Intimacy in performer-composer relationships: the dynamics of collaborative space

"Collaboration is like a love affair; it segues from admiration to anxiety, rejection to

rage, desire to envy, powerlessness to misunderstanding, from not getting what you
want but maybe coming nearer to knowing what you thought that might be."
- Katherine Clark [1]
As musicians and artists, collaborative practices are inherently important to us. We
learn to collaborate instinctively, and we assume that we do it well. This article,
through exploring one possible conception of the collaborative process, aims to
suggest that as performers and composers, critical self-reflection on our own creative
and collaborative process is unequivocally beneficial to the productivity and
enjoyment derived from such a partnership. It is the aim of this paper to suggest the
possibility of a relationship founded on dialogue, and the trust and risk-taking
possibilities that emerge from it: an intimate collaboration that works and lives in the
social world. It is not the aim of this paper to insist collaboration can only exist one
way or in one space: in fact, collaboration has many faces. Here is presented one
possibility; one that insists on connection, on a shared voice, on social intimacy.
Here is presented a possibility that reflects the value of conflict and the development
of trust, and above all, the unending importance of dialogue between the composer
and the interpreter.
When a composer has a deep interest in and a passion for the instruments he writes
for, and when an interpreter as the parallel concern for stretching the possibilities of
their own technique and their understanding of new music, composers and interpreters
develop a dependant relationship. Driven to the next possibility, they need each other
to reach it. Collaboration is essential to our growth as performers, as composers, as
musicians. This is as true now, if not more so, as it has been in the history of the
repertoire of each instrument. How many instrumentalists were educated with the
history of the well-known collaborations practically told as bedtime stories? Certainly
this is true for clarinettists; relating the stories of Brahms and Mhlfeld, Mozart and
Stadler, and Spohr and Hermstedt is childs-play. In todays music market,
collaboration is a buzz-word for any musician wanting to market themselves
appropriately. Indeed the published mission statement of every single contemporary
music ensemble working in Europe makes reference to its practice of collaboration
with living composers. The Ensemble Modern, for example, strives to achieve the
highest degree of authenticity by working closely with the composers themselves.
And the Arditti Quartet believes that close collaboration with composers is vital to
the process of interpreting modern music and therefore attempts to work with every
composer it plays. [2] Undeniably to collaborate is a skill that is both necessary and
worth cultivating. It is one possible method for that cultivation that is explored
throughout this paper; what is most important, however is the recognition that a
critical attention to ones collaborative practice is essential. We can be better
collaborators.
As performers in a classical tradition we build instincts through education and
experience, for creating and interpreting together. We, as players, depend on a highly

complex set of interpersonal skills in order to produce a unified performance. [3]

What is necessary is the ability to communicate on a variety of different levels,
including those verbal and gestural. In fact, as Davidson describes, often in
instrumental rehearsal and performance particularly within the scope of chamber
music - it is through gesture alone that problems are solved. An ensemble develops a
unique gestural language as they come to understand each other. Thus, the majority of
problems of interpretation, articulation, dynamic and balance can be solved efficiently
through the actual action of music making combined with physical gesture. But it is
through verbal dialogue alone that the performer communicates with the composer.
Dependent on dialogue, the composer - performer relationship is dramatically
different from that between performers. As a result, the skills required are equally
different and require attention and care. Suggested here is the possibility of an
intimate collaboration: a term stolen from Alm [4] and used to reflect both the
emotional and social dimensions of collaboration within collaborative writing
practices. Intimate collaboration is one founded on dialogue, intrinsic motivation and
commitment to a long-term relationship. With an almost complete disregard for the
realities of the music business (wherein too many artistic collaborations are
contradictorily founded on financial and temporal concerns) the focus here is on a
practice whereby the composer and performer are responsible for shared goals,
committed to continuous dialogue and invested in a long term partnership; a unique
synergy is thus created in the relationship between composer and performer.
The way one world follows another, with the conversation taking its own twists and
reaching its own conclusion, may well be conducted in some way, but the partners
conversing are far less the leaders of it than the led. No one knows in advance what
will come out of a conversation. [5]
One cannot predict the path of speech. A collaboration between two people cannot
predict the path that might be taken if an exchange that is founded on dialogue might
take. Talking and a lot of it is the bedrock from which an intimate collaboration
is built. It leads to the creation of a shared voice, a unique blending of personalities,
aesthetic preferences and the development of a common history. It develops in a space
built for collaborating. It builds a relationship of trust, in which risks can be taken:
collaborators can feel free to make suggestions that might otherwise come across as
strange or unrealistic. The most successful creative partnerships are those in which the
pair are in sync with each other, finishing each others sentences, eliciting
responses from one another, talking in text---all are evidence that collaborators
areparticipating in a synergistic relationship. [6] Talking in text, in terms of the
composer-performer relationship, refers to the way that the composer and performer
speak using cues taken from their own training in music, from their professional
experience and from the development of their own personal relationship or from their
understanding of the others work.
Important to remember is that dialogue contains an exchange of information.
Equally important to talking is the practice of really listening to your partner. One
listens to gain understanding, to create a synthesis of ideas, to create the
aforementioned shared voice. Really talking requires careful listening; it implies a
mutually shared agreement that together you are creating the optimum setting so that
half-baked or emergent ideas can grow. [7] For the creative potential of the project to

