Great to hear someone making aesthetic pronouncements to apply to all improvised music. Whatever.

Someone should lend the mystical man in black an elementary textbook about human auditory physiology and its physical parameters.

At least he'll have no shortage of personal documentation to wax nostalgic about in those gruelling, sad decades of deaf elderly life that are due to kick in anytime now...

(I love his hurdy-gurdy work and falsetto vocals though...)

He's not saying everyone should play loud; he's saying don't be afraid to play loud. I have a well-documented disdain for folks who seem to be dusting their instruments rather than playing them - I think if they broke through their cauls of tasteful dignity and ripped off just one rib-rattling roar or filling-vibrating screech per set, it could do their music worlds of good.

"I’m always saying this about improvisation, but if a musician lets the audience perceive a misplayed note as a mistake then they’re dead. Lost. If you mess up the rhythm or whatever, then you’ve got to create something new from it."

I fervently abide by this as a musician. There is a fantastic Art Farmer quote in Berliner's "Thinking In Jazz" which mirrors almost exactly what Haino is alluding to re: the mistake.

As an antidote to what I perceive in the above-expressed viewpoints as banal self-mythologizing among improvisors regarding mistakes, I'll share this quote from pianist Dana Reason, taken from a feature article on her by Dan Given in the Summer 1999 edition of Musicworks. Referring to a concert by Muhal Richard Abrams she'd witnessed the previous night, Reason offers this insight:

"I'll tell you one thing that really blew me away about this performance. Someone like me, who's just getting going, sometimes you reach out and hit the wrong note, and you feel, 'Oh man, I messed up, I did not want that note.' And its obvious, OK. Someone like me, who has a long way to go, hits that note again, to incorporate the mistake. But last night, Muhal was going on the outside, on C and A, and he hit a note tht really stood out because it didn't seem to belong in the sequence. Muhal didn't try to incorporate the 'odd' note but continued with the original sequence. I realized that is the difference between where he's at and where I'm at. I'd try to incorporate it. Perhaps this is a sign of my youth. It was beautiful for me when this happened. I had a big lesson in that concert yesterday."

man, Mike, today you are just busting out that contempt and condescension for people who might think differently than you. how does such derison jibe with your high fallutin notions about life affirming human culture?

[Haino] There are so many musician who only want to improvise at tiny volumes, where every note can be heard clearly. They should all just go off to some desert island and do whatever they want.

Well if all the musicians that like small noises are off to a desert island can we pack Mr Haino off to the moon where he can make as much noise as he likes?

The thing about that interview that really surprised me is just how knowledgable the guy was, he got virtually every track right pretty quickly. I had visions of him locked in some dark tower someplace shut away from the rest of the music world...

"As an antidote to what I perceive in the above-expressed viewpoints as banal self-mythologizing among improvisors regarding mistakes"

Is this addressed to me? If so, I strongly suggest you lose the attitude. Do you type with both pinkies erect?

My citation of Haino's comments carefully exclude his allusions to the quiet or the loud. Frankly, I don't know what he's getting at there.

And if my "as a musician" tag comes off exclusive, I certainly didn't intend it to be so.

Michael, this is theoretical musing, no need to personalize it. Yes, the remark clearly refers to yours and Haino's theory of obviating improvisational mistakes, which is one of those cliches about improvisation we've all heard a million times and which I find misleading and unproductive as a generalization of methodology and aesthetics. Since the phrase "banal self-mythologizing" was chosen with great precision and supported by a concrete illustration of the germ of a different viewpoint, the only attitude you could be objecting to is one of straightforward philosophical skepticism or disagreement. In the arena of theory, objecting to this is tantamount to rejecting the entire premise of discourse. You're entitled to do so, but I retain my pursuit of informal truth-seeking. Yes, I am a very old-fashioned guy, believing in truth, science, and so on. The current discoure domain = anthropology of improvisation != tea-time niceties. A little arrogance comes with the territory.

[Haino] I’m always saying this about improvisation, but if a musician lets the audience perceive a misplayed note as a mistake then they’re dead. Lost.

