“The inner voice”: activating intuitive and
improvisational creativities
by Esmée Olthuis
Abstract
This chapter discusses the creative role of improvisation and outlines approaches to training and
coaching conservatoire music students within the field of intuitive and improvisational
creativities. Musician 3.0, a new department within the Conservatory of Utrecht (HKU), follows
a learning strategy positioned within the field of creative learning, improvisation and personal
development. All three fields require the state of mind wherein students are connected with their
intuition and an authentic sense of self. This state of mind, ‘Free Space’, is used as a starting
point for students’ musical creativities. Subsequently, students are guided through the use of
processed improvisation as an organizational form in order to develop creative and
improvisational skills before exploring processes that move through ‘Free Play’ into ‘Forming’.
This chapter discusses the contribution of these processes to developing improvisational musical
creativities.
Keywords: Processed improvisation, intuitive improvisation, creative learning, free space, group
process
Introduction
I am a musician, more particularly a saxophone player, and even more specifically I am an
improvisor. Actually, I like the order to be the other way around; I am an improvisor, I often use
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the saxophone as the instrument to express my creativity as an improvisor, and the field wherein
I improvise is music. The field of improvisation could also have been something else; sculpture,
science, working with horses... anything that requires a certain state of mind and way of being. I
believe that the art of improvising has its heart in being in the moment, in the now, as discussed
by authors such as Tolle (2001) in The Power of NOW. Call it intuition, being in contact with
your essential self, an ultimate balanced state of mind: it is the state of being from where creation
begins, and that is the most important thing for me as an improvisor.
Being an improvisor enables me to make music with anybody that I meet, in any
circumstance, and provides the opportunity to make contact on a truly personal and engaged
level with people with whom I have previously never exchanged a single word. Being able to
create on the spot, to be in the moment and to go with any flow that is present at a certain time is
an enormous gift. Music is communication, music connects: these words might be clichés, but
are nevertheless true, especially when music is improvised, created on the spot with no
expectations, with no set time and outcome. No rules, just freedom of play and freedom to create.
I experienced the most spectacular expression of this communication and connection at a world
music festival in Uzbekistan in 2007. Musicians from many Eastern countries were staying at the
same hotel. At nights, spectacular jam sessions took place: percussionists, flautists and singers
from different backgrounds joined together in heated, purely improvised and creative
performances. There were no rules; there was space for every player; the atmosphere of the
music changed easily, as well as the form, the dynamics, the colour; players stepped in and out,
were musical leader for a while, stepped back again, and so on. The result was a never-ending
highly creative magical togetherness. People came to listen and formed a large circle around the
players; they danced, cried, shouted, whipping the musicians up to the highest level of energy.
For me, this was the ideal musical experience: music coming from the inner voices of the
players. The concepts drawn from this experience lie at the foundation of my ideas for teaching
within the curriculum of a new study programme at the Utrecht Conservatory: Musician 3.0. This
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chapter discusses my belief that improvisation is fundamental to creation and explores the
training of music students at the conservatory within the field of intuitive and improvisational
creativities.
Musician 3.0
In 2011, a new department at the Conservatory of Utrecht (HKU), The Netherlands, began to
train the first cohort of Musician 3.0 students. It was felt, both from within the Conservatory and
externally, that there was a need to develop a new course through consideration of didactic
insights and different artistic points of view, and that the course would foster a renewed
connection between playing and creating. The course design emphasizes three fundamental
activities: creating, performing and communicating. The course is non-style-based and focuses
on improvisation, creative learning and reflective practice. The creative music making within the
course places a strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity and musical leadership. The three pillars of
creating, performing and communicating form a holistic framework for the future musician.
However, the course is also very much understood as a laboratory, as highly experimental
research. The construction and development of the Musician 3.0 curriculum is a creative process
in itself. The Musician 3.0 learning strategies lie in the fields of creative learning, improvisation
and personal development. All three fields require the state of mind wherein students are
connected with their intuition. ‘Intuitive Creativities’ is the term I use to explain how creativity
can be activated from adapting a state of mind called ‘Free Space’. Training the ability to act in
this ‘Free Space’ means building the fundamentals essential for creativities and creative learning.