flourish, both partners of a collaboration must know that their ideas are heard and
considered. This kind of intimacy in collaboration becomes like a line that connects
the two artists and the work that they create. It creates an interior text, one that is
constantly evolving and changing even after the physical text is completedor even
if the physical text is never completed. An interior text expands, growing from a
single idea or image to a complex network of related ideas and images. [8] It is
through dialogue, through a true exchange, that this line is created.
In addition, it is a contributed sense of playfulness that provides authentic dialogue
with the necessary components that lead to a long-term and productive collaboration.
Within the collaborative space, there should be a sense of the playful; herein mistakes
can be made and laughed at: talking in text as laughing together. Jenkins describes
play as the capacity to experiment with ones surroundings as a form of problemsolving [9] and describes at a key skill in our educational development. Playfulness,
in fact, shifts power relationships; it enables experimentation with accepted modes of
behaviour [10]. Here in the collaborative space, we test our boundaries.
In a musical culture that has understood the performers role primarily as mediator
between composer/piece and audience, very little attention has been paid to the
performers potentially significant mediation between composer and piece. When the
latter interpretation of the role is brought into play early in the conception, the
performer may take a vital, inventive stance in which problems (musical ideas) are
formulated and reformulated in tandem with their solutions. The composerperformer collaboration may thus become a site for the playing out of the dialogic
aspects of artistic creation. [11]
It is this regular dialogue, whether or not formalized in some way, which forms the
basis for collaboration. It is necessary from the outset of any given collaboration to
arrange for regular discussion; and by this it is meant regular discussion throughout
the process of collaborating. It is the aim that these discussions should not simply
result in a simplistic exchange of information such as techniques presented as a boxof-tricks to the composer. It should not be a process that ends where collaboration is
just beginning: before the composer even puts pen to manuscript. Regular, almost
ritualistic, discourse should continue until throughout the entire process. It is the aim
that through a dialogue that not only engages with the instrument in question, but with
the aesthetic and performative interests of the composer. Through this process one
creates the collaborative space, one creates an intimacy in the collaboration, a shared
voice.
Through dialogue comes trust: as a result of this trust, risks can be taken and mistakes
can be made without fear. Trust has been developed when each collaborator feels the
freedom to say anything. Composers and performers have experience in building trust
that develops out of their relationships with their composition and instrumental
teachers. In writing about the process of teaching composition (and whether this is
even possible), Brian Ferneyhough writes, This weekly or bi-weekly encounter
furnishes a focus for continuing evaluation of progress as well as for establishing the
special personal rapport which is the sine qua non for fruitful collaboration. The
almost ritualistic regularity of these lessons forms a stable framework within which
virtually anything at all may be discussed [12] Moran & John-Steiner echo the
writing of Ferneyhough in their discussion of a safe foundation that provides the