[MikeP] The metaphor of dying or losing is quite revealing, implying a goal of "staying alive" or "winning" as in a video game. Haino is defining his creative work as a sport of impressing the audience, or at the very least imposing an aesthetic barrier between the experience of the performer and the audience. It strikes me as the very opposite of someone like Jack Wright who discusses his creative work in terms of the self-directed internal/external art experience/object and entirely foregoes a performer/audience dialectic by defining the performer as part of the audience. If I understand Jack's philosophy correctly, Haino's premise of showmanship would make him an incompatible improv partner (not that their incompatibility isn't fully obvious anyway, not to mention irrelevant in practice).

[Phil] I have a well-documented disdain for folks who seem to be dusting their instruments rather than playing them - I think if they broke through their cauls of tasteful dignity and ripped off just one rib-rattling roar or filling-vibrating screech per set, it could do their music worlds of good.

[MikeP] Like Haino, here I feel that you're trying to force the tremendous diversity of musical aesthetics into one monolithic, restrictive conception of "good" instead of simply acknowledging aesthetic pluralism. What if rib-rattling roars or filling-vibrating screeches conflict with the musicians' desired experience? This is like choosing a certain rhythm (e.g. the standard jungle beat) and insisting every jazz drummer play it at least once per piece to compensate for all the "noodling" they do otherwise. I'm simply belaboring the absurdity of your suggestion because it's such an easy exercise.

"the only attitude you could be objecting to is one of straightforward philosophical skepticism or disagreement. In the arena of theory, objecting to this is tantamount to rejecting the entire premise of discourse."

no, I'm objecting to your characterization of the mistake amidst improvisation as

A. non-negotiable

v.

B. maybe even propitious

tell me which one is correct and save the brutally supercilious language whilst getting to the point

Mike (P), you're right and commended for seeking your own truths, but in reference to Haino's comments re: loudness mistakes improv, you're so off the mark I hardly recognize you.

Abrams deals with his humanity (mistakes) in his own way, by Reason's comments, but so does Haino. There are a number of ways to interpret "...If you mess up the rhythm or whatever, then you’ve got to create something new from it."

As a musician myself, I'm much more of the Haino mentality than that perceived of Abrams when it comes to improv or written music. But this also depends on impulse, surroundings, mood, frame of mind, etc. On one day your esteem or whatever may be solid enough that you treat each mistake -- honestly, genuinely -- as a launching pad for new territory. On others you're dealing with little chemistry with your collaborators, your band, your audience, your own self, and you're consciously covering up those mistakes for human, even selfish, reasons.

I'm sure any musician here can identify with those and other scenarios, assuming that they make mistakes.

What is a mistake in improvised music ?

I mean in any genre (old school, onkyo, atmospherics, eai, taomud, assfce...)

>Haino is defining his creative work as a sport of impressing the audience, or at the very least imposing an aesthetic barrier between the experience of the performer and the audience.

If you choose to perform before an audience (particularly a paying audience) you have entered into a tacit agreement to be, on some level, a performer. You must acknowledge your status as entertainer, and give the audience their money's worth. What "their money's worth" means changes from crowd to crowd, night to night. That much is obvious. But there is a difference between being the performer and being a member of the audience. If there isn't, then the performer should stop asking for money.

What is a mistake in improvised music ?

Staying with "Son of a Preacher Man" about 30 seconds too long. :>}

[MichaelS] My citation of Haino's comments carefully exclude his allusions to the quiet or the loud. Frankly, I don't know what he's getting at there.

[MikeP] I think he's saying he likes to play loud music and that everyone else should be like him.

It's a little like saying everyone should play in lydian mode.

(He's no curmudgeon though; totally subtle and dynamically astute playing on that beautiful gem of a duo disc with Barre Phillips.)

[Phil] You must acknowledge your status as entertainer, and give the audience their money's worth.

[MikeP] Yowsers, I wonder what Sir Derek or Jack would think about that one!

[Phil] But there is a difference between being the performer and being a member of the audience. If there isn't, then the performer should stop asking for money.

[MikeP] I don't think anyone has suggested or would suggest there is no difference, but what I was referring to was the performer's conceptualization of their art and its impact on the musical content, not the sociology of performance.

