire des moments non pas tellement créateurs de nouveautés mais plutôt de situations toujours renouvelées. Dès lors, on se demandera quelles sont les valeurs liées spécifiquement à l’interprétation des partitions graphiques ? N’ouvrent-elles pas un espace de liberté, loin des considérations d’évaluation qualitative des œuvres reconnues du patrimoine et des exigences qui entrent en jeu au niveau de leur interprétation ? En quoi les prestations réalisées au cours de l’atelier ont-elles moins de valeur que beaucoup de prestations sur scène ?
La deuxième question est relative à l’hégémonie de la scène publique, dans ce qu’on appelle le « spectacle vivant », survivance très marquée de ce qui a été développé depuis le 19e siècle. Non seulement l’existence d’une partition n’a de sens que si elle est interprétée sur scène, en présence d’un public qui a possibilité d’accéder à sa publication, mais dans le cas de l’improvisation, le seul élément intangible est bien la performance « sur scène » en présence, dans le temps présent, seul espace où le jeu improvisé prend tout son sens. Mais dans le cas de l’improvisation, il y a une inquiétude, car il y a souvent le sentiment que le public n’est pas inclus dans le processus, qu’il conviendrait en quelque sorte de développer des situations où tout le monde est partie prenante de ce qui est produit collectivement. C’est là où le plaisir de l’expérimentation en tant que telle peut paraître une situation alternative à la scène et à l’élaboration d’une « œuvre », à condition d’y inclure le public comme membres actifs dans le processus, et de sortir des logiques qui séparent les professionnels des amateurs.
Jean-Charles François précise le contexte dans lequel la situation du départ a été élaborée :
« Simplement un des contextes dans lequel on a fait ça, était qu’on faisait une rencontre entre des musiciens et des danseurs (2015-17 au Ramdam près de Lyon). L’idée de cette rencontre, c’était le développement de matériaux en commun entre musiciens et danseurs. D’où l’idée de gestes et de sons reliés ensemble. Et alors un jour, un plasticien est venu se mêler à ce groupe. L’idée était qu’est-ce qu’on va faire pour que lui puisse entrer dans le jeu. Et donc c’est cette situation qu’on a développée. Mais en fait le projet réellement était l’improvisation, c’est-à-dire de développer des situations dans lesquelles on peut développer des matériaux en vue d’improvisations, sur le long terme. Donc, c’est dans ce contexte-là, plutôt que dans l’idée de réaliser une œuvre graphique, de faire une pièce autour des situations graphiques. »
Un participant demande des éclaircissements sur les situations développées dans ce contexte.
JCF :
« On avait énormément de protocoles d’entrée dans une improvisation dans lesquels danseurs et musiciens avaient à faire quelque chose en commun. Ensuite, à partir des matériaux élaborés, on leur demandait de les développer librement. On a fait cela sur 5 week-ends et il y a un certain nombre de situations. L’idée des signatures était celle qu’on a fait au départ, parce que c’est un bon moyen pour prendre contact les uns avec les autres, prendre connaissance des gens qui sont là. »
P :
« Est-ce que cela a pu produire beaucoup de variété ? Des choses très différentes ? De quel point de vue ? Des gestes, des sons ? »
NS :
« Aujourd’hui, dans la situation des signatures gestes-graphismes-sons, on a peu développé le geste. Mais au Ramdam, les danseurs nous ont aidé à faire toutes ces choses-là. Même en partant d’une table, à la fin tout le monde jouait sur la chaise où tout le monde était autour de la table, on bougeait. Et ce qui est intéressant c’est qu’ils nous ont aidés à faire des trucs sur du son aussi, dans le sens où l’intelligence dansée, en fait, est déjà multiple. J’ai essayé de le faire, mais j’étais limité, en essayant de balancer, de faire des grands gestes, tout cela en essayant de se lâcher un peu. Et aussi la question de la spécialisation entre danse et musique : quand on travaille là-dessus, justement avec ces danseurs-là, la distinction entre danseurs et musiciens est un truc qui ne tient pas longtemps, même s’il y a une direction de la musique et une direction de la danse. En réalité, dans la vraie vie, ça ne tient pas si longtemps que ça et tous les protocoles qu’on a faits reviennent à questionner régulièrement ces choses-là. »
P :
« Et par rapport à ce que j’ai dit ce matin [elle avait fait une présentation dans le cadre du séminaire] moi, c’est du geste… avec le son dont vous parlez. Même pour Laban, il travaille vraiment le son. Là, quand je suis en train de parler, je peux le noter en termes d’effort, de sa poussée : “p… p…” ; lancer, cracher, frapper, enfin c’est du geste vocal en fait. Et après l’histoire des stylos (etc.) c’est du geste avec, même si ça produit du son, donc en fait, on voit qu’il y a une espèce de congruence entre gestes et sons. Et c’est vrai que moi j’ai tendance à ne parler seulement que de gestes. En même temps c’est super d’amener le son du geste. Là, j’ai adoré ton dernier geste, parce qu’il a un son, un vrai son. On ne l’a pas vu, on l’a entendu dans l’enregistrement, mais en fait c’est un vrai son. Et en même temps, je trouve que c’est bien de parler en même temps du son et du geste, et aussi parce quelque part on décortique pour donner deux matières qui… Mais finalement ce n’est pas indigeste. »
P :
« Du coup, il y a quelque chose qui est de l’ordre de la performance aussi, qui se joue dedans. Pour moi la performance c’est quelque chose de physique, qui n’est pas joué comme un comédien joue, mais qui est de l’ordre de la mise en jeu simplement du corps, et c’est un état commun qu’on peut trouver dans des tas de formes de performance. Tu peux avoir dans le son ici, sur l’effort, tu peux avoir un geste, cela sur des histoires, des capacités que tu peux faire sur une espèce de production, tel mouvement de la bouche, de la langue, tu produis du son… »
P :
« Cela me fait penser aux difficultés, quand on a travaillé par exemple sur le son avec des chorégraphes, des plasticiens, des gens qui ne sont pas des musiciens, de comment communiquer avec l’autre. Cela me fait penser à un travail avec un chorégraphe, il disait : “moi je veux un son frais”. En fait qu’est-ce que c’est pour lui qu’un son frais, c’est pas du tout ce que fait l’autre. Du coup d’utiliser soit le geste, soit le son, en fait, on a des images très différentes de ce qu’est un son, de ce qu’est un geste, et du coup tout ça, cela permet de communiquer entre artistes qui sont différents. On comprend des choses complètement différentes. »
P :
« Moi, j’ai vécu un truc pareil avec des architectes, ils parlaient d’une image Riclès. Riclès, c’est frais ! »
P :
« Du chewing gum ! Moi ce que j’ai trouvé intéressant, c’est quelque chose que j’ai déjà pratiquée, de noter, puis de retraduire, de reprendre, de repasser, tout ça… Mais en danse on a beaucoup de partitions comme ça, où franchement la chorégraphe arrive avec ses propres partitions. Et puis on les regarde et on ne comprend rien. C’est pareil aujourd’hui, là on ne comprend rien, cela reste abscond quand même. Mais moi, là, j’ai trouvé que c’était bien de s’approprier un texte… Parce qu’avec les partitions des chorégraphes, on n’ose pas le faire, je n’ose pas. Oui, on travaille tous avec des partitions, mais faire n’importe quoi à partir de partitions c’est vachement intéressant. Mais là je trouve que cela m’a intéressée de se dire que : “oui, ben, c’est illisible, je ne sais pas ce que c’est, mais je le fais”. »
Commentaire 7
Ici, on est en présence d’un élément important lié en particulier aux partitions graphiques : elles permettent de « faire », d’accéder à une mise en action. Les personnes ayant l’habitude de fonctionner à partir d’éléments écrits, visuels, sont souvent bloquées quand il s’agit d’improviser, donc de se passer de ce qui constitue la base de leur mode de fonctionnement. La partition n’est que le prétexte (texte avant le « texte ») pour faire quelque chose, en mettant l’accent sur le « faire ». La partition est l’entrée qui permet de passer à l’action en dépassant la peur que son absence suscite. Une fois cette peur maîtrisée, une fois l’action commencée, la partition graphique peut être jetée ou ignorée (voir le groupe 2 ci-dessus) car elle devient peu importante par rapport à l’action qu’elle a suscitée. Que la partition soit « illisible » importe peu eu regard à la réalisation d’un « faire » qui prend toute sa signification.
A ce sujet, il faut noter que les partitions graphiques prennent très souvent tout leur sens dans des perspectives d’apprentissage des pratiques improvisées. Elles constituent, en tant qu’outil pédagogique, des transitions commodes entre les habitudes de lecture solfégique des partitions et le fait de se passer de tout support écrit dans l’improvisation. Comme dans le cas des pratiques de « sound painting » ou de direction gestuelle des improvisations, cette pratique d’enseignement tend à ne pas du tout libérer ceux et celles qui se lancent dans l’improvisation de l’hégémonie du visuel sur le sonore. La difficulté principale n’est pas entre le passage de la partition traditionnelle à la partition graphique, mais bien avec ce qui va se passer après, si l’objectif est d’accéder à la situation de communication orale/aurale mettant l’accent essentiel sur l’écoute et le sonore (et/ou le mouvement du corps) dans l’improvisation. Cela vaut ici pour le monde de la musique et c’est peut-être très différent dans le domaine de la danse.
