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Hello everyone and welcome back to the podcast.

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Today I wanted to talk about what in music we refer to as open forms.

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We use this term open forms, particularly in modern music and jazz, and also particularly when we refer to songs that you not only can improvise around, can improvise on, but you can also.

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Modify the inner form of it.

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And I already know that some of you are like a bit puzzled by what I'm saying. There are a few questions. Well, what do you mean, change the form of a tune or change the design? The structure of a tune? Doesn't it change the whole tune if you do that and then?

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How can you improvise your way through a tune, changing it and perhaps along with other musicians? Well.

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Let's make some order here first of all.

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I find the the term open form.

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It's interesting in first place because forms are things that we see. We see a form, a shape in a sculpture, a painting, or maybe in an architecture to consider. Let's say a visual open.

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Form or a form a shape that opens.

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Up we will start going into shapes that are perhaps transparent or that have holes that that perhaps do not fall within the within St categories of solid structures.

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Somehow it will become a form that allow transformation, allow change, allow to merge with other forms, allow elements to become part of it and maybe transform it from inside.

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I know I'm probably going a little bit to abstract here, but hear me out when we listen to music, we are not necessarily seeing a form, so how can we speak about forms in music the terms is.

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Has become part of the music.

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Let's say vocabulary because composers do see things happening when they write them on the score. They tends to develop an attention towards the what we today will call the timeline of events of a musical composition, so the form.

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Of a composition, however short or long that is can be grasped visually. If one can put it all on the paper at in at once, and therefore you can start considering aspect of proportions within between the sections.

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And make choices that depend or that are affected by such considerations, and then a jazz tune. A jazz standard usually is play performed in this manner you.

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Eight. Once the whole tune, which is usually somewhere between 8 bars and maybe 50 something.

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Like that. And then the structure the form so-called repeats, but allowing improvisers to interpret it in their own individual manner so.

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This is the general outline of a jazz performance. If there is nothing particularly original.

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Yeah.

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It's intuitive to think that a band of instrumentalists will get together, play a tune that day you will know, and once the tune is finished, well then we just repeat it and people will just are changing things around until.

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The tune will become more and more transform more and more.

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Developed into probably ways that they become maybe sometimes unrecognisable. This happened to a lot of jazz music around the 50s, the 60s and later on the the more modern jazz becomes the harder it is.

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To to hear original tunes, that's a different that's a topic for a different episode. So let's get back to this idea of open form. Then you start seeing how by modifying the elements within a piece, the whole design of.

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Of a composition might change. Particularly I'm interested in looking at.

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Forms that have a small or say short duration, for example Blues that has just 12 bars is perfect to to discuss in this context because.

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Blues have such a peculiar and strong short.

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Form you will say you intuitively think well that means it being so short it will be easy to find it repetitive and that's possible. But it's also possible that Blues is a perfect balance of something that is short enough but also allows.

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To never really feel it's finished. And how is that possible?

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Let's take a quick look at it and then perhaps expand later on. More on this idea of open form in different in different styles. How is it possible? I was saying that such short form of 12 bars does not fill.

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Repetitive, even though it the whole performance of Blues is based on the repetition of these 12 bars.

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First of all, what?

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Are we repeating? We are repeating an exact sequence of codes. 12 bars means a sequence of.

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Particular codes usually not.

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That many, and they repeat in the exact the same order or very similar order you if you if you are an instrumentalist, if you play, you will hear those same chords coming back and not only that, you will probably want to hear those same chords coming back.

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There is an element of surprise, but also an element of expectation, and both need to somehow always be satisfied when we listen to music.

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Now the question was how can 12 bars never sound repetitive even if they are repeated? The key to this conundrum, particularly in the case of the 12 bars Blues, is to be found in.

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The fact that 12 bars defy squareness.

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What does it mean? 12 bars are actually free phrases of four bars. Let's let's hear an example. This is St. Louis Blues.

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That's the first phrase.

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Second phrase.