Phil, I know we're rankling each other today, but I would like to thank for you posting this quote. While I don't take Haino's ideas too seriously, it's a very stimulating and pleasant blog entry.

>Sir Derek

You mean Bailey? Trust me, I've interviewed him, and he's very much aware of the performer/audience relationship, having played live music in pretty much every possible context since the 50s or maybe even earlier - playing in dance bands, accompanying strippers, playing at store openings, etc., etc. Sure, nowadays he turns up and plays whatever he feels like, to the rapturous response of the devoted few, but Bailey's a pro, make no mistake about it.

Of course he's a pro—everybody knows he did the normal musician gig back in the day and so on—but that's irrelevant here, and a somewhat vacuous label like "pro" is appropriate even just considering his serious music career. The point is that I doubt he adjusts the content of his playing in any way out of a concern for fulfilling the role of an entertainer and giving people their money's worth, to refer to your exact words again.

Wow, I go away to London for a day and Bags explodes into life.. FWIW, I'm not a big Haino fan at all but I found his jukebox informative and intelligent. Dunno what the rest of the noise you're making is all about, though. Quite why Schaumann and Parker should end up at cross purposes is beyond me, though it's no surprise to see our pal Adam "Grad School's Gift To Writing" Hill weighing in and trying score extra cool points with Phil "Pass The Hunting Rifle Ted" Freeman. If you like boxing so much, Adam, you should join your pal Mr Kelsey and find another album to rough up from a poor unsuspecting victim like Bertrand Gauguet who won't answer back.

Hi Bag,

I would suggest that you check the acoustic "Black blues" (DSA 54087) CD, and you'll see that Haino can "seem to be dusting his instruments rather than playing them" to quote phil ... the whole album is very quiet, all played with acoustic guitar undistorted and a very soft voice.

As he says at the end of the interview it's more provocation than anything else. I don't think he tries to impose anything on anyone, no offense intended .

Regards

Thanks, Dan "Did I mention Paris Transatlantic Ten Times Today" Warburton.

Not even Theory Boy can come close to your pretentiousness and effete wit.

Go have another piss on Ben Watson, and after that maybe trip a school girl.

Carry on.

DW: "Quite why Schaumann and Parker should end up at cross purposes is beyond me"

I just took exception with the fact that a certain decision amidst improvisation as process is either right or wrong. I love MAP's contributions here and care not to piss on one another--just took some of his words a bit condescending in tone, nothing I've never been accused of. . .

Jacque's follow-up question should spark a great discussion, however, i.e. 'is there a mistake?'. I need to dig out that Farmer quote.

Michael S, I definitely wasn't saying anything was right or wrong. I'll try to clarify my thoughts on the topic later today, but I can only be online for two minutes right now... I also enjoy your contributions quite a bit and I'll be the first to admit I often write with an arrogant and condescending tone. It's truly an incorrigible personality trait. Occasionally I make a special effort to avoid it, but often not because it's very comfortable for me to walk that line between blameless precision and rudeness. Gory analysis usually excuses me of the latter.

"Did I mention Paris Transatlantic Ten Times Today?" Twenty, maybe. Just trying to drum up a bit of traffic on the site. But you don't have to read it if you don't want to, Adam. After all, I don't waste much time reading your stuff.
"Not even Theory Boy can come close to your pretentiousness and effete wit."
Ah, "effete, adj 1. Depleted of vitality, force, or effectiveness; exhausted
2. Marked by self-indulgence, triviality, or decadence.
3. Overrefined; effeminate.
4. No longer productive; infertile."
Yup, that's me down to a tee, isn't it?
"Go have another piss on Ben Watson"
I'll have a piss (to use your most refined expression.. is that what they're teaching these days?) on anyone I think deserves it, as they do with me if they think I do. That includes our own Phil Freeman, whose book I didn't like at all (but whose Wire piece on Tom Waits was one of the best things the mag's published in a decade), but apparently he seems to be able to criticism like a man and not descend into petty insult like you.