P :
« Tu peux t’autoriser à interpréter sans la pression de l’auteur, le détachement de la question de l’auteur, et donc même pour les chorégraphes, c’est quelque chose qu’on pourrait faire. Certainement on ne se l’autorise pas, mais il faut derrière pouvoir s’en emparer et aussi d’une certaine manière si c’est dessiné comme ça, c’est pour qu’on puisse derrière s’en emparer. Cela dépend dans quelle démarche cela a été fait. Si c’est transmis, tu vas quelque part pouvoir t’en emparer. »
P :
« Je ne sais pas. C’est aussi pour faire œuvre. »
Commentaire 8
On en revient encore à la nécessité de « faire œuvre » s’il s’agit de présenter quelque chose de professionnel à un public. Il convient pour cela de développer des dispositifs qui garantissent le développement de pratiques inaccessibles aux amateurs. L’expérimentation dans des ateliers collectifs peut-être fortement encouragée à condition qu’à un moment donné un créateur démiurge (terme qui peut être décliné au féminin) qui va sérieusement reprendre les aspects intéressants des moments d’expérimentation pour déboucher sur un objet artistique. Celles et ceux qui ont participé à la phase d’expérimentation jouent maintenant le rôle de petits soldats obéissants.
Dans l’expérience professionnelle, il continue d’y avoir une tendance à sacraliser celui ou celle qui assume la pleine responsabilité artistique d’un spectacle. Dans le cadre du présent atelier il est dit à ce sujet combien « s’autoriser sans la pression de l’auteur » est une transgression délicieuse, mais qu’on ne peut faire que hors du cadre d’un travail professionnel débouchant sur une prestation scénique. Pourtant, l’impression de faire complètement partie du processus de création perdure, et c’est ce qu’on peut écrire dans les notes de programme.
Après l’écriture de ces propos un peu trop ironiques, on peut aussi prendre au sérieux la proposition suivante : une pratique donnée peut-elle accéder au statut d’œuvre achevée tout en respectant les règles d’égalité et de démocratie au sein d’un collectif, dans une co-construction du résultat final ? Un processus d’expérimentation peut-il se développer sur le long terme dans une continuité entre situations expérimentales et présentations publiques ? Pour travailler dans un tel contexte, toute « méthode » déterminée (de nature compositionnelle) ne conviendra pas. Il va être nécessaire de varier continuellement les modes d’interaction selon l’évolution du travail, comme cela a été particulièrement le cas lors du présent atelier sur une durée très courte. Les outils de support ne peuvent pas se limiter à une seule situation, comme dans les exemples qui suivent : improvisation, écriture sur partition, support audio ou vidéo, images, narrations, grilles, définitions de protocoles, etc. Les divers supports vont être convoqués au fur et à mesure des besoins du collectif. Sans oublier d’inclure dans les processus tous les éléments « domestiques » liés au travail proprement artistique : la cuisine, le ménage, les enfants, les aspects administratifs, les rapports aux institutions, l’organisation des lieux, des horaires, chercher des subventions, etc. Un autre élément indispensable à considérer : il va falloir beaucoup plus de temps à un collectif pour arriver à un résultat probant, que pour un compositeur travaillant en solitaire avec l’utilisation exclusive des plans écrits à l’avance. Mais l’achèvement complet restera sans doute inaccessible et donc restera l’élément saillant d’une démarche, qui comme dans l’improvisation, recommence éternellement.
P :
« Si cela ne peut pas être interprété, si on te donne quelque chose qui n’est pas quelque part interprétable… »
P :
« C’est là où la partition, ce n’est pas un don, ce n’est pas pour donner quelque chose. »
P :
« En fait ce qui est donné c’est ce moment où, ensemble, dans un groupe, on a appris à construire ses propres signes. On s’est donné son propre mode d’emploi, et du coup on construit ensemble, collectivement une lecture définie avec les gens en présence. »
Pe :
« Après ce ne sont pas que des signes. On ne sait pas ce que c’est qu’un signe, mais selon les choses dont parlait Tim Ingold, il n’y avait pas forcément quelque chose de l’ordre du signe, il y avait quelque chose de pratique, qui procédait du mouvement. On ne joue pas le signe mais on le rejoue, enfin on le reparcourt… »
P :
« … on traduit… »
Pe :
« … on a repris le même chemin, quoi… »
P :
« … c’est un prétexte pour… »
Pe :
« … un point d’entrée. Et aussi par rapport à ce que tu disais, sur cette idée que cela ne puisse pas être interprété et tout. Cela étant, il y a des partitions qui sont quasiment injouables, mais quand on les regarde, ça nous met dans un certain univers. On ne va pas pouvoir les transformer en son peut-être, ce sera un truc purement visuel, mais si on regarde en détail, tu vois des foules de partitions, tu peux imaginer des choses, après tu seras capable de les jouer, cela vaut vraiment le coup de les jouer. Déjà – devant un détail – tu te dis c’est une musique qui te donne quelque chose, là. Tu peux aussi imaginer que cette musique, c’est un dessin. Les trucs de Cage où la marge d’interprétation… »
JCF :
« Dans les années 1950-60, on a un peu vécu cela, c’est-à-dire, un grand nombre de compositeurs qui produisaient des partitions graphiques, et ils étaient aussi très frustrés par rapport aux résultats, parce que par exemple, les interprètes avaient tendance à produire des clichés, car il n’y avait rien de prescrit. Du côté des interprètes il y avait aussi une certaine frustration, car ils se trouvaient en quelque sorte dans un espèce d’univers médian dans lequel il y avait à la fois imposition d’une graphie, mais non-imposition quant à son interprétation : il fallait que l’interprète invente tout à partir d’une donnée qui n’avait pas été choisie. C’était à la fois imposé, et il fallait tout inventer. C’est à cette époque que beaucoup d’interprètes de la musique contemporaine se sont tournés plutôt vers l’improvisation, c’est-à-dire de prendre réellement les choses en main complètement sans l’aide d’un compositeur. Ce qui est intéressant aujourd’hui, c’est qu’il y a tout de même un intérêt très grand, qui est réapparu ces dernières années pour les partitions graphiques – cela n’avait jamais disparu en fait – mais peut-être dans un autre contexte. »
Pg :
« Le terme de partition graphique fait certainement référence à quelque chose de précis. Moi, par exemple, mes partitions représentent un réel travail graphique. D’ailleurs je n’utilise pas un logiciel d’édition de partition, j’utilise un logiciel de graphiste. Par exemple, je prends une page blanche et je crée quelque chose de graphique, et quelque fois je fais des choix à partir de la base de la grammaire, mais surtout je fais un choix graphique pour que l’œil soit satisfait, pour qu’il y ait un équilibre, une dynamique, etc. Pour moi, c’est une partition graphique qui est très codée. »
JCF :
« Il y a un ouvrage des années 1970 de l’architecte Lawrence Halprin, RSVP Cycles (1970), je ne sais pas si vous connaissez ? »
Pg :
« On en a parlé… »
JCF :
« Votre démarche me fait penser tout à fait à cela. »
P :
« J’ai beaucoup apprécié cette journée. Dans votre méthodologie, vous avez dit qu’on devait reconnaître physiquement – ou alors je n’ai pas très bien compris – on devait se reconnaître les uns et les autres, je ne sais pas quelle est l’intention qui est derrière. »
JCF :
« L’intention première, c’est qu’on ne se connaît pas et c’est un moyen de… »
P :
« …se présenter. »
P :
« La signature, plus physiquement… »
JCF :
« Oui c’est cela, de faire une connaissance non-verbale, mais enfin bon…, c’est juste un début quoi… »
P :
« Moi je n’avais jamais fait ça. Je voudrais faire ça par rapport à l’expérience de la marche. Et de discuter, de sélectionner le son, quels sons on garde, quels sons on va transmettre. Les sons choisis, qu’on soit attiré plus par des sons. Le travail, on harmonise des choses. Mais dans ce que j’ai vécu, je ne peux pas transcrire tous les sons à la fois, il faut que je choisisse… »
2h. 00′ :
Frédéric Mathevet, organisateur : « On se fait un petit quart d’heure de pause. Après on reprend à 4 heures et demie, on a la journée jusqu’à sept heures. Ça va imprimer dans la tête. Pour la table ronde. »
[Fin de l’enregistrement et de l’atelier.]
Conclusion
Dans l’espace de deux heures, il a été possible de se mettre dans des situations réelles de pratiques, déjà familières pour les personnes présentes à l’atelier, suscitant des discussions animées. Ces discussions ont porté à la fois sur les modalités immédiates des situations pratiques, sur l’invention de variations autour de ces situations, et un débat sur l’esthétique et l’éthique que ces pratiques ont pu évoquer sur le moment. De ce débat est ressorti les aspects majeurs des problématiques liées à l’usage des partitions graphiques :
L’interprétation des objets visuels dans le domaine de la danse et de la musique, les relations entre les « créateurs » (composition, chorégraphie, mise en scène, direction d’ensemble) et les « interprètes ».
La question de la propriété intellectuelle des partitions graphiques.
Les fonctions multiples des partitions graphiques, entre production artistique et outil particulier au sein d’un processus plus général.
Les situations expérimentales par rapport à la présentation professionnelle sur scène.
Les méandres des situations expérimentales par rapport à l’élaboration précise d’une « œuvre » achevée.
La présence corporelle, permettant un double accès aux mouvements dansés et à la production sonore, permettant une mise en relation signifiante danse-musique par rapport à un objet visuel assimilé au domaine des arts plastiques.
Il est bien évident que les expressions passagères lors des discussions ne pouvaient pas impliquer un approfondissement des concepts abordés, ni une prise de conscience immédiate de toutes les personnes présentes sur leur signification. C’est pourquoi il a été nécessaire de reprendre les propos de l’atelier dans des commentaires les interprétant. L’interprétation des propos des personnes qui les ont tenues nous aident à penser, mais n’est en aucun cas un moyen d’analyser ou d’expliquer ce que ces personnes pensent ou font. L’objectif d’une ouverture d’un débat à partir d’une pratique commune et de l’historique particulière de chaque participant a été complètement atteint. On ne peut prédire ce que cette première approche collective aurait pu produire si l’atelier avait été prolongé sur une durée de deux ou trois jours, mais nous sommes en présence d’un début assez prometteur.