In the discussion of improvisational creativities that follows, these are conceptualized as musical
creativities that exist through using improvisation, and, more precisely, through using the tool of
processed improvisation.
‘Free Space’: The state of mind that activates intuitive creativities
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The concept of ‘Free Space’ refers to a state of mind which is not hindered by convictions,
limited imagination or emotional obstacles. However, access to this free space can be obstructed
by lack of imagination, self-trust, curiosity and determination. It is all about acting in the now,
being in contact with intuition and an authentic sense of self, and learning to act in this space. In
order for students to enter this space as easily and deeply as possible, training and experience is
necessary. Students need time for experimenting, making mistakes and experiencing success in
creating within the here and now. I believe that it is only from this state of mind that musical
creativity can develop. Too much thinking can easily obstruct intuition, as can interfering
thoughts, low self-esteem and judgemental opinions. An open and highly receptive mind is the
starting point for creative exploration. Within the curriculum of Musician 3.0 improvisation is
the organizational form in which musical creativity is trained. Students follow a path of creative
learning through the curriculum, which enables them to become autonomous creators,
performers and communicators.
Creative learning: The line of process
In this course the students’ first challenge is to begin by letting go of their opinions and received
views about music. A creative process starts with one’s own resources. Students learn to focus
on a state of mind that is fully receptive and open to anything. They are offered input in different
ways (project-based, theoretically, through assignments and exercises) and from different artistic
fields (including dance, theatre and fine arts), and are at the same time given supervision in the
fields of communication, and personal and artistic development. After some time, their musical
ideas begin to become more diverse and they increase their ability to adapt. Their creative skills
are trained through improvisation and improvisation didactics, exercises and assignments.
Divergent thinking, the ability to associate, training the imagination, stimulating playfulness and
experimentation, and being exposed to different forms of art are all subjects of importance
during the training. Whilst their creative abilities develop, students increasingly find themselves
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inspired, immersed in their work and learning to influence the occurrence of flow
(Csikzentmihalyi, 1997).
I have created the term ‘forming’ to describe the creative process which comes after the
magic moments, periods of illumination and flow. ‘Forming’ refers to the process of
conceptualizing and the crystallization of ideas. ‘Forming’ is hard work and requires high levels
of curiosity, reflectiveness, collaboration and determination. It is concerned with manifesting
musical ideas and concepts and making those ideas and concepts contagious. The method of
Critical Response Process (Lerman and Borstel, 2003) is used to reflect on the (formed) artistic
work in such a way that the artist is invited to deepen his or her understanding of their own piece
of art. These creative processes usually follow their own unpredictable path and pace; creative
learning requires an individual and student-oriented approach to education.
Through many years of performing, teaching, research and soul-searching I developed a
very personal and, at the same time, universal vision on teaching adolescents to become intuitive,
creative, authentic and powerful performers. The fundamental part of this process lies in
improvisation, which I teach within the section of the Musician 3.0 course called LAB. For this
course I use a concept of processed improvisation and creative learning called Kobranie. This
concept is fundamental to the activation of intuitive and improvisational creativities, and the
ideas and processes that are involved are discussed in subsequent sections.
Kobranie: Processed improvisation
The Musician 3.0 students receive weekly LAB (laboratory) lessons. These group lessons
(heterogeneous groups of approximately twelve players from different instrumental
backgrounds) are highly experimental and are concerned with creating and developing from the
‘free space’ state of mind. Students learn to play, think and act out of the box, to step out of their
comfort zones, and are urged to think for themselves. Improvisation has many appealing aspects:
the unknown outcome, the endless possibilities, the opportunity to create in the moment, the
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possibility to deeply connect with other players, and the peacefulness of non-judgmental playing.
To be able to use one’s creative mind at any given moment helps you to express yourself as
honestly as possible. Improvisation allows players to use their skills to express themselves
instead of expressing their skills. Allowing freedom and playfulness into people’s playing is the
first step into improvisation and creative music making.