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3rd phrase I've got through my 12 bars and there are three musical phrases, so I said it defies squareness. Well, it will be square if it was 2.

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Or four phrases. But since it is 3.

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Then you start either wanting to continue or to be already too long. In the case of this, you really wanted to continue. How is it possible?

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He might have to do, perhaps with the same reason why.

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A lot of classical poetry is written in stanzas of four lines, 4 verses.

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Isn't it that a coincidence? Interestingly, if you if you think about it and you read out loud metre versus metre lines in, in poems where stanzas are.

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Squared. You recognise how the end of the stanzas is very neatly defined. You hear the ending. You actually need to stop before before starting the next standard.

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It's slightly different when you have standards made of three lines. There is an an energy, an inertia that pulls you through the beginning of a new stance. In that case, this has to do with the fact that, intuitively.

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Every metered phrase of every line somehow feels like needs. Response needs to be responded to, so 2 lines work, four line work, 3 lines work oddly, but that oddity.

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That unevenness that Unsquared Ness is the key to moving forward. I played the game and now let's pay attention to it.

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Right. Nice. Cute. There's nothing original, really. In my plane.

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But you naturally feel that this is not going to stop. I I I might point this.

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As a result of my own talent and ability of playing properly, but the truth is that is that the design of.

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A 12 bars Blues aims exactly at that. You can repeat this 100 hundred times and virtually if you're. If you're skilled, having the ability to make it sound always new and interesting. But it is possible.

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Only because the inner design of the Blues allows this constant repetition and never exhaustion of inertia of inner energy. So this is what I meant when I.

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Pointed that when I talked about open forms, the Blues in a way it's is an open form in itself. It's perfect for practising music, practising, improvisation and invention, exactly because it allows.

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Elements to to enter, develop, transform and exit and new element can come in, operate, create, invent, transform and and move out.

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Let's play. Let's see some. Let's see some example and then we give you some other example of open forms.

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You see, I could. I could introduce new ideas and leave new ideas for other new ideas.

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The magic of open forms is exactly this possibility to allow transfer transformative elements from within. This is clearly an advanced concept that I wouldn't recommend a student starting.

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With improvisation by developing.

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This such such concept, but at the same time it is important when we hear that we have a sense of what's happening, new ideas somehow sometimes sound very good in line with the previous ones.

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Other times sound less good. It's on our ear to detect.

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Another example of Open Form, still based on these 12 bars, is anomalous anomaly. Tune a tune that is not so regular. It's a bit strange. This is called Solar.

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And it is by by Miles Davis.

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And this tune is yet still on 12 bars, but it sounds nothing like the Blues goes like this.

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Right. It's it's very, very short. It's very quick. I suspect I played it faster than mice Davis does, but I also suspect that Miles Davis could play at any tempo.

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You you probably have a similar sense. This doesn't stop here, and it's true. You won't stop here. It is possible to repeat this little tune over and over and over again using the little motives to.

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To introduce similar ideas and make changes and transform them, let's see if you examples.

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You could probably follow the the line of transformation there are there were some melodic ideas and motives that came out of nowhere. They were not necessarily related to the original tune, but the the vast majority was, or at least.

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That's what I felt. And in this manner you could see you could hear how by the end.

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The tune has gained enough trajectory enough.

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Energy. Inertia. It could go in 100 different direction. And the beauty of jazz to me stays in in this potential. In this quality we start in one place and magically slowly one step after another we are.

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In a completely different place.

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U M1 of the best examples of open forms is another tune by mice Davis. This is actually a tune the mice Davis of which both mice Davis and Bill Evans claim.

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Be the author. This is blue in green, and if I find it.

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So as I was saying, they both claim authorship of it. It's interestingly, and weirdly, it is in 10 bars, but it's also as low. Let's let's hit it.

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Etcetera. There is a circularity to this melody that you you perhaps could already if you haven't heard it before, you perhaps could already point at.

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Right. It just goes up and down, goes up and down and repeat.

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Repeat, repeat.

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Let's see if I can.