Il est évident que toutes les questions concernant les partitions graphiques n’ont pas pu être abordées lors de l’atelier, les débats n’ont pas réussi à faire le tour de la question.
En conclusion, le dispositif pratique que nous venons d’exposer paraît une alternative crédible à développer dans le cadre des rencontres professionnelles liées à la recherche (notamment artistique). La juxtaposition des idées, compte-rendu de recherche, communications diverses, peut se faire par visio-conférence (moyen synchrone) et d’autres outils numériques (asynchrones). La rareté de plus en plus grande des rencontres internationales en présentiel liée aux évolutions climatiques ou pandémiques, implique l’invention de situations où la rencontre effective autour des pratiques et le débat sur la base d’éléments mis en commun devient une condition très importante de notre survie artistique et intellectuelle.
1. Dans ce texte P = participant ou participante à l’atelier. Lorsqu’une personne prend la parole plusieurs fois dans un temps très court, on l’identifie par P+une lettre (Pz par exemple). Seuls sont identifiés les deux animateurs de l’atelier : JCF = Jean-Charles François. NS = Nicolas Sidoroff.
2. Il faut noter que les papiers sur lesquels les participantes et participants à cet atelier ont produit leurs signatures ont été perdus. Les exemples qui sont donnés proviennent d’une situation similaire réalisée à Budapest en janvier 2023.
3. Les échanges dans le cours de l’atelier entre les moments de pratique permettent d’expliciter un certain nombre d’éléments à même la situation, et un deuxième temps est nécessaire pour pousser plus loin les idées qui se sont exprimées. C’est la fonction des commentaires encadrés, écrits après coup par les deux auteurs.
4. Voir Tim Ingold (2007, 2011) sur la notion de « lignes ». Il se trouve que Tim Ingold, dans le cadre de ce séminaire, a fait une communication dans la session qui a immédiatement précédé notre atelier.
5. « Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) est un polémiste, journaliste, économiste, philosophe, homme politique et sociologue français. Précurseur de l’anarchisme, il est le seul théoricien révolutionnaire du XIXe siècle (…) à être issu du milieu ouvrier. » (wikipedia)
Ouvrages cités dans cet article
L’Autre Musique revue, #5 Partitions, 2020. Voir L’Autre Musique.
Cage, John (1957-58). Concert for Piano and Orchestra. Editions Peters, Londres, New York.
Cardew, Cornelius (1963-67). Treatise. The Gallery Upstairs Press, Buffalo, N. Y. 1967.
Citton, Yves. (2014). /Pour une écologie de l’attention/. Paris : Éd. du Seuil, coll. La couleur des idées..
Goodman, Nelson (1968). Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976.
[Langages de l’art : Une approche de la théorie des symboles, tr. fr. J. Morizot, Paris, Hachette, 2005.]
Halprin, Lawrence (1970) The RSVP cycles: creative processes in the human environment, G. Braziller, 1970. [« Les cycles RSVP. Dispositifs de création dans le champs des activités humaines », in De l’une à l’autre.- Composer, apprendre et partager en mouvements, Bruxelles, Contredanse, 2010, pp. 8-38.]
Ingold, Tim (2007). Lines, A Brief History. Routlege. [Une brève histoire des lignes. Zones sensibles, trad. Sophie Renaut, 2011.]
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph (2009).
Tilbury, John (2008). Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981), A life Unfinished. Matching Tye, near Harlow, Essex: Copula.
October 29, 2022 at the Petit Bistrot, Paris.
December 20, 2023 at la Bidule, Paris
Editing 2023-25:
Jean-Charles François and Nicolas Sidoroff.
English translation from French:
Jean-Charles François
“Born in 1985 in Boké (Guinea), Djély Madi Kouyaté was initiated by his father at the age of 5. In 1986, he moved to Europe with the Ensemble Kotéba from Ivory Coast, which he left two years later to pursue a solo career…
This author, composer, flutist, kora and balafon player, collaborated with diverse artists, such as Mary Kanté (kora), Kanté Manflia (guitar), Mamady Keïta (djembe), Prince Dabaté (kora), Mamadi Diabaté (guitar), Ballet Kakandé, Sékou & Ramata, Louis César Ewandé, Djéour Cissokho (kora), the groups Bugarabu and Nimba, Compagnie Antipode, Mandinfoli, Ballet Kodya, Manu Hermia (flute, sax), the Maurice Béjart Ballets…
Djélimady Kouyaté teaches balafon at the Cité de la Musique de la Villette in Paris (France)… and he is currently touring with his group, including his sons Sékou Kouyaté (guitar accompaniement) and Karamba (bass).” (afrison.com)
The text of this interview is based on the compilation of two encounters that took place in Paris, on October 29, 2022 at the Petit Bistrot, and on December 20 2023, at the Bidule café. Djembe player Olivier François was invited to the interviews to play the role of mediation between African musical culture and the PaalabRes members (Jean-Charles François and Nicolas Sidoroff), who are neophytes in this field. He was also the one who established the contact between PaaLabRes and Djely Madi Kouyaté.
We (PaaLabRes) made videos and recordings within cafés context, in which our encounters took place. The aim was to better transmit ideas inscribed in practices, but these were far from optimal conditions for doing so. Ideal conditions are never met, but it’s necessary to record for sharing with the public (publishing, communicating). We use recording and transcribing as common tools in our investigations. In the world of music, the almost magical phrase “we do it this way”, occurs very often. But without a balafon or “boté” at hand, how is it possible to explain any part of “do it this way”?
During our second encounter with Djely Madi and Olivier, the goal was to get a testimonial from them. The ambiance and background noise of a café are a good example of non-optimal, or even bad, conditions to do that. We had a recording device, a portable telephone camera, but our first intention was upset several times. For example, during part of our exchanges, a conversation next to us was concerned with the working conditions of an employee, and you could hear sufficiently distinctly, so as to prevent us from broadcasting these extracts. We kept only one example of a video made at La Bidule café, that seemed to us sufficiently appropriate to illustrate what was said. Therefore, we asked them to record in better conditions the sound and/or visual events described in the transcript of the interviews.
The general idea is to retrace your life story since childhood up to today, and to describe in detail the various practices you developed along the way.
Djely Madi Kouyaté:
OK, then, let’s start?
Nicolas Sidoroff:
If you want, or we will get some coffee…
DMK:
No, let’s begin. To start with, I can say that in our Kouyaté family everybody is musician, the women, the men are musicians, they play balafon, n’goni, or other African instruments.
JCF:
The n’goni, what is it?
DMK:
The n’goni is the African guitar, but very small, small…[1] we play it like that [he demonstrates], It’s the n’goni.
Djely Madi Kouyaté and Olivier François during the interview at the Petit Bistrot. Photo Nicolas Sidoroff.
DMK :
In our family everyone plays some instrument. I started to play at age five with my father. He sits beside me, he plays, I listen to him, and I start to tap and see if it corresponds to the timing.
NS:
When was this happening?
DMK:
I was born in 1958, in Guinea, at the time of independence! In Kamponi, in the Boké region, at about 300km from Conakry, but today 250km taking the most direct road.
[The café tender comes to take our orders]
Ah! It cuts as someone is asking something…[laugh].
May I continue?
JCF:
Yes.
DMK:
Then, I begin to understand how it works, to know the timing, when to start.
JCF:
You tap on a djembe?
DMK:
No, not a djembe, on a chair, as I was very small beside my father. My father is sitting on a folding armchair like a deckchair, and I’m sitting on its rim, he’s playing, and I listen, then I tap on this rim, it makes a little noise that my father can hear, but he doesn’t say anything.
Olivier François:
You don’t pay too much attention to children, you watch them but from far away. They listen to a rehearsal, or a feast and they get together, take cans and bang on them, whenever they please, and they learn that way.
DMK:
And I get to tap on the chair, like that [he demonstrates]. Banco. Later, when I begin to play balafon, I have to fetch my sister to get her to put the balafon flat on the floor. The balafon is bigger than me, it’s too heavy, so that I can’t move it myself. When the balafon is not used, my father puts it against the wall. I start to play, but I say to myself: “Ah! OK! My father played like that, always, there, I am going to try.” I imitate his gestures, how he holds the mallets, in what position he plays, and I try to do the same thing as he does. And they let me do it. I play several times, and my father comes when he hears me play, he stops and listens to me. Then, he leaves, laughing… he is gone.
JCF:
He doesn’t say anything.
DMK:
Exactly. I don’t know what kind of laugh he is making, perhaps he is making fun of me, I did not play well, or maybe it is the contrary [laugh], it might be a bit of both. In this way, I have developed playing the balafon, until the moment when I am going with my father to a ceremony, that is a wedding or a baptism, or else other occasions of a feast, of life. I am going with my father, but always with someone else who carries my balafon because it is too heavy for me. Then, arrived there, I accompany my father who plays the solo. Then, we continue like that. Later, at a certain moment, I became the master, and my father played the accompaniment.
And when I finally manage to do that, I start carrying the balafon by myself. So that’s how you develop your skills up to a certain age, fifteen years old. So, I play, I play, I play, and people start talking about me: “Ah! There is this little one in Kamponi (my village), he plays very well, if there’s a wedding, you go and fetch him.” Because at that time, in the village where I was born, there was no school, there was no telephone, there were no activities like in the big cities. Today, since two or three years ago, there is a school.
NS:
Your father comes, he is smiling and then goes away without saying anything. Then we get to the part where you accompany your father. What happened in between, from the moment he doesn’t say anything, to the moment you play with him?