Within this context, ‘processed improvisation’ is a didactic on improvisation and refers to
improvised music that is led, or ‘processed’ by a ‘conductor’, whom I call a processor. The space
created within this setting allows players to form new ideas, to be guided into new musical
concepts, to experiment with sound and musical form and so on. The interaction with the other
players challenges and inspires, and the ‘processing’ makes it possible to direct the group into
new fields of sonic possibilities. The players are arranged in a semi-circle and improvise
according to the directions of the processor. The directions are given by hand signs (students
learn around one hundred different direction signs during the course). The processor can also use
visuals, or just energy and focus, his/her own playing, language/text, space or motion as other
possibilities to put sound to his/her musical ideas and inspirations. Students create their own
experiments within these settings. There is freedom and space for the players’ own initiatives
during the processing: they can offer ideas, interact and follow their own inspirations. I consider
this to be very important because it allows the process to be creative in collaboration and
therefore connected, offering all players the possibility of acting in the now. Striving for some
form of equality between the processor and the players is vital. It gives all participants the
opportunity to be highly creative and communicative. Players need to be free to act and react
within the framework presented by the processor. The players’ input and inspirations are
essential for the quality of the music. Each student is trained as both a processor as well as a
player during the sessions. Improvisational and creative skills are trained by means of exercises
and assignments. New conducting signs can be developed by the players and students are invited
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to experiment with all possible means of creating sound (extended techniques, using non-musical
material for musical expression, experimenting with language and movement).
Creative learning within the processed improvisation
The first developmental step that students take within the creative learning process is to open
themselves to new musical possibilities and processes. The instant compositions created during
the processed improvisation sessions give rise to new ideas and inspirations while contributing to
the package of skills available to each player. Students playing within these processed
improvisational settings typically start playing with tools and musical materials that are known to
them. Initially, they are not yet confident enough in using their musical ability and skills to create
music they do not yet know. They respond readily to things that are familiar to them (for
example, a groove which requires a bassline that sits within their current experience of musical
styles). The musical material is fixed in style-oriented forms and at this stage is generally not
used as style-independent musical material. Scales, rhythmical components and sounds can,
however, all be used as independent musical material. Furthermore, the independent material can
be used to create ‘new’ musical material.
Through the role of processor, without the limitation of their instruments and
instrumental skills, students learn to create wider and more far-reaching music. The ensemble
(the peer group) provides the processor with unlimited possibilities of expression through colour,
shape and atmosphere. These experiences open and trigger the imaginations of the processor and
the playing participants. The musical conversations and reflection quickly gain richness and the
students experience the wideness and possibilities of this new open field.
I coach students in experimenting with form, and combining sounds, textures and
structures of tension and release. I train, for example, improvisational interaction (developing the
quality of musical offering and response), musical role-modelling (as a vocalist you can be
responsible for the groove, as a drummer for the phrasing of the melody, and so on), working
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with the concept that composition and, therefore, how processed improvisation exists within the
organization of sound. The first steps of ‘Forming’ consist of finding ways to collect, process
and reflect on the inspiration and creative experiences discovered. This can be done, for
example, by using a notebook to write or draw, to re-tell the experience, collecting information,
to create an artwork based on the new inspiration or insight. The way students describe their
inspirations is personal and an important part of their creative learning process.
Implementing association, metaphor and imagination into musical expression
Students are often easily able to be associative in language but musically this is more difficult. In
his book Free Play, Improvisation in Life and Art, Stephen Nachmanovitch (1990) argues that
language is the first manifestation of improvisation because it requires a creative, associative and
improvising mind to be able to place words after each other in incoherent order. This ability is
trained through the use of text, words and storytelling as improvisatory material. This process is
developed through connecting language to musical expression: in other words, I bring it into the
same creative field. Exercises in associative thinking (which are frequently used in theatre and
modern dance courses) teach students divergent thinking and enable them to be open to every
appearance of their imagination.
