(Co)Shaping the Dynamic Flow : Time as Vitality Experience in Explorative Performance of Textural Music

Abstract

Taking into account that musical decisions in exploratory and improvisatory creation modes are not always fully governed by volitional control, the authors investigate the microgenesis of first-person experience underlying a process of shaping textural music. This process is understood as fundamental to determining how to shape extended resonating and ringing sound processes and when to initiate the next musical action.

The authors develop a co-research approach to Artistic Research, inspired by current experience science – specifically their own nonverbal, micro-phenomenological method called tactual co-shaping. This method enables musicians (original shapers) to access their ongoing first-person experience from a second-person perspective adopted by co-shapers.

Through both tactual co-shaping and retrospective, micro-phenomenologically grounded interviews, the authors found that time experience – manifested as dynamic tension in the form of vitality – and anticipatory tactual listening shared between the co-researchers are crucial for leading to a pivotal experiential moment related to musical decision-making in the present study.