DMK:
When I play with him, if at some point it wasn’t right, he shows me, he doesn’t stop, but he shows me how it’s done, and I catch up with him and then we continue.
NS:
Directly in front of people who are celebrating in a feast?
DMK:
Yes. But he doesn’t stop. Communication happens very quickly, when you start to know the notes in your head. Because when I was a kid, I listened a lot, I listened a lot to my brothers playing, and to my father. Even on the guitar: when I started playing the guitar, I started playing by myself, because I had all our music in my head. So, to tune a guitar, nobody showed me how to tune a guitar. I started by playing the songs I knew in the village, nobody showed me. Because I remember well, one time I told my father to buy me a guitar, he said, « No! » Sometime later I bought a guitar. I come, I say: « Show me how to tune ». He said, « You have to listen ». I went to my room, I sorted it out, I tuned it, I began playing the tunes and that’s how it all started, and that’s it.
NS:
So, there’s a first time, a moment when your father comes and says to you: « We’re going to the wedding of what’s-their-name, etc., and you’re going to come and play with me ».
DMK:
Yes. I remember very well, at that time, I started to carry my balafon, because at first, I couldn’t hold a balafon, because I was too skinny, too small. But not at that moment (then I still couldn’t carry my balafon) [laughs]. I was also with my father’s younger brother, the two of us learning the balafon with him. My older brother was also with us, but his problem was that when you show him something, he cannot retain it, and he doesn’t understand very quickly. Then, once my father hit my older brother, and I cried. This is my problem, at night, when it’s too late and I’m getting too tired to sleep. But he shows me what it is and I’m quick to play. He doesn’t say: « We’re going to do this, we’re going to do that ». He doesn’t say anything, but while we’re playing, he’ll make you play the piece we’ve never heard before. You have to listen to him. When he starts going, you have to catch up. And my brother who was also beside us, he’s not very good at that, you know, he had a lot of trouble with our father.
NS:
Then, for him, it was finished for music?
DMK:
No, he continued to make music, but he didn’t go far. He stayed in the village, he never even went to Conakry, to the capital. Because back home, in the village, when someone starts to be known, he moves to the capital, but if you’re not very good, you can’t stay there.
JCF :
But did you go to the capital?
DMK:
Yes, before I went on to seek for adventure, I went to Conakry once, in 1980, the year my father died. I was 22 years old. I was in Conakry for three months, then I went back to my village. In 1981 I went away to seek adventure.
NS:
Just to be sure, because, in our imaginary way of making music, when we play for a wedding, we need to rehearse beforehand, so it takes up some time, or at least we can phone partners, listing all the pieces we intend to play. And so, in your case it’s not how you do it?
DMK:
This is not the case.
NS:
Is it decided on the spot?
DMK:
That’s it, it’s decided in time…
NS:
… along the way? Or on the spot?
DMK:
On the spot, yes.
OF:
According to the songs of the women.
DMK:
Women’s songs, too. When the women start to sing, at that moment, if you play the djembe, you’ll catch up, or the woman will say: « You must play such and such a piece ». And that’s when you start playing the piece and the woman starts singing.
NS:
The women decide?
DMK:
That’s right. Because they’re the ones who sing. All the boys in our culture play, and the women sing. But now, well, it’s a mix, there are men who sing and there are women who play now.
JCF:
Concerning the relation with dance, how does it work?
DMK:
When we dance, the djembe player marks the steps, and if the woman starts dancing, he follows… If the djembe player gives a call, that’s when the steps change, to do different movements.
NS:
Does it change anything with the balafon?
DMK:
No. Only with the djembe.
NS :
The balafon player can continue?
DMK :
It’s possible to continue. Only, to make the call, for the dancer to change steps, the djembe player gives either a long call or a shorter call, it depends on the situation.
OF:
Here, in dance, the balafon holds a special place, it is always present in dances. This is not the case with the kora for example, which is only played for the kings, that is, for the men who speak.
JCF:
But are we not in a situation in which everybody dances?
DMK:
Yes, most people dance, when there’s a feast most people dance, almost everyone.
JCF:
So, music is more a matter for specialists, and instrumental playing is only for those who are specialized?
DMK:
Yes, it is specialized.
JCF:
And the dance is less specialized, with everyone dancing?
OF:
Some people don’t know how to dance. There are some who dance all the time, you have to calm them down. And then there are others who don’t dance, it’s like anywhere else. But all the same, you learn by seeing them dance and by dancing. Well, it’s part of the marriage system. The women come with their daughters, they dance with a view to a possible wedding.
DMK:
We also play pieces for cultivators, i.e. for ploughing a field, and the musicians come to play, and the people work. And there are tunes for that, called Konkoba. With the instrument Boté, we play like that.
OF:
Yes, among the Soussous, the Boté is a percussion instrument made from oiled cowhide, with a bell played with the hand. It’s the percussion instrument played with the balafon in Konkoba music; there’s no djembe.
Example of Boté (drum and cowbell)
DMK :
I’ve forgotten a lot of things, but if the movement is in my hand, it comes back naturally!
NS:
What type of repertoire is used for work songs, is it the same as for weddings?
DMK:
There are songs we play for weddings that everyone knows, and there are other songs we play in the fields, that everyone knows.
NS:
Everyone knows the songs, that is everyone can sing along?
DMK:
Yes, everyone can sing, that’s it, they can clap like that and the workers, they work. Everyone knows it, apart from the little kids who don’t know it, they know the rhythms we have passed to them. Sometimes the kids are dancing next to the grown-ups.
OF :
This is the way kids learn, without being taught, they have just to be present. They watch, they listen, they try, then they all meet in their own neighborhoods to actually work together. It’s like he said, his father isn’t going to tell him how to play, he watches his father and he’s starting to reproduce it approximately, this is based on trust. But if someone doesn’t understand quickly, you can’t wait for them, explain things to them, teach them.
DMK:
Yes, that’s it, he is unfortunate.
OF:
The smart one, the fast one, will learn. There are no private lessons. At any moment, every day, in family life, you’re in a learning situation.
DMK:
Here, I’ll show you something. [He’s looking for something on his cell phone.] So, it’s my children who are here playing [balafon sounds can be heard] they’re learning, a little…
[Video of children playing on balafons]
NS:
And here, we have only accompaniments?
DMK:
Yes.
JCF:
Here, this one is playing a solo?
DMK :
Yes, he is… different. These are my children in the village.
It wasn’t me who showed that. The older brother listened when I played and he played too. Here he’s starting to play for his younger brother.
OF:
He is the one who showed it to his brother?
DMK:
Yes. I think he does that very well.
[End of video]
It’s like that, children, when they’re interested, well, when they’ve grown up, you see something good. It’s going to be played once or twice, he listens, he understands, he can play. And those who listen to him, they come, they play. That’s the way.
OF:
And then he does it his way, he doesn’t try to reproduce it exactly…
DMK:
Yes, that’s what it’s all about, understanding the basics.
OF:
Here, in conservatories, they want you to play exactly the same. In fact, it’s not at all the same pedagogy.
2. The Kouyatés, a Family of Griots.
OF:
You should know that Djely Madi Kouyaté is a griot. This is very important, because he was born into a griot family.
JCF:
Could you give us an idea of what being a griot means?
DMK:
Yes, I am a griot. Griots play a mediating role between families. If two families don’t get along well, then the griot goes to talk between the two families with a view to reconciling them so that they can agree on the basis of things that are good for them. The griot is also a mediator between kings. If two kings don’t get on well together, between one town and another, the griot goes to speak between the two people, so that they can come to an agreement. That’s the griot’s role.
JCF:
They are also poets, is it the case?
DMK:
Yes, yes, they tell stories, they speak…
OF:
They are the keepers of oral tradition and know the lineage of all souls.
DMK:
When you say Keita family, you know who’s who, who’s who, who’s who, right back to ancient times. When you say « Dakité », same thing, when you say « Koné », same thing, when you say « Sano », same thing, all the names of families. When someone says their family name, you know where they come from. Because we know everything.
NS:
But how do you know everything?
DMK:
Because when we were little, our grandfathers and fathers and grandmothers taught us history bit by bit. It stays, it’s not written down, but when you talk it stays in your head.
NS:
Is it also musical?
DMK:
No, it is not musical.
NS:
And when you speak to the two kings or the two chiefs or the two families, is there any music involved?
DMK:
No, there’s no music. We can have music, but, you see, there’s no music while negotiations take place. It’s afterwards, when they’ve come to a good agreement, that we can play the music for them. That’s when we win too, and we get our share. In the tradition, we griots don’t go to work, we don’t farm, we don’t do anything, but it’s the kings, the people, who provide for our living. We do nothing, except music. And so, when things happen like the two kings have agreed, when everything went well between them and me, we can all celebrate together. That’s the way it is.
OF:
Each griot family is linked to a line of kings, and the Kouyatés are linked to the Keitas. In this context, Djely can go to a Keita’s house and take whatever he wants, without Keita saying anything. For example, he can take away his television.[2]
DMK:
Yes, I say: « Well, there’s a nice TV in your house! Well, that’s for me, I’ll take it [laugh]… »
OF:
… he takes it and goes away…
DMK:
… and I go away, and he doesn’t say anything. Unless I say: « Ah! well! thank you hey! thank you hey! », he’s not going to say anything, he’s not going to say: « No! don’t take it ». If I need money, I come and say: « Today I have nothing, my wife hasn’t eaten, my children haven’t eaten, so give me some money, you’re going to give me ». Once, I was at the market, in Bamako, in the big market, I bought a bazin.[3]Bazins, clothes, they’re expensive over there. They are the most expensive clothes in Africa. We discussed the price, he said the price, I said: « Ah! that’s too expensive ». He said, « Ah, that’s it ». I said, « But you’re arguing too much. But it looks like you’re a Keita ». He said, « Yes, I am a Keita ». I said, « Oh, you’ve lost! » [laugh] I said: « Not only am I not paying for this bazin, but you’re also going to give me another one, that’ll make two bazins and I’ll be off ». He said, « Why?” I said, “But that’s palavers, where there is none needed”. That’s how I put it. I said, “Don’t you know that I’m Kouyaté?” He went like this: “Aaaah!” I said, “Here, give it to me, give it to me, quick”. He said: “Quickly…”. I said, “Okay, I’ll buy one, that’s for me”. I gave him the money for one, the other he gave me [laughs]. He said: “Ah, you Kouyatés are tired!” I said: “But if you’re the real Keita, you tell me, and if you’re not, you tell me, so I’ll give back to you if you’re not the real one”. He said, “I’m the real one”. I said, “Well, that’s that! There’s nothing to say” [laughs]. And that was it. I think we’ve explained that pretty well, right?