Associative skills, together with metaphorical thinking and language/story improvisation,
are important competences in creative music making. Students often say that their best musical
ideas and interventions come from impulse, body and feeling. They describe being in a different
state of mind, with no idea of time, and no obstructive thinking preventing them from
experiencing. I believe that the creative moments in musical improvisation occur in different
areas within one’s consciousness and unconsciousness. In order to develop musical ideas within
these areas, connecting conversations are necessary, and, therefore, in addition to musical
communication, one also needs language to explain the processes. In my opinion, it is crucial
that this language, used by the coach or lecturer, is as associative, metaphorical and imaginary as
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the music itself. In order to coach students in the field of creative music making, the
communication about the process and the outcome has to take place within the same creative
area or state of mind.
During my teaching I also use the power of metaphor to develop the capacity of
imagination. As spoken language is sometimes not sufficient to explain or express the experience
of either improvisation or creativities, metaphors offer a different point of entry for explanatory
work, for example: ‘it is the kind of silence that sounds like snowflakes falling down in the
middle of a windless night’; ‘play a melody that tries to find itself’; ‘let’s make a soundscape like
a swamp where little gas bubbles pop up once in a while, and where trees have interesting
twisted shapes and only very slow snakes can survive there’.
Creating musical lines from the area of free space
One way in which I teach students to be in the moment is by letting them become deeply aware
of their ‘first impulses’. In every improvisation each player is constantly making decisions. Why
someone chooses to play a specific rhythm at a specific moment depends on a variety of factors,
both conscious as well as unconscious. A known factor to base a musical decision on might be
the trigger of the bass guitar ostinato where musical memory and experience immediately creates
the missing complementing groove or rhythm. This could be defined as an impulse created by
‘trained solutions’: the drum rhythm that complements the bassline is something students may
have learned by listening to the radio, or recordings, or through previous teachers who taught
them to play funk and jazz combo grooves etc. In this sense I would call a ‘first impulse’ the
most obvious solution.
I ask my students to let their first impulses pass by and wait for the second. They are then
asked to focus on what they notice happening in their bodies and what they are feeling. The
focus is definitely not on what they are thinking. The thinking in this kind of situation often tells
you that you had better not be out of tune; that the guitar player is giving you a bored look –
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nothing very useful. The second impulse may become a little different when focusing on what
happens in your body. I often experience a little movement in energy, which I immediately
follow, and therefore it grows into something more explicit. The energy is, for example,
something really soft but under high pressure. Through allowing this little energy to grow it will
become clearer how it will translate into music. I put the ‘concept’ on a imaginary line and let it
become the controller of my instrument. Then it forms itself in a musical statement; sometimes
as slow as you read it now, sometimes as quick as only a fraction of a second. I have found that
the Musician 3.0 students can learn to deepen the quality of their musical offerings in this way.
They realize that they are experiencing this when those people who are responding are inspired
by their offerings and can take the ideas to another level or use the ideas as a starting point for
something else. The role of the lecturer is to focus on the ‘aha’ moments, explaining those
moments and facilitating reflective and musical conversations about the process.
Being the processor
During the processing of the music, students are confronted with the contours of their
compositional ideas, their solutions, sound ideas etc. The first processings are usually ‘airplaneshaped pieces’: tension bows that start with a slow development of tension and thickness, then
stay for a while at a climax and quickly go to an ending. These pieces are usually horizontal and
thickly layered, often with no space for silence. Students subsequently learn to create different
directions for musical material and at the same time learn to organize the material in more
diverse, surprising and creative ways. The next step is to train improvisational skills; for
example, to learn to define the musical material more deeply; make intelligent use of the power
of rhythm; consider the need for a story; find possibilities to encourage players to play their most
inspiring material; learn how to develop a seed of musical material and work with different
layers, different types of tension bows, and so on.
