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Hidden principles of improvisation
Hidden principles of improvisation

Author(s): Jacques Coursil
Subject(s): Semiotics / Semiology
Published by: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus
Keywords: creativity; musical semiotics; non-premeditation of speech; semiotics of novelty; specious present; synchronous point;

Summary/Abstract: On the basis of the principle of non-premeditation of speech, we argue that the synchronicity of hearing shared by everybody present is incompatible with a division of time between a sender and a receiver of a message. Th e act of speech brings the participants together in a single moment of perception called a synchronous point. Both the act of speech and music do not appear through time; rather, speech and music create time. Th e present time of our casual experience always contains a part of radical novelty, probable a posteriori, yet never predicted. Despite our capacity to predict many things and repeat procedures, in the advent of a given moment, the present will always show its uniqueness. Th us, improvisation is based on two principles of uncertainty: the non-premeditated occurrence of speech and the non-predicted part of present time.

  • Issue Year: 43/2015
  • Issue No: 2-3
  • Page Range: 226-234
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English
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