NS:
The importance of the griot you mentioned in social and cultural life seems to operate in one particular place. And then at some point you go off to seek adventure and you haven’t stopped this role of griot. How do you continue the griot tradition outside the context of the African village?
DMK:
Well, it’s more difficult. But all the children of African musicians are learning to use the telephone (as well as the balafon), and so we teach the children to tell stories: this is how it is, this is how it is, this is how it is, in fact what our grandfathers did, and this way, it stays in the family. It doesn’t get lost. It can also be told at weddings and other ceremonies. With the portable telephone, you’re going to get people interested in you telling stories.
JCF:
And this has never been done with music?
DMK:
You can accompany with music, but we often tell the story like that, without the music. You can’t always accompany with music. We tell stories.
OF:
The women sing, they sing about their ancestry, they tell everything that’s going on, these are the stories of Soundiata Keïta.[4] This story is that of the whole of West Africa.
DMK:
It’s also accompanied by instruments.
OF:
But why didn’t you go into instrumental ensembles or ballet in Guinea?
DMK:
JI didn’t want to get involved with the instrumental ensemble in Conakry, because there’s a lot going on there. I couldn’t get into that thing, because I was very young compared to that group, which is why I didn’t join. And I didn’t want to join the Ballet Africain either.
OF:
Yes, it’s dangerous.
DMK:
It’s dangerous, there’s a lot of maraboutage against people, against others, you know? And so, if you arrive, you’re young, you have other ideas, it’s easy to get knocked down.
No, it’s not that one. My older brother was often there. We’d go to rehearsals together, and sometimes I’d play the balafon. My big brother didn’t live long, he died at the age of 45. And I’m 66 now. He was ill, but we don’t know what illness he had, because he was hospitalized at Donka Hospital. They couldn’t figure out what it was. He was in pain everywhere. His whole body was sick. We don’t know.
OF:
He was a great musician.
DMK:
Yes, he played balafon, kora and n’goni.
OF:
He was also a singer, and there’s a video of him there, he had a natural authority, and when he arrives, he places his voice, he shows his voice. And there you are, that’s the griot… Today, things have changed for griots too, there are many who are only interested in money.
DMK:
That’s not what a griot is all about.
OF:
It’s not what it’s all about, it’s someone who tells the truth.
DMK:
Lying is nonsense! You can say anything you want. In any case, that’s not what griots are all about. Griots tell the truth.
OF:
In traditional terms.
DMK:
He’d managed to reconcile the Malian and Burkinabe presidents. He was able to talk to everyone; but now he’s gone…
3. To go for adventure
DMK:
I grew up like that, and at a certain moment, I told myself: “Ah, now! I’m going to go out into the world of adventures, to get to know other things.” One day, I started playing guitar. I played guitar and people appreciated it, they thought that it was really good, so I keep going, I keep going, I keep going. There’s my dad’s little brother – there are three brothers: my father, an older brother, and a younger brother – who said that he wanted to take me out to the world to seek adventure. My father’s younger brother said to me: « Well, here! ah! we’re going to Sierra Leone or maybe Liberia ». I said « Okay ». We went out in search of adventure, we went to Sierra Leone, and then veered off to Liberia. After Liberia, we went to Ivory Coast, to Abidjan.
NS:
Going on an adventure, what is it? What is it like to go on an adventure?
DMK:
It’s about discovering other countries and meeting other people that I don’t know. That was the idea.
NS:
Is it leaving by foot with a bag on your back, or by bus? Is it taking the balafon with you?
DMK:
Yes, we call it the “taxi-brousse”. I go with my guitar, and not with my balafon, because I left it in the village. The reason I went with just the guitar is that you can find balafons in every country in West Africa. When I got settled in Côte d’Ivoire, I bought a good balafon for myself, and that’s what I worked with. Because people would bring balafons from Guinea to Côte d’Ivoire to sell them there. But there were two balafons in the group, the boss had bought them, and they belonged to the group.
NS:
So, you’re leaving by taxi-brousse?
DMK:
That’s it, sometimes it drives through the night, sometimes during the day. You arrive in a village where you sleep. The next morning, you continue your journey.
NS:
You arrive in a place and you’re looking for a shelter?
DMK:
Yes, sometimes I take out the guitar, sit down somewhere, or next to a house and start playing, and then the people who are there, they look: “Ah! it’s the Djéli djéli djéli (griot), you can sleep here in my home.” And that’s how it goes..
NS:
And did you meet other musicians there?
DMK:
Well, if there’s a feast, I’ll go over there, I’ll look around and say: “Ah! people are playing here, I’ll go over there”. I say, “Well, here, can you give me the balafon so I can play?” Or I start playing with my guitar, and they say, “Ah! he plays guitar!” and I say, « Fine! I’ll play.” After, it’s like that, friendship begins. And then there’s another wedding or another feast, they ask me where I live, and I say, “Well, I live in this neighborhood”. “–Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, there’s something going on over there, you can come at such and such a time.” That’s how I met a lot of people, yes. And when I arrive, I ask them to give me the instrument so I can play. When I hear them play, and know what they want, I ask them if I could play with them.
4. Electricity, Amplification, Technologies
NS:
You said that you started to play guitar. Is it the n’goni or is it the guitar?
DMK:
It’s the guitar, the normal guitar, yes.
NS:
A European style six-string guitar?
DMK:
Yes. The two instruments that I mastered are the balafon and the guitar.
NS:
Electric guitar with amp?
DMK:
Electric guitar, yes.
JCF:
So, at first, we have an acoustic situation in the village – in the village you said there was no telephone – …
DMK:
…Back then, yes, there were no phones. We play acoustically. There’s no microphone. We often play at night, outside. Now, the balafon and the djembe don’t need to be amplified. You can hear them even from a distance. If there’s too much music, you can still hear the balafon. Because the balafon is an instrument that can be heard even if it’s not amplified.
JCF:
At what point do you start using electricity, amplification, and electric guitar?
DMK:
When I started playing the electric guitar, I went to see my uncle, he’s a musician, he made a wooden case, he took a loudspeaker, he puts it in the case, there, he found a good radio driver, that’s loud, and communicating with a jack for making sound, with that. There was no amp.
JCF:
But when was that? How old were you?
DMK:
I was twenty years old. I saw my uncle do that. I started to play the guitar and I’d take his amp and go play. But the amp was just a box that the musician builds. That’s it, it’s made by the musician. Then you buy the radio speaker. At the time, there wasn’t any other way, we used this method to switch to the electric guitar. Because, at the time, electric guitars were only available in Conakry’s « national » orchestras. In the village, you couldn’t find one. And that was it.
JCF:
And does it change the music?
DMK:
Yes, a little. It can’t change the music, but it changes the sound. You hear better than when you play without an amp, that’s all.
JCF:
But the balafons remain acoustic?
DMK:
Acoustic. But sometimes, like now, there’s a lot of evolution going on, so there are amps everywhere. Now you can put the microphone on the balafon. We didn’t have an amp then. But even that’s changing now.
NS:
I’m making a hypothesis, just to try to describe how the music might change (maybe it doesn’t): so, with an electric guitar and an amp, it’s possible to make a sound that lasts, therefore, to produce a long sound.
DMK:
How?
NS:
It’s possible to make a long sound that lasts: “tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing”, while with the acoustic guitar or the balafon it’s: “ting”.
DMK:
It stops very quickly.
NS:
But it creates another type of music because long sounds become possible, whereas before there were no such things.
DMK:
Yes.
NS:
But it’s just an idea of how the music might eventually change. So, has the music of balafons and djembes changed with the arrival of the electric guitar or has it not?
DMK:
Here, it changed with the arrival of the guitars. With the balafon, you can hold a sound with repeated notes, you can continue “la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…” with a single hand.
NS:
Not with two hands?
DMK:
Yes, you can do it with two hands, but it gives another color, with one hand you can continue a long time. The balafon can do that as the guitar, as you said, when it does “taaaaaaaaaan”.
JCF:
With the balafon there are also things that vibrate.
OF:
Spiderwebs?
DMK:
Ah! spiderwebs, yes. We do this when we tune the calabash so that we can hear the sound. You make two holes under the calabash with two strings and then glue the hole with cobwebs found in trees or in the metal sheets of market barracks…
Balafon’s spiderweb
OF:
Today, it’s more like thin plastic bag cloth.
DMK:
Yes. And we use glue from rubber sap, but today it’s more chewing gum. And when you put the slab in, you hear the sound as if it were amplified. And if you remove the calabash, you hit the slab, it’s another sound, but if you put the calabash on, it’s well done, well-tuned, and you hear the sound like this: « boo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo… », that’s it.
JCF:
It prolongs the sound a little?
DMK:
Yes.
OF:
In modern groups, they get rid of these kinds of snares.