The processors are able to make a personal mark on the pieces quite quickly. Students are
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challenged to be as authentic in their pieces as possible: on hearing the piece, listeners should be
able to recognize the processor. After the first level of skill training (learning to use the signs,
and learning to be the musical leader) students are encouraged to become more conceptual in
their processing through experimenting with clear ideas and material, instrumentation, sound,
extended techniques, different forms of tension bows etc. The processors also experience the
importance of their state of mind, focus and energy. The processor’s state of mind is directly
reflected in the ensemble and affects the music that is created. Exercises and reflection help to
clarify the understanding of this topic and deepen the experience. The processors will grow in
their ability to show themselves as a musical leader, both physically, emotionally, and as a
visionary through the communication of their imagination. In my opinion, a musical leader is not
the person who decides which part of the piece is rehearsed and how it should be played. Musical
leadership is the ability to form musical ideas, to be associative, to have a musical vision and
form that into playing and composition. It is the process of forming: moving from the
imagination into the arena of putting sound to that imagination. The imagination develops and
grows in the state of being in the moment, after which it manifests into sound. A musical leader,
as understood in this context, ideally has a wide imagination, a deep sense of intuition and is able
to hold the space of being in the now. Then the musical leader is able to form this imagination
and state of mind into sound and musical shape. Musical leadership is ‘leading form the inside
out’. Furthermore, after the forming has taken place, a musical leader can exchange inspiration,
ideas and imagination with the community around him. This community can consist of different
entities; a group of musicians, Syrian refugees, neighbours, a village population etc. The
creative, and therefore, inspiring exchange takes place through the commonality of shared
experience within different contexts. The capacity of the musical leader is defined by the sum of
his/her talents, level of creativity, artistic preferences and energy.
‘Free Play’
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‘Free Play’ is the next level towards activating intuitive and improvisational creativities and
allows the opportunity for flow. Creativity is the dimension that comes through this process. The
level of creativity is influenced by the extent of awareness of the ‘new’ and of flow. ‘Free Play’
requires higher levels of receptiveness and of being in the now. There is no processor, only the
group of players and the music they have yet to create. Nevertheless, training occurs: students
learn to qualify their impulses, direct the music with their input, offer useful material, change the
mood and atmosphere of a piece and engage with experiencing the endless number of musical
tools, rules, meanings and more.
Free improvisation in the jazz and improvised music scene is a well-known phenomenon.
Usually musicians in this field work with small groups and the music has a certain aesthetic. It
has always been a challenge to improvise with groups larger than around four to five players
without processors or strict agreements, as difficulties occur in maintaining direction,
collaboration and musical variety. What struck me when commencing ‘Free Play’ sessions with
the second-year Musician 3.0 students (a group of fourteen students: guitar players, vocalists,
bass players, pianists, drummers, saxophonists) was the absolutely authentic, strong and urgent
music that was created on the spot. The pieces possessed direction, layers, variety, creativity,
humour, high and intense energy; all interesting musical ingredients. These students have no
shared history in this field and no history in free jazz; however, they have created something new
as a group. Every session sounded totally different, not only in terms of the form of the pieces or
tempo, but particularly through the themes, the stories that needed to be told, and the collective
emotion. It seems that the music that was created was highly responsive to the type of day, the
total energies of the players, the shared moods, the weather, the hour before, the day after etc.
The group often concluded that we had never played in that particular kind of atmosphere before.
In addition to the experience of being trained in intuitive and improvisational creativities,
the structural circumstances wherein students experiment and develop play an important role.
Musician 3.0 students are trained in groups (formed according to their year of study), similar to
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those often seen in theatre and dance education. The Musician 3.0 groups usually contain twelve
to fourteen students. The forming of a stable and safe group empowers the group and the
individual, while the interaction, role-modelling and the feeling of being part of a safe space all
contribute to an inspiring learning environment.
I developed the concept of ‘Free Play’ from the work of Stephen Nachmanovitch, who
wrote an astonishing book about improvisation: Free Play, Improvisation in Life and Art (1990).
I adapted ‘Free Play’ from this book because I feel that the words ‘free’ and ‘play’ are the most
essential words in improvised music:
Improvisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and learn to respond to
her call. Even if we work in a very structured, compositional way, we begin by that
always surprising process of free invention in which we have nothing to gain and nothing
to lose. The outpourings of intuition consist of a continuous, rapid flow of choice, choice,
choice, choice. When we improvise with the whole heart, riding this flow, the choices
and images open into each other so rapidly that we have no time to get scared and retreat
from what intuition is telling us (Nachmanovitch, 1990: 41).
