publication date 2008.02.21
revised 2008.09.14
Musical improvisation may be seen in almost every music culture. The only exception was modern western music culture that depended greatly on notation and was not a little removed improvisation. Improvisation has significant meanings in many kinds of fields, for example in jazz, rock, contemporary music, christian organ music, and folk music (India or Iran etc.)
It was in 1980 that Derek Bailey who proposed ‘free improvisation’ wrote the book ‘Improvisation’. Since then, the study of musical improvisation has increased in fields such as ethnomusicology, musicology, and music therapy. Recently, a lot of challenging and stimulating articles and books have been written, which makes clearer the course that musical improvisation is now taking. Of course Bailey’s thought has also been affecting current music little by little. In addition, postmodern philosophy prepared the way for us to think about musical improvisation freely.
In such circumstances, we think that what is necessary for us now is a space for freely and academically discussing musical improvisation in terms both of study and practice. We would therefore like to set up The Japanese Association for the Study of Musical Improvisation, and we invite everyone who is interested to join us.
If you have an idea or a proposal for the association, by all means please contact me at the following e-mail address.
Yu WAKAO
Chief organizer, Establishment Committee of JASMIM
Professor of the Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University