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If I can open up this form, maybe in a quick.

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Improvisation and see where, where you get lost. How far away into the tune you start wondering is this the same tune? Are we there?

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What is that?

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Quick extravagant variation on blue and green it it is a source of inspiration, but also a source of challenge because it is not easy as an interpreter to learn how to stay within.

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Let's say a theme, an area, an idea.

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And yet the original various diverse, interesting and creative with it. The final example for this concept of open form is a tune that I.

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Learned a while ago. It's it's called 500 miles high by Chick Corea.

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And I'm not going to say much. I just want you to hear the the main tune, the melody. I'm not going to say anything about the number of bars or or courts or anything here. It is 500 miles high.

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OK, the interesting melody not predictable at all and interesting course as well. How is this an open form? Well exactly because.

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It's not easy to predict what's happening when when it's going to happen. I think Corea here did an amazing job as usual in his output in his his work is pretty astounding how he's able to be essential meaning.

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Is quite short, not many notes.

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And makes it let's say, so dry and so quick. But at the same time allow so many opportunities for development. What do I mean? I can take each one of these little motives and and steps.

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And chords and open them from within. This is an exercise I recommend to a lot of my students. So for example the 1st, the 1st item is here.

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OK.

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Before I go with the second item, pardon me.

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I want to open up that from within so.

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Here we go.

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See what I mean?

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I'm like making one bar of music explode into an open into an open space where I am entitled. I feel I have the room for saying something and it's up to me to decide. What? Let's let's do it again. I'm going to go a little bit.

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Farther now.

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So I went a bit further, four or five steps further.

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And I'm not claiming this is of particular artistry. I certainly enjoy doing this sort of commenting on the text Chick Corea has provided us with a text.

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Something like this?

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And here is my commenting.

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And.

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Corea interjects again.

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And me?

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And me?

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And Chick Korea.

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Could.

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And him.

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And him.

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All right, so this was 500 miles high. I hope this gave you a little bit of, let's say inspiration, but also insight of on what happens when.

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Someone improvises on a.

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On a jazz standard, the idea of opening forms is has always been, to me, quite intriguing, and this comes certainly from studying forms. First, of course, there is no playing with material unless we know.

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What that material is, particularly the musical material.

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That is contained in a form could be motivic melodic, harmonic, maybe scales, maybe licks, maybe little tricks or little whatever it is that you think is worth.

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Giving your musical interest or attention, then that's probably where to start for developing for development and then opening up the form of a piece means usually what we saw in this case, making sure that.

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UM.

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There is room. There is that you take enough room for your creativity, for your development. Chick Corea wasn't the kind of person who would ask for permission to be creative. He was one of the most prolific and playful.

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Jazz improviser, jazz pianist, and I mean playful in the most noble term he would.

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He would show. Actually there are a couple of interviews and master classes. The one can that you can find online from him. His approach to creativity was extremely playful and he would use a simple motive.

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Two or three nodes, or even a simple rhythm.

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And and repeated in all sorts of ways and try to manipulate it as if it was clay in the same playful manner until something interesting will come out and that's it. He will use it for his performance, for his composition.

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There is a.

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Not just playfulness in it, but just joy, I would say pure, pure joy of messing around with with material. Today we have talked about open forms in the context of of jazz and improvisation is perhaps the most intuitive way of doing.

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It would be a completely different topic if we were looking at how composers such as Beethoven have done similar operations. You don't see we have not. We don't have the privilege to hear.

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Mr Beethoven, improvising his own on his own forms and but we through his composition.

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We can do a lot of investigation and the speculation on the forms that he had used, employed and opened up made explode. There are books written about it. This is certainly a trajectory for a different.

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Episode or maybe a few different episode. This is incredibly interesting, but also deep and complex topic.

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So I hope you enjoy our journey today and let me know in the comments if you found something interesting or not and if you would like a particular topic to be treated in the future, it will be delightful for me to hear it.

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And thank you again for for being with me and I will see you next time.