DMK:
You don’t want it to vibrate too much so as not to aggress other people. [laughs].
NS:
But what has electricity brought to music? Electricity, electric guitar, amplifiers, in concrete terms, what’s changed for the musicians, for the audience?
DMK:
What’s changed? It’s having a new thing that wasn’t there before, that’s it, that’s all!
JCF:
Does this bring with it influences from other popular music styles?
OF:
It depends on the context and the people present. If we’re talking about the sounds of the villages, which is what griots live by for the most part, these practices tend to change, there aren’t kings to be reconciled every day, unfortunately…
DMK:
… unfortunately, there’s no such thing now!
OF:
There are different feasts, there are wedding celebrations that are no longer based on what was done in the village, there are feasts like the Senegalese Sabar they are music and dances just for entertainment.
DMK:
Youth gatherings, yes. Young people playing and young people dancing, that’s it.
OF:
It’s different kinds of music…
DMK:
It’s other kinds of music, it’s putting the amps on full blast, and there the guitars play and with the microphones under the djembes too. It’s ambient music.
NS:
And it’s different?
DMK:
It’s just that, if you’re playing at a village wedding, it’s not the same.
Yes, the Yankadi was fashionable then, now it is the Sabar.
5. Ivory Coast
DMK:
We stayed in Abidjan. We formed a group with a brother, a friend, whose name is Sékou Tanaka, the « Cobra of Mandingo ».[6] When we formed the group, he asked me: « Do you want to play the balafon? » I said yes. That’s how we started to play, we got well known in Ivory Coast. Afterwards, we heard about the group of Souleymane Koly, then, the group « Kotéba ».[7] We said: « Are we going to go there to audition? » I said: « Ah! in my head that was not my project ». Sékou Tanaka said: « We have to go there ». We went, we auditioned, and we were selected, me and my friend Sékou. And in addition, his girlfriend and my wife who were dancers in the group. We were four to be retained in the group: two women, two boys. But this group, there, before our arrival, did not function very well. It was when we entered the group that it started to work. Then the director said that he was going to pay us on a monthly basis, and that the group had to become professional. We toured Africa, the coast of Africa, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritania, Senegal, all the way to Guinea. We returned to Guinea. Afterwards, we came back to Ivory Coast. Then each time, we also go to Europe: France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg. And also, to South Africa. So, four times a year, we made a big tour. That’s how I was able to develop my balafon playing with the Kotéba ensemble.
At the beginning, playing the balafon in the group, the balafon was not well tuned. There were two other balafon players in the group, I was the third. I listened and I said: « Ah! the balafon, the tuning is not good, I feel it by ear ». Then they said « No, no, no it’s like that ». So, I said « OK ». But at one time, the director told me that the two balafons should be tuned. I said yes. He said: “Well, here there are two balafons, you will tune them, and you bring it back in a week.” I said “OK”. I took home the two balafons and started to tune the balafon. At the time, I had a tuning fork so that I could hear how it should sound. I tuned the balafon in C major, the balafon has seven notes. Well, I found it had to be like that. I tuned the other balafon the same way, well-tuned. I brought it back to the rehearsal. We started to play, Souleyman Koly, the director was far away, he came, and he looked, he looked. When the rehearsal was over, he called me and said, “is that you who tuned the balafon?”. I said “yes”. He said: “Is it true?” I said “yes”. He said “Okay”. Afterwards, he called me and told me: “So, you came back into the group, you should not move away”. Sometimes I would come to the rehearsal and sometimes I would not, because my intention was not to stay with the group. I didn’t want to do that. But he forced me to stay in the group. He said: “Listen, you have to come to the rehearsals all the time”. I said “OK”. Then he kept the two balafonists in the group, and he took me as the leader of the group. And that’s how we stayed. We toured, toured, toured. At the end, I thought that I needed to evolve in order to always discover other things. I left the group and moved to Paris around 1988-89.
JCF:
When you tuned the balafon, you mentioned the use of a diapason, and you said “C major”, does it correspond to the European system?
DMK :
It was a metal tuning fork that you tap and bring near your ear. Only a single note was needed, the “A”. I know that the “A” follows C, D, E, F, G, the “A” is at the middle, above the G, the “A” is in the middle of the balafon, corresponding to the manner of my playing, since I am left-handed on the balafon. But the balafons are not exactly tuned to these notes.
OF:
It’s the tuning of the village.
DMK:
Yes, the tuning of the village, it’s by ear. There is no diapason, but we tune according to listening to other balafons. We say: “Ah! there!” And sometimes, when we play a certain piece, when you feel that it is not well tuned, a slab that is not well tuned, in Africa, you say: « Ah, that, in my opinion, it is not well tuned, try to re-tune it well ». And after re-tuning, when you play now, you say: « Ah! it is well tuned ». Before being here, in Paris, I didn’t know any solfeggio, I learned that with friends.
JCF:
In the big group in the Ivory Coast, how many people were there?
DMK:
Twenty-five people. There were dancers, there were musicians. Among the musicians, you had those like us who play the melody, and you had also a rhythm section with djembe players. When on tour, there are sometimes twenty to twenty-two people who come along. But I’ve been lucky, since I joined the group, I’ve always been included in the tours.
JCF :
Is it a national organization?
DMK:
It’s not a national organization, it’s a private organization created by Souleymane Koly. But the group was based in Ivory Coast, so people thought that it was an Ivory Coast national group, because many well-known names were in it. But all the elements of the group were foreign people who came to Ivory Coast: Guineans, Malians, Senegalese, Burkinis, and even Leonese and Nigerians.
OF:
The theater of Souleymane Koly was always linked to current events. The ballet-theatre “Kotéba” was the traditional theater of Mali, its music was traditional, but everything was arranged and actualized based on what happened in the neighborhoods. It was telling the actual life in the neighborhoods, as an environmental theatre that goes out into the villages and talks about the problems. It was different from the Ballets Africains, which was invented by the Malian poet Fodéba Keïta,[8] and that were based on his poems. He was the Minister of the Interior under Sékou Touré in Guinea, and later he became a victim of the regime.
NS:
It’s very interesting. Is there something like some sort of forum where participants can intervene?
OF:
No, not at all. The “Kotéba” is a generic term for traditional theater, of which there are many different kinds. Souleymane Koly has taken the name, modernizing it in his own way, to result in the Abidjan Kotéba Ballet or Souleymane Koly Ballet. It’s musical comedy with the means at hand, with traditional dances, but adapted. This is the case for the choreography of “Adama Champion”, the story of a soccer player, Adama Champion, who had just been recruited by a European club. There’s a rhythm called Kala. They took this rhythm and dance and did steps that mirrored the footballers’ kicks.
DMK:
Ah! dancing like that [he demonstrates, with foot movements as with a soccer dribble] Like that [laughs]
OF:
He juggles and passes the ball to someone: “pan!” [he strikes the table, laughs]
DMK:
And in the manner of a goalkeeper holding the ball, he does this: “paf!” [he mimics a dive, laughs] There was all this.
OF:
In fact, Souleymane Koly continued the work of the traditional ballet, staging contemporary urban stories.
NS:
Then, it’s a spectacular form, it’s not for a wedding, it’s not for a baptism, it’s not for someone’s feast?
DMK:
No.
OF:
No, it was really theatre, which came touring many times here…
JCF:
Then, at first it was weddings, feasts, but the situation changed. How do you go from this idea of animation of feasts and weddings to something that is a stage performance in front of a public? What is changed in the music? What is the difference between playing in a village wedding and producing something on an international basis?
DMK:
Well, in the village we play in a way of over there. But when we play on stage, we play for the people who are listening, we can play in the way of the village, but it’s not at all the same.
OF:
It’s a real work, a real trade.
DMK:
It’s a real work for the musician himself.
JCF:
But isn’t it also a collective work of a group?
OF:
There is a director, there are leaders in the group.
DMK:
There are leaders in the group, but the director says to you: “This is what I want, I want that.” And it starts to go that way. And if it is good, he sees it: “Ah! ah! this is good, this is good.” That’s how we set up all the music we’ve done, we say: « Here, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this », and that’s it.
OF:
The musician provides the information that comes from his home, and then it is selected and put into shape.
NS :
Continuing with the idea of repertoire, when you were in the group Kotéba in Ivory Coast, did you create a repertoire? What does it mean to be a musical director? What kind of activity does it correspond to, what does it mean?
DMK:
Souleymane Koly was the director of the group, so he’s the one who says: « Okay, I want this, this and this ». In other words, when he needs to, he explains the scene, tells us what’s going to happen, and says: « Okay, you musicians, you’ve got to look for a piece that matches these dances, or to these texts that we’re going to do. It’s a mixture of comedy and dance.
JCF:
And he writes the texts?
DMK:
Yes, he writes the text, but we determine the music that fits with it. For example, if I’m the one explaining the idea, I can say: « Here, I’ve got this idea, could we play like this, or like that? » Here, I show the others, and we start playing, without talking. Then we decide that this could be it, this could be good. We show it to the director, and he’ll say: « Oh, good! I’ve got this piece here, we’ll put it in this part here ». And that’s how it takes shape.
NS:
And these are inventions, or we say: “Ah, but there’s that session we played, there’s that work session, there, that we’re going to adapt”?
DMK:
Yes, we can do it that way too. You can say, « Okay, we can adapt it », change it a bit, and insert that piece in there, that’s how it works.
NS:
Because, as you said, the people in the band came from different countries, so there were lots of different songs, each known only by a few.
DMK:
Yes, not everyone knows them, but we learn them, and everyone starts listening to them, getting to know them, singing them. But even if comedies happen on stage, even if we’re not actors, we know everything, we learn everything. Sometimes we’re asked, “Can you explain what the character said?” You can always answer this. You’re not confined to your role on stage, but you already know the entire thing. And if someone makes a mistake, you know it, you can help them.
