John Butcher 15 Simple Statements on Free Improvisation – with Illustrations and Contradictions* John Butcher: Asymptotic Freedom, for feedback saxophone, snare drum, guitar & e-bow. A response to the work of Gustav Metzger. Self Cancellation, Install, Glasgow. 2008. © Philip Berryhill, 2008 1. Group improvisation involves an attempt to make music that no one player could imagine. It should force the musicians beyond their own conceptions. 2. Each player should equally be able to affect the content, form and direction of the music at any moment. 3. The physicality of sound production is inescapably connected with the creation, not just the execution, of the music. 4. Free improvised music is necessarily spontaneous, but is built on a background of years of study, experiment, thought and experience. 5. There exists the possibility of trying to play a music with no history. 6. Free improvisation shows that complexity is actually very natural. 7. Contemporary music seems t...