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This process of ‘intuition in action’ links directly to what I consider to be good
communication, which I consider essential to forming a good group. Musician 3.0 students
follow intensive lessons in reflective practice and feedback skills as well as communication
skills. The development of the group and its dynamics are of paramount importance. The
students experience safety within the group; they feel free to perform, to experiment, to try, and
to fail. They experience feelings of competition in a safe way, which allows them to mainly
benefit from this competition. The group develops a safe space for ‘Free Play’ and improvisation
in which there is trust, respect and knowledge of each other’s talents and competences. The
students care for each other, help each other and communicate: a fundamental basis for artistic
exploration and development.
I believe that a powerful group creates powerful individuals. This is, of course, only true
if the essential aims of the group include a shared desire to create a safe holding, which is a place
of non-judgment in which there is no open judgment about other people’s or one’s own
performances and ideas. Opinions do not help the creative process because they stop free
thinking. Therefore, posing questions is enormously important. The group has to be continuously
brought into the arena of communication and self-searching in order to become the safe holding
that all the students need in order to develop themselves.
The role of the lecturer in the process of improvising and creating: It takes a village to raise
a Musician 3.0
The didactic of intuitive and improvisational creativity is focused on coaching students to
connect inspiration into form and transform creative ideas into expression or design. Students
need guidance in the process of creative development and transformation. Writing that ‘it takes a
village to raise a Musician 3.0’ acknowledges that diverse styles of coaching by many different
people are involved in the student’s growth and development. As well as core coaches, students
are surrounded by experts and peers. Experiencing peer-to-peer education means that senior
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students play a part in the development of younger students through co-creating, being a role
model, peer support, conversation and exchange. The experts involved in the training of the
students have the roles of inspirers (through giving seminars, working together on music etc.)
and critical friends (as internship coaches and experts from different art-related fields who are
invited to give their feedback on artistic work).
In this context, the creative and improvisational processes are coached through
mentoring, as described by Renshaw, 2009:
Mentoring is a developmental process, including elements of coaching, facilitating and
counselling, aimed at sharing knowledge and encouraging individual development. It has
a longer-term focus designed to foster personal growth and to help an individual place
their creative, personal and professional development in a wider cultural, social and
educational context (e.g. Why am I doing what I do? How do I perceive my identity? In
what ways does this impact on my professional life and work?) (Renshaw, 2009: 3)
As noted above, mentoring is present within the process-driven coaching for students
taking the Musician 3.0 course. This also contributes to the development of divergent, lateral and
self-sufficient thinking. Apart from skills that need to be taught in perhaps a more traditional
teaching setting (instrumental skills, applied knowledge) there are many skills within the
improvisational and creative learning processes that benefit from mentoring rather than teaching.
It is not about giving the answers, it is about asking the right questions and facilitating students
to become autonomous artists. The profile of a Musician 3.0 mentor would be that of a creative
musician who possesses the experience and skills to coach creative and personal processes and
development. To be able to connect deeply in conversation (verbally and through the language of
music) involves being able to be the expert, the critical friend, the co-creator, the responder and
the teacher at the same time. These highly skilled musical coaches are not easy to find, and
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therefore institutes need to invest in schooling and coaching teachers for the twenty-first century.
The students of today will become the inspirational coaches of tomorrow.
The Musician 3.0 course connects creating, performing and communicating by activating
intuitive and improvisational creativities. It is the holistic approach of a discipline which
connects imagination with skills. Diverse creativities are the source from where students develop
into artists and these also form the starting points for expression, innovation, collaboration and
research. Improvisation didactics trains musical creativity and invites players to act in the
moment, to put sound to their inner voice.
References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997), Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life,
New York: Basic Books.
Lerman, L. and Borstel, J. (2003), Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process: A Method on Getting
Useful Feedback on Anything You Make From Dance to Dessert, n.p.: The Dance
Exchange.
Nachmanovitch, S. (1990), Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, London: Penguin.
Renshaw, P. (2009), ‘Lifelong learning, a framework for mentoring’,
<www.lifelonglearninginmusic.org> [accessed 10 April 2014].
Tolle, E. (2001), The Power of NOW: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, London: Hodder and
Stoughton.
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