NS:
So, in this case, there are rehearsals?
DMK:
There are rehearsals every day. Every day we rehearse. If there are performances, we only do the performance, we don’t rehearse. After the performance, we start rehearsing again. In other words, we work every day, it doesn’t stop. It’s like the real world of work [laughs]. We rehearse every day.
OF:
This is what’s different about the village feast…
DMK:
AWith the village feast, there’s no rehearsal. Yes, we just play. But on the other hand, there are rehearsals in the group, we can’t do just anything. Ah! that, that’s something you can’t do on stage.
NS:
And is there a difference between the village feasts and the performances on a theatre stage? For example, how many outings are there to accompany farmers, for weddings, for baptisms, opportunities to perform in a village, and conversely how many opportunities are there to perform on stage with theater plays and all that? In terms of number of opportunities to perform in front of people?
DMK:
Oh, that depends… at weddings, we can play with several groups, with several people.
NS:
People take turns? How long does it last?
DMK:
Yes. It lasts a long time. It changes all the time. If there are others who have come to play on this occasion, we decide what time they should play, we can help each other.
OF:
Once, there were several weddings on the same day, at the same feast, so he had to take a younger brother with him.
DMK:
And that’s how you get paid here, and sometimes you get paid a little there. And then you leave here, and you go and do a bit on the other side, like that. And everyone’s delighted to see you [laughs]. It’s like that too.
OF:
It’s both funny and hard to understand. The master comes to play, everybody appreciates him. And if he’s not there, they’ll ask anyone to play, even if he doesn’t know how, because it’s a feast and someone has to play.
NS:
I’m trying to clarify the hypotheses behind my questions: how was it possible to learn by playing without rehearsing? In fact, there is an informal organization of time and many opportunities to play.
DMK:
There are lots of opportunities to play. That’s why we’re able to play together without rehearsing. It happens all the time, every moment, so it’s non-stop. People are used to listening, even if they are not musicians. And especially the musicians, they’re always listening, they want to know everything. And when there’s a feast like that and everyone comes, everyone plays. You play to learn, you learn by playing
NS:
So, if everyone plays, it means that you are going to a wedding with your father, and there are other people who come to play because of the necessity to have several balafons?
DMK:
No, maybe there were other brothers, because sometimes you have three, four, even five in a marriage. So, if there are two or three old men, maybe they will leave their balafon and say: « Children, you go and play ». He goes off, behind us, and in the end, he comes along, collects the money while we play [laughs]. We don’t get the money, we don’t have a say. So, we don’t ask for it and they don’t give it to us, we just play. And when we’re older, we do the same thing with the kids who play, and we collect the money. And then we tell the kids: « Come on, you’ve got to go, you can’t stay here » [laughs].
OF:
That’s the right of descent.
DMK:
That’s how it works. It’s a principle: you don’t pay for the apprenticeship, but you don’t earn any money, you get lodging and board.
OF:
It depends, you still pay a minimum if you’re not part of the family. As soon as you start earning money, now in town, you’re independent.
6. Balafon Playing
JCF:
The playing of the two balafons, how does it go?
DMK:
When we play two balafons, the one plays the solo, the other one does the accompaniment, the support…
OF:
Yes, that’s right, it’s in relation to the notes, they don’t play on the same wooden slabs.
DMK:
The soloist can go anywhere, reaches everywhere, goes everywhere. The accompaniment stays in the same place. It can change at a moment’s notice, but it’s not the same melody in the treble. The one who does the bass accompaniment keeps it and obeys, but the one who does the solo reaches everywhere, and like that, it makes the difference. We play together, we do the same piece, but we don’t play the same way. Because if we both do the same thing, it would be a bit, I mean, monotonous. But the other one does other things, an accompaniment, and when you listen to them together, it sounds very good.
And there can be changes, and when you start to change, it’s not just that you’re going to look at each other, but you have to understand what will change. And it’s easy to catch up without making mistakes, without making mistakes in the notes, and that’s it. You start to understand, when you start, or you wink like this, you do, and the other knows you’re going to change. And even on stage, we often do it like that, with our eyes we look at each other. You don’t have to talk, but with your eyes like that you talk to each other.
JCF:
In some parts of Africa, as I understand it, there are balafon playing with two musicians alternating very quickly [he taps the table with both hands alternately].
DMK:
Yes.
JCF :
Did you do this?
OF:
Is it a question of polyrhythms?
JCF :
It might be polyrhythms, but more precisely it is a very rapid alternance between two players.
OF:
There are no common notes between them?
JCF:
Not at all the same notes, and not played at the same time, but in alternance.
DMK:
Not at the same time, that’s it, yes. And not the same notes.
JCF:
And this very, very quickly. But how do you manage to do that?
DMK:
Well, you can learn it. You learn [laughs].
JCF:
Then, how do you learn it?
OF:
It just happens.
DMK:
It just happens. I’ve done this a lot.
JCF :
But how do you learn?
DMK:
I’ll tell you, it just happens, but you can’t teach someone to do it. That’s that.
JCF:
Yes. But you still need to put yourself in some kind of situation. It’s very difficult to do, isn’t it?
DMK:
It’s difficult to do, but everyone has their own way of playing rhythmic figures on the balafon. You can’t teach someone to do that.
OF:
What makes it work? For example, how can you be on one rhythm and not at all with the other, but you’re together?
DMK:
We’re in this together.
OF:
How do you do it?
DMK:
How does it work? How can it work? So, the other person who is accompanying you will play on continuously, and you’ll act as if you were together, that’s how it works. But you have to listen to the whole. You listen to the person who’s starting and also to yourself, to what you’re doing. And like that, it can work, but if you don’t listen to the other, if you only listen to yourself, it can’t work.
JCF:
But for me (I am slow), listening works when it doesn’t go too fast, but what about when it does go fast? [laughs]
DMK:
But you pay attention, while you’re playing, you think that the other one is there too. [laughs].
OF:
As you often said, speed is just a matter of experience. Yet we see children doing very fast things, in a common tempo between them.
JCF:
For us European musicians, there’s this notion of a strong beat which is organized by the written measure, and so we think: “one, two, three, four, one”…
DMK:
… two, three, four, …
JCF:
And this is how you think?
DMK:
Yes, we have that too, but while the other player is doing that: “one, two, three, four…”, you can think during the one, two, three, and you can do other things before the “one”.
JCF:
But is it the same thing as what we call syncopations here?
DMK:
That’s it.
OF:
Then, I’m not so sure, African beat is different, it starts before, it’s the “and” of “one”.
NS:
Do you count on… ?
DMK:
We don’t have the habit of counting loud and clear. We count in our heads, but we don’t count like that.
OF:
The clave is the reference: “célécé, célécé, célécé …” [rhythmic language], somehow that’s how he hears it.
DMK:
It’s like the djembe when it goes “ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting…”, you know when it’s time to enter. There’s no need to count.
OF:
When Famoudou Konaté[9] gave his first workshops in Germany, people asked him how to do things, where should they place the first beat?
DMK:
He said there’s no first beat, he said, “kélé, fila, saba, nani”. That means: “one, two, three, four”, and then you start… he counted four.
OF:
There’s still a first beat. There’s a call that leads to the first beat: “ti titi titi titi PAN”.
DMK:
“ONE”, that’s it, it’s when you will start.
OF:
It’s also the cue. Nobody beats the tempo beforehand, it’s all in this call.
DMK:
[Taps the rhythm of the call on the table]. That’s the cue[continues to tap the rhythm on the table] It allows you to start playing.
OF:
When it’s going fast, off-beat rhythms are like this:
Voice: ti titi ti titi
Hands: x x x x
So, it’s the “ti titi ti titi” that sets the tempo.
DMK:
You hear that and know when to enter. If one goes: “ti titi ti titita tita”, the other goes: “ti titi ti titita tita ta tita”, and so on [simultaneously tapping on the table] It’s like that. It’s crazy, it’s so fast. Also, if you’re not used to it, you wonder where you can get in, how you’re going to do it? I’ve observed this in workshops at conservatories. For example, once we had two Africans leading the workshop who couldn’t read music: I couldn’t read, Adama Dramé couldn’t read. But they asked each of us to contribute a piece to the concert with the musicians from the conservatory: there was a keyboard player, a xylophone player, two vibraphones, there were other instruments, a steel drum player, two balafons, mine, and the Burkina balafon.
OF:
It’s a pentatonic balafon.
DMK:
Each person contributed pieces, so I provided a piece, and we rehearsed it with everyone. There’s one musician who, when we play, if he doesn’t start, he doesn’t know where to enter. He has to start, then the others come in. If it’s not him, it’s over, and if he stops, everything stops. And he’s on the xylophone, I’m on the balafon. So, sometimes, when he makes a mistake, I play his part on my balafon, and he says: « Ah! I don’t know when I’m supposed to go in » I tell him: « Well, do it like this… »
Sometimes I play things I’ve never heard before, but while I’m listening, I have to keep playing. Even in the studio, when people call me to come and play, I just ask for the scale, that’s what interests me. When I arrive, I listen and play straight away, without wasting any time. The balafon has a somewhat limited number of notes compared with the guitar or saxophone. The balafon has only seven notes, not twelve. So, I try to find out which notes are going to be played, and that way I know whether it’s minor or major, so I know how I can adapt to play. And if there are chromatic semitones, when I get to the studio I just say: “Well, play the music in loops” and I play after I’ve listened to it, to give myself enough time to adapt to what the others are playing.
NS:
In an article I read, someone explained the way in which djembe and balafon players can color the way they strike, giving a particular personality to their playing on the instrument. You can precisely identify the sounds produced by a particular family, clan, village or person. You hear a balafon sound, but what you recognize is that balafon played by that person, a type of timbre, a sound, a little color?