[MichaelS] no, I'm objecting to your characterization of the mistake amidst improvisation as A. non-negotiable v. B. maybe even propitious[.]tell me which one is correct and save the brutally supercilious language whilst getting to the point

[MikeP] I don't see where the concept "non-negiotable" enters in here; in the lucid and simple counterargument I allowed Dana Reason and Muhal Richard Abrams to make for me above, no such concept could be extracted.

Michael S, the key word in your question above is "the" ("the mistake"). What I'm objecting to is simply the attempt at conflating the diverse aesthetic contexts a mistake could occur in. I would never dispute the phenomenon you and others report of neutralizing or capitalizing on mistakes—definitely a beautiful thing to experience—but taken as the generalization you and others appear to be making I don't feel it holds up, either descriptively ("this is what improvisors do") or prescriptively ("this is what improvisors, or at least just me, should do"). In fact, my feeling is that it may only account for a tiny fraction of mistake-related phenomena in improv.

Jacques had the good sense to simply go to the heart of the matter asking what mistakes could be in the first place, and I'd suggest that in some cases a concept of mistake truly is undefined, but that it is a palpable and empirically-attested phenomenon in yet other cases. Let's assume the folks who are romanticizing mistakes are talking about the latter cases only (all kinds of murky thoughts are being brushed under the carpet by me here). Given that the musician is experiencing a bona fide mistake, they must have some specific musical intention to perceive a deviation from. To my way of thinking about improvisation as a method of composition and not an alternative to it (acknowledging of course that this fact of the matter may be a secondary concern to the musician in cases where a performance experience/process is the primary goal), the improvisor is operating under some set of compositional criteria that defines a highly restricted subset of the sound events possible in a given instrumental context. For convenience, let's call this subset M[p,t]. Now my point becomes immediate. Perhaps the performer is lucky and a mistake is inside M[p,t]—splendid, propitious. But the mistake also could very well lie outside of M[p,t]. So if embracing mistakes is given methodological priority over staying inside M[p,t], then the result is likely what people would call "bad music". To me it characterizes a sort of "anything goes" improv aesthetic lacking a well-defined musical language, an aesthetic that pretty much any great improvisor we could cite goes to great pains to reject and distance themselves from.

(I hasten to emphasize that I don't mean to suggest that defined-language-based improv is the only valid type. I think there is a minor stream of occasionally enjoyable improv that rejects this premise.)

A different path to impugning the conventional "improv philosophy of mistakes" is the more obvious target of that hazy border between mistakes and sound events for which the concept of mistake doesn't apply, acknowledging that there are clear-cut cases on either side though. So much improv is constructed and perceived in semi-independent moment-sized chunks that I often speculate that "good" improv (actually, not just improv, but music in general) is really just music for which at least a few good chunks exist and among the non-good chunks most or all are neutral instead of bad. I think if the musician is simply aiming to arrive at sweet spots every now and again, then even when a mistake is perceived it can be simply ignored in the ordinary sequence of insignificant moments.

In sum, I'm suggesting that this matter of mistakes is far more subtle than the romanticism of mistake-recovery we sometimes hear from improvisors. The fact is that we don't understand these issues; the complexity of musical cognition is way beyond our current grasp, and so I bristle when I see attempts to reduce all this fascinating complexity to such neat and tidy memes. Especially when improv takes on so many incompatible aesthetic guises. I often see people make sweeping generalizations about improvised music that really are just overgeneralizations about their own specific and very non-universal version of this methodological umbrella.

This really is a pleasant and profitable way to tackle some of the perennial theoretical conundrums of improv. If we keep hacking away at this stuff opportunistically, I'd say we've got a good shot at arriving at some answers in a few decades!

[Vinz] As he says at the end of the interview it's more provocation than anything else. I don't think he tries to impose anything on anyone, no offense intended.

