At a certain point in my musical journey, I became obsessed with a question: could I find a way to improvise that was neither the conventional approach based on chords, scales, keys and modes, nor free improvisation?
The question gradually became more precise: is it possible to improvise and compose using a language that organises pitches in an unconventional, non-idiomatic way, while establishing clearly defined relationships between them?
I knew that some jazz musicians, such as Steve Coleman and Henry Threadgill, were experimenting with unconventional approaches. I also had some familiarity with the work of several twentieth-century contemporary composers and music theorists in this field.
I therefore decided to begin my own research, experimenting with ways of organising pitches for composition and improvisation.
The first composition I wrote following this idea was “Saturno”, whose vocal version is called "Child of the Rings" (score,
music). It is based on a sequence that “spirals” around B. The bass line is Bb C A C# Ab D G Eb F# E. The piece raised several questions: how could an improviser engage with this material? How could the sonic space outlined by this sequence be explored organically?
Around the same time I wrote another composition, “Protone” (score,
music). It is based on a sequence of progressively wider intervals: C Db (2m), E D (2M), Eb Gb (3m), F A (3M), B F# (p4), G Db (b5), Ab Eb (p5), C# F (a5), F A (6M), Eb Db, C Db (7M), E E (8).
This sequence posed two problems. First, although the intervals were ordered by size, other intervals occurred randomly between the pairs of notes. Second, how could an improviser engage with this material?
The idea of working with intervals interested me, and I began exploring it more deeply. In “B1” (score,
music), for example, improvisation takes place over a kind of progression organised as follows: four bars using the minor second, four using the minor third, four using the major sixth and four using the diminished fifth.
I called this use of intervals “predominant”: the improviser was invited to use the specified interval between pairs of notes, without necessarily applying it to every step in the entire sequence.
Another compositional technique that interested me was writing with twelve different notes. Through twelve-tone rows, I began exploring inversion and retrograde, producing pieces such as “Prima Serie” (score) for quartet and “Marte 4” (score,
music) for solo bass.
The question I could not answer was this: how could an improviser engage with a row in real time? How could it be treated spontaneously?
Another idea began to emerge: by using a pair of intervals, for example m2/M3, I could compose melodies made exclusively from those intervals and give the improviser a rule flexible and coherent enough to build spontaneous melodies.
This led to a composition entitled “Origami”(score) and the idea immediately seemed promising.
My exploration continued in a rather unsystematic way across several techniques. Some compositions focused on intervals, such as “Space Jazz Astro Bop” (score,
music) and “Jon Futuru” (score,
music), while others experimented with interval pairs, such as “Hagelin” (score,
music),“Il Cerchio”(score,
music), “Hans” (score,
music), and others used synthetic scales, for example “Spirali” (score,
music) and “Obscurio” (score,
music),or combined these techniques, as in “Due Lune” (score,
music).
With the formation of XYQuartet, I was able to develop these ideas and seek answers through an ongoing collaboration with other musicians, especially Nicola Fazzini, as well as Saverio Tasca and Luca Colussi. Exploring form, meaning the evolution of a composition and the materials that generate it, immediately became important within the group. The music became much more coherent and structured.
Another subject I found particularly interesting was pitch-class sets, introduced to me by Nicola Fazzini, especially their organisation into hexachords. This led to compositions such as “Mono Esa Tono” (score,
music), and “ Gagarin” (score,
music) as well as “Nautilus” (score,
music) for solo bass.
At this point I wrote a composition entitled “Rakesh”
(score,
music),
based on a twelve-tone row built from two intervals. Dedicated to Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian astronaut, it appears on “Orbite” by XYQuartet. The intervals are the major third (M3 or 4) and the perfect fourth (p4 or 5). The piece had a sound I felt could be described as “anti-gravitational”: there was no established tonal centre, and it evoked the image of an astronaut in a spacecraft.
This composition was very important to me. I realised that the given material, the two intervals, was relatively flexible for improvisers and could be explored in depth. My subsequent research would focus on providing improvisers and composers with practical ways to explore this material.
I have collected the compositions mentioned here in a playlist. I hope you enjoy listening.
PLAYLIST ROUND TRIP TO SATURN