DMK:
No, there’s no such thing. But you can recognize a person’s way of playing. Even if you can’t see it, you can hear someone playing the balafon, you can recognize the way they play the balafon. But when it comes to sound, there’s no such thing. It depends on the person who loves his instrument, who makes it work well, so that it’s better. It all depends on the person.
NS:
But how can you tell?
DMK:
You can identify his hand by the way he plays. His hand.
NS:
What details?
DMK:
For example, when I heard the song « Kémé Bourama » played by my brother Kémo and Sékou Bembéya. Even if I can’t see them, I know it’s Sékou Bembéya playing like that. And here, I know it’s Kémo playing. By listening to their different ways of playing.
NS:
What makes it different?
DMK:
That’s different [laughs]. You can hear it when they play the same piece.
JCF:
It’s a question of ways of striking, and perhaps also of phrasing?
OF:
Yes, but things have changed a lot, with recordings and all that. Before, when I started, it’s true, every master had his own secret. For example, the teacher says: “Oh yes, but the other family, they play that rhythm too on the djembe”, he plays it, you listen, you try to reproduce it and he says: “Oh yes, but that’s not at all right!” [laughs]
DMK :
He’ll tell you that it’s not the same rhythm.
OF:
In the same way, my mom used to tell me that one pianist played very well and another, “No, he can’t play, he plays like a machine”. When I listened, I couldn’t tell the difference [leughs]. ]. It’s the aesthetic that’s transmitted. With the balafon, it’s harder to identify who’s playing. But with the djembe, it’s mainly the drummer’s hand, his stroke, that’s easier to recognize.
DMK:
But even with the balafon, we’re able to recognize when our old Djély Sorri plays or when Khali plays, it’s not the same, but we’re able to recognize right away that it’s such and such who plays like this, and such and such who plays like that.
7. Life in France and Europe
DMK:
That’s how I stayed in Paris, playing with two groups: first with the Ballets Katandé, then the Ballets Nimba, we got small gigs in the regions of France. After that, Mory Kanté[10] heard me and said: “Oh, I’ve been looking for a balafonist for a long time and you can come and play with my group.” He accepted me, I joined the group, and for ten days we rehearsed a lot of pieces. After that, we started to go on tours, for three months, four months, continually, then. At the time it worked very well, in the days of the French francs, it worked very, very, very well. After the group of Mory Kanté, we formed a small group here, in Paris, Mandingue Foly, a mixture of Malians, Senegalese, and Guineans. This group is very successful, every year we perform in the Africolor festival at the Théâtre Gérard Philipe.
I remember well that I had to play also with a fair number of different groups known in Africa, like the Youssou Ndour group. I played with him and Kanda Kouyaté, Oumou Kouyaté and Diaba Kouyaté. And I played for a long time with Manfila Kanté in Holland and Belgium. There is also Mamady Keita [See in the following video, Djely Madi Kouyaté playing balafon].
JCF:
There’s the village, there’s the group in Ivory Coast, and then there are groups in Europe. What’s new in your life in France and Europe?
DMK:
Groups in Europe? It’s very important, because I’ve played with lots of groups in Europe, here, with Ivoirians, Malians, Senegalese, Guineans, just about everywhere, even with the French. I’ve played in a lot of different groups, so that gives me a lot of ideas that I didn’t have before. So, the difference is this: when I came here, I thought it was important to discover other things. Here, I’ve learned a lot musically from the Europeans, to adapt to their way of doing things. It’s like when we joined Afrika ! Afrika ! in Germany. In that group, there were a lot of musicians who came and couldn’t adapt with the others, and they were dismissed because they were only capable of playing the music of their own country. For example, there was a Malian who couldn’t adapt with us because he only knew the music played in Mali. After two or three days of rehearsals, you know whether you can do it or not.
JCF:
And in this group, there were also German musicians?
DMK:
There were only African musicians, but the director was German. The artistic director is George Momboye[11], from Ivory Coast. So, there are musicians from almost every country in Africa. There are Gabonese, Ivorians, Senegalese, Guineans, Malians, Congolese, Ethiopians, and then from Madagascar, a little from everywhere, Tanzanians, Moroccans. In all, there are 150 artists on stage, with acrobats and all, and there are 2,000 people in the audience every time we play. We play Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Monday is off. Saturday, Sunday, we play four times in a row. Over the course of time, we’ve learned all the music of Africa. For each country, we adapted a particular piece. For Guinea, it was the Mamie Wata piece, that’s my home, and I did the solo for that part. When I arrived in Europe, I adapted to the other groups I’d never met. For me, that was a great opportunity.
OF:
How did it change your playing style? What have you learned in Europe, for example?
DMK:
No, I didn’t learn. But I did a lot of listening to learn. I wasn’t “caught” by anyone in order to do things in a precise way, but I listen, and I’ve learned a lot. I listened a lot to the way keyboards are played, it gave me a lot of ideas. It was the same with Philippe Monange,[12] with whom I played, and I learned a lot from him. I also listened a lot to Jean-Philippe Rykiel,[13] his way of playing, all that, I played with him, and we did a lot of studio recordings together.
OF:
He is the son of fashion designer Sonia Rykiel.
NS:
He played piano?
OF:
He plays the Moog, he plays the piano. I met him with Brigitte Fontaine and Areski. The first concert I did was with him, with his mini-Moog. And he’s blind. He continued his career as an improviser. Then he started accompanying the Senegalese group Xalam, and became interested in African music, practicing modern African music. He went to Senegal, learned to play the kora on his keyboard, and plays traditional African pieces, but in his own special way. He’s a musician who can’t be ignored. He’s got a studio at home, and when you walk in all the lights are off, you can’t see anything, so you say, “Oh, sorry, I’ll put the lights on” [laughs].
DMK:
He travels by taxicab. If you call him, he arrives at your house, or at a meeting place, he arrives with all his equipment. I don’t know how he gets it all into the cab. He arrives, he’s the one who carries it all, when he gets to the studio, he’s the one who sets it up, nobody’s allowed to touch his equipment. He can’t see, but he knows where to go, he knows everything: “Ah, here, I’ll put this here, that’s what’s going with this.”
OF:
When I was in Guinea, I attended one of his concerts. After the concert, we went to Kémo’s…
DMK:
… Ah! Kémo, it’s my older brother…
OF:
… who played in Miriam Makeba’s orchestra, when she was in Guinea, with her Guinean orchestra. At Kémo’s, there was no electricity, but Jean-Philippe had a keyboard with something like a pipe, a melodica.
8. Conclusion
JCF:
Then today, as a griot, you only said the truth [laughs] !
DMK:
Sincerely, I’ve told the truth, because we haven’t changed yet, and maybe the kids who come after us can just say whatever they want. But what we think, what we’ve seen, what we know, that’s what we have to say. What you don’t know, you mustn’t say. You can always find proof that they didn’t do that. That’s very important.
OF:
I was fortunate enough to come into the family of Djély Madi in Conakry, who are known for their honesty, but really, they are great musicians.
2. Wikipedia : griot. « Historically, Griots form an endogamous professionally specialised group or caste, meaning that most of them only marry fellow griots, and pass on the storytelling tradition down the family line. In the past, a family of griots would accompany a family of kings or emperors, who were superior in status to the griots. All kings had griots, and all griots had kings, and most villages also had their own griot. A village griot would relate stories of topics including births, deaths, marriages, battles, hunts, affairs, and other life events. wikipedia
3. Bazin is also known in English as “brocade”. See african-avenue.com: « Bazin riche is a type of fabric that is very popular in Africa, particularly for original African outfits and traditional garments in West Africa, especially Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. It is a luxurious and unique fabric, available in a variety of colors and patterns (…).” african-avenue.com
4.“Sunjatan is an epic poem of the Malinke people that tells the story of the hero, Sundiata Keita (died 1255), the founder of the Mali Empire. The epic is an instance of oral tradition, going back to the 13th century and narrated by generations of griot poets or djeli.” wikipedia
5. “Yankadi is one of the best-known traditional Soussou dances, often used by artists to touch the sensibilities of lovers. Like all the other traditional rhythms of Guinea, yankadi dance obeys specific song and dance techniques.” guineepeople.com
6. Sékou Camara Tanaka, or Sékou Camara Cobra is a Griot in the Malinké tradition. He sings, plays the guitar. He is also an acrobat, a choreographer and composer. See iro.umontreal.ca.
7. Since its formation in 1969, the drama troupe Kotéba National du Mali has performed classic pieces of by Malian, African, and even European authors. In 1979 in search of a form of theatrical expression true to its traditional Bambaran heritage, the group took the form of the koteba consisting of chants, dance, burlesque comedy and comic satires. Souleymane Koly (1944-2014), founder of the Kotéba troupe is a Guinean producer, film director, stage director, playwright, choreographer, musician and pedagogue. See wikipedia and Souleymane Koly, wikepedia.
8. Fodéba Keïta (1921-1969) was a Guinean dancer, musician, writer, playwright, composer and politician. Founder of the first professional African theatrical troupe, Theatre Africain wikipedia.
9.« “Famoudou Konaté is a Malinké master drummer from Guinea. He is a virtuoso of the djembe drum and its orchestra”. wikipedia.
10. Mory Kanté popularized the Kora with the worldwide hit Yéké Yéké, in 1986.
12. Philippe Monange: trained in classical piano, then jazz, while studying philosophy, he is now passionate about African music, and currently performs with the Bal de l’Afrique enchantée, Debademba, Vincent Jourde quartet, and creator of the Akrofo system. linkedin.com.
13. Jean-Philippe Rykiel is a French composer, arranger and musician, primarily a keyboard player. wikipedia