[MikeP] Vinz, I agree with you entirely. He's having a bit of mischievous fun like anybody else would, while also communicating something about himself. But it's always a worthwhile exercise to take someone's words literally as well. I tend to go 50/50 on his actual music (find some of it flat-out unlistenable and other stuff fantastic), but, like Dan above, I've enjoyed reading his thoughts. I was fascinated by the classic interview with him in Halana some years back, and took him as a charming and genuine eccentric, not to mention a real showbiz wiz at image-control and self-promotion.

before I toke from Derek's peace pipe, it's worth pointing out that the personal attacks and petty insults
were first directed toward me, completely unbidden. And so for Mike and Dan to claim the 'higher ground' is ridiculously hypocritical but unsurprising. read your own posts.

i have not read all of the posts -- so am just responding to the intiial concept of extremes, in favor of volume. i personally am interested in collaboration and improvisation with parameters or with no parameters - that would include volume itself as an elment no more astounding than other elemnts, such as softer playing.

the idea that a sound reaches as many people as possible through volume, therefore it is best to improvise at the loudest sound because it's more the true nature of creative improvising, is not sound... if sound becomes so loud, so as to overwhelm the functions of your body for instance, chances are one would be expoding and pretty soon experiencing death or discomfort that may cause injuries. so sound also is capable of destroying the objects they may reach.

when vocalizing and improvising even in a very crude or even unseasoned (experimental?) way, i am uncomfortable when the other musicans do not consider volume as (merely) an element to be called upon. they may express emotions with volume and recessions of volume and at that point are often not "in the performance". if you are vocalizing you often have nothing to do but "fight" to sing louder or lay back and not be heard which means that you are not included as an instrument and further -- perhaps the listening has stopped and the level of that kind of awareness and control has been lost.

i would like to know, phil, are you not merely provocating! then we, all seriously responding and considering, are chasing our tails. (smiley thing)

the idea of deviating from the structure of a classic soundcheck is interesting but the absolute from which the points made are springing make it less interesting -- for me.

The concept of mistake can be first associated to the notion of a false note in a score.
Of course it doesn't seem to make sense in the context of improvised music like jazz. In the same way, it doesn't make sense in Cage theory.
But if a jazz musician plays clichés, he doesn't make mistake even if he is boring. Steve Lacy created his own exercices to avoid clichés. (For him, clichés = mistake).
But mistake is inevitably associated with limits. Historic limits and limits of perception too. Some people (Miles Davis) considered that Eric Dolphy was playing false notes. In fact he was just extending the chord changes. But he was strictly playing the chords.
I remember Larry Ochs explained when he was practicing his instruments, he repeated mistakes during scales exercises to be sure to avoid them in the future. (Mistake and fingering control).

What can be a mistake in free jazz, free improv, including electronic improv ? It seems that this notion is irrelevant in that context too.

When a new musical style is growing with his own stars (Derek Bailey for instance), I think that in people's minds there are new sound constructions and a new style of music is establishing. If some musicians are not playing strictly in that vein, their music could be considered as mistakes. That's why Steve Beresford always liked to track these repressed mistakes and put them in the heart of his music. His style was mainly provocation.

About Keith Rowe : he never or rarely practices his instruments (what are their names?) at home. And during concerts, he sometimes (often ?) doesn't know what device a specific sound come from ! So he is sure to never make mistakes ! Or on the contrary, his playing is a whole mistake :-)

So I believe mistake is a highly cultural matter. Evolution in music styles depends on talented artists (and patience too...). But creating a new musical style is also creating new schemes in people's minds.
When a new musical style is appearing and growing, things are going to be more and more "clichés". For instance there are probably a lot of clichés in eai now. When a musician doesn't want to play these clichés and is not already admitted, he probably will be considered as a musician doing mistakes.

Expanding a bit on what Jacques wrote, it seems to me that in a true free improv context, no given moment (note played, sound made) can be considered a "mistake" since to do so, you'd have to remove it from its context which, generally speaking, is often an entire performance. A performance as such can, of course, be thought of as boring, overwrought, etc. therefore, if we choose to use the term, a "mistake". But a single element therein? Hard to imagine except perhaps in retrospect when viewed in the context of the whole, ie, this particular several seconds marred what ended up being the entire performance.

But then, if the musician takes those several "flawed" seconds and uses them as a basis for a subsequent beautiful piece, was it such a mistake after all?

If nothing else, improvised music inclines one to step back conceptually several paces, no?

sometimes mistakes are pretty obvious in live performances, usually from the musician's own reactions to what they've just played without meaning to.

[Jacques] Of course it doesn't seem to make sense in the context of improvised music like jazz. In the same way, it doesn't make sense in Cage theory.
But if a jazz musician plays clichés, he doesn't make mistake even if he is boring. Steve Lacy created his own exercices to avoid clichés. (For him, clichés = mistake).
[...]
What can be a mistake in free jazz, free improv, including electronic improv ? It seems that this notion is irrelevant in that context too.

[MikeP] Jacques, I think there are so many different aesthetics falling under the performance method we call "free improv" that we can't make a sweeping dismissal of a mistake phenomenon for all of them. Really just a point I tried to make above. So the burden falls on me, then, to produce an example of what a mistake could be in free improv. Thankfully, you've done the work for me in your worthy citation of Lacy. I'd submit that cliche=mistake in free improv more severely and immediately than in any other context. When Lacy took that position, was he referring to his jazz work or his free improv work (or both)? (As much of an anomaly as it was in his career, for my taste Weal and Woe is the hot shit.)

I have a little saying I ought to expound on one of these days, a little attempt to capture the entirety of free improv aesthetics in one handy sentence: "Find some sounds you like and don't do anything stupid".

stupid stuff=cliches=bad chunks=mistakes.

And, as a bonus reality check, one of my mantras and guiding principles in life, from the brilliant (well, as these folks go at least) 20th century philospher of mind/language/logic Hilary Putnam: "Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs in one."

[MikeP] I'd submit that cliche=mistake in free improv more severely and immediately than in any other context.

[MikeP] I'm not sure I really buy that. I'm starting to think of cliches I really enjoy.

Jon: sometimes mistakes are pretty obvious in live performances, usually from the musician's own reactions to what they've just played without meaning to.

Me: Even then, I think you might want to take the time factor into account. ie, it's certainly easy to imagine a musician grimacing at what she thought, at the time, was a mistake only to realize later on that it lead her into a rich area that would have otherwise gone unexplored. A musical portion's "mistakeness" has gotta have a certain amount of at least potential malleability over time. Of course, it could turn out to have been a boner pure and simple.

I can think of some very amusing mistakes that made for very memorable and rewarding performances. I saw a solo violin improvisation become so intense that the bridge few off the instrument and into the audience. Everyone gasped and the performer made a funny face. She then continued playing for quite some time by holding the strings taught with one hand, letting up or increasing the tension to change pitch. Pretty neat, and really funny.

"...was it SUCH a mistake after all?" (Brian; emphasis mine).

Buridan's ass?

"Even then, I think you might want to take the time factor into account. ie, it's certainly easy to imagine a musician grimacing at what she thought, at the time, was a mistake only to realize later on that it lead her into a rich area that would have otherwise gone unexplored. A musical portion's "mistakeness" has gotta have a certain amount of at least potential malleability over time. Of course, it could turn out to have been a boner pure and simple."

well, for me, it's still a mistake when it's committed (if the musician feels it is at the time), no matter what it turns into. its effect on the set is a different discussion.

not to mention sometimes disastrous sets can be the most entertaining. the CCMC/Christian Marclay quartet set I saw where midway through all three CCMC musicians had stopped and were just watching Christian, who thought Michael Snow was still playing and didn't realize he was actually duetting with himself, was pretty riveting entertainment, but I certainly wouldn't call it musically successful.

"Ein musikalischer Spass" is--make no mistake-- neither mistake nor "mistake" but a satire on musical ineptitude. Mocking the preacher can, of course, within a split second turn any ironist himself into a preacher's deluded son: "Staying with 'Son of a Preacher Man' about 30 seconds too long. :>}" Yep.

"And, as a bonus reality check, one of my mantras and guiding principles in life, from the brilliant (well, as these folks go at least) 20th century philospher of mind/language/logic Hilary Putnam: 'Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs in one.'"

Nice to bring up Putnam, Michael. Re: the topic at hand:

"What is wrong with 'Platonic' metaphysics, or with G. E. Moore’s inflationary metaphysics, by my lights, [is that] when one thinks that one has explained why some persons, traits of character, activities, and states of affairs are good by postulating something “nonnatural,” something mysterious and sublime standing invisibly behind the goodness of the persons, actions, situations, etc., in question, one thereby commits oneself to a form of monism in the sense that one reduces (or imagines one has reduced) all ethical phenomena, all ethical problems, all ethical questions, indeed all value problems, to just one issue, the presence or absence of this single superthing Good." (Putnam)
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ethics_without_ontology.htm

and more Putnam, Michael!

"The incoherence of the attempts to turn the world views of either physics or history into secular theologies have not yet been entirely exposed, but the process is, I hope, well under way. As philosphers, we seem caught between our desire for integration and our recognition of the difficulty. I don't know what the solution to this tension will look like. But Etienne Gibson was right when he wrote that 'Philosophy always buries its undertakers."
from Meaning and the Moral Sciences

the valorization of the mistake agrees with a myriad of post-colonial conceptions of art's recondite epistemolgies and aesthetic quandaries. that is, if mistake X is only an illusory error and not a factual error as such, it holds that X can be both error and opportunity for aural/sonic subterfuge and leading to a broader sense of mistake X's value.

Jon says: sometimes mistakes are pretty obvious in live performances, usually from the musician's own reactions to what they've just played without meaning to.

And I agree. I think Jacques is playing a semantical game: if it's "free", how can anything be "wrong." But we all know it when we do it. And if we, don't, many in the audience will. It's something that "conflicts" (or, I suppose, "comports") with the surrounding context in a manner that we (or our confreres) didn't intend (or want). It happens all the time.

[Walto] But we all know it when we do it. And if we, don't, many in the audience will. It's something that "conflicts" (or, I suppose, "comports") with the surrounding context in a manner that we (or our confreres) didn't intend (or want).

[Putnam] one thereby commits oneself to a form of monism in the sense that one reduces (or imagines one has reduced)...all value problems, to just one issue, the presence or absence of this single superthing Good [standing invisibly behind the goodness of the persons, actions, situations, etc., in question].

...plus c'est la meme chose.

As always, it works both ways because there is always a flip side.

Ornette Coleman once said that, in his early days, he knew he was really on to something when he realized he could make mistakes doing what he was doing.

On the other hand, all improvisers have to deal with their mistakes or shortfalls, one way or another, during the improv. I was listening to Ray Anderson once and he aimed for a super-high note (for a trombone) at the end of the phrase and didn't quite nail it, hitting just flat of the note he was clearing aiming for. So he turned that flat (mistake) that was meant to be the end of a phrase into the first note of a descending phrase, which allowed him to resolve his improvisation quite nicely, indeed. And then, at the very end of the tune, he hit the high note he'd been aiming for earlier.

It's called thinking on your feet and there's no rule established by anyone on how to deal with these kinds of things.

It's nonsense to assume that mistakes are not possible while improvising, even improvising freely. If that were the case, it would not be necessary to even learn how to play in the first place, and every record would be recorded in the amount of time it takes to fill a CD. Clearly, this almost never happens. The only question is what is done with mistakes. Ray Anderson's way of doing it that time is an example of a crucial (for an improvisor) lightning-fast ability to think in the moment and to move from thought to sound at the same time -- and in the process transforming a mistake in one context into a smooth and musically logical resolution in another -- all within the rhythm and time.

In collective improv, there's another situation still, as another musician can react to the first's mistake and take it as a launching point for a further idea, independent of the guy who made the mistake in the first place, and hence sending everyone off into an unexpected (by all) direction.

Not all improvisations are successful. That's another example, right there, that things can in fact go wrong, and so the necessity of trying again. In the context of free improv, that would mean moving on to another improv.

As for Haino's comments, in an interview or blindfold test such as this, the whole point is for the man to reveal his own point of view. To call him out for it is to obviate the reason for the interview in the first place. He's not being called on to impart any laws to anyone or anything. He's calling things the way he sees them. As we do here. He hears what he hears and feels and thinks about it in his own way.

As do we all. Everyone has his or her own take on things, and that take, from anyone, will always contradict or overrule someone else's, and vice versa. This is the nature of any kind of discourse. If it weren't we'd all be mute. And moot as well.