emotional and intellectual scaffolding required for the taking of risks within a
collaboration. [13] Undoubtedly, it is the trust developed between the two
collaborators that results in material neither could have thought of alone. Solomon
describes this as moving beyond Knowing What We Know to Knowing What We
Do Not Know and then to learning What We Do Not Even Know That We Do Not
Know. [14]
It is also clear, that as one develops a ritualistic regularity to dialogue, one must also
strive to have a close respect for the continuous learning process of ones colleague.
The two collaborators must accept the gaps in their own knowledge, those in their
partner, and their mutual ability to fill those and increase each others knowledge. We
learn something, we build connections to this knowledge. We continue to learn by a
process of continuous relation to that first thing and to each other [15].
It should be noted, that, on a practical level, for the performer this often means
understanding the difference between Its impossible and I cant do it (yet). It is
an important distinction, one that many performers seem to be unable to make. But it
is worth highlighting that Carlos Salzedo in what is one of the earliest examples of an
extended technique guide for an instrument, There is nothing difficult. There are
only NEW things, unaccustomed things. [16] Performers must always keep this in
mind and not hesitate to remember that Salzedos work will soon reach its centenary.
All too often, collaboration between the performer and composer is an enforced
relationship, and its success is hindered by a lack of intrinsic motivation. For students,
the dealings between performers and composers are an all too often fit within this
category, one that is essentially set up for failure. Fabrice Fitch and Neil Heyde, in
their 2007 article exploring artistic collaborations between composers and performers
explain that a recent attempt to create collaborative relationships at the Royal
Academy of Music was disbanded within a year. The composers expressed a serious
discomfort at the intrusion of the performer into their creative space, the presence
of the performer dissuading the performer from exerting his own necessary
construction of authority. [17] Fitch & Heyde suggest that in student-led
collaborations, there exists the problem of a lack of model. Students had no base of
knowledge to support the development of this kind of relationship.
In addition, one also finds in the above example the aforementioned lack of selfinduced inspiration: Conflict, Moran & John-Steiner write, is lessened when the
collaboration is intrinsically motivated. Herein, partners share a sense of purpose
rather than through individual aspirations to achieving wealth or recognition. Intrinsic
motivation aids in dealing with conflict, when the control of the project [comes]
from the integrity of the project itself. [18] In fact, they go on to explain that enough
intrinsic motivation will co-operate with the extrinsic; shared passion will prevent
outside pressures from damaging the relationship and the creative process.
None of this to say that the final product lacks importance, or isnt something one
shouldnt ultimately be professional about. The very opposite is in fact true. Whats
critical in this scenario is that the project itself inspires the collaboration; from this,
the composer-performer team create goals for the project together. The shared voice
is actually a shared understanding, of where the project should go and how it should
progress. Like the chamber musicians who communicate through gesture and a

mutual understanding based on action, we communicate through dialogue: we express

our aesthetic interests, our technical knowledge; we share our sense of humour and
the elements of our daily lives; and we try to be as practical and responsible as
possible, by communicating our goals and wishes for the project and making
decisions about deadlines together. While it is extensive dialogue between performer
and composer that creates, without shared goals one discovers very quickly how
conflict and disappointment can enter into the collaborative space.
Back-pedalling slightly, it should be stated that conflict within the collaborative space
does not always bear negative consequences. In fact, conflict is exceedingly important
in collaborative relationships and is in fact at least as important as consensus in the
process of knowledge creation. [19] The difference is thus between types of conflict;
when conflict benefits the collaboration it is termed communal [20]; when the means
of the collaboration (the aforementioned mutual goals, for example) have been
determined, the collaboration can thus accept conflict into the aesthetic and technical
areas of its space. Moran & John-Steiner write that an overemphasis on consensus
stifles creativity, and that collaborators should work on an effective synthesis of
multiple perspectives. [21] Again, here, the playful approach advocated above is
useful in adoption: easing the negative effects of conflict and celebrating its benefits.
I have always felt myself extremely lucky to have encountered a number of
performers who were not only extremely proficient on their instrument, but also
powerful individuals not afraid of engaging intellectually and spiritually with the
object of their labours.
-Ferneyhough [22]
Unfortunately, one kind of conflict many performers encounter does not occur within
any kind of collaborative space but is a direct negation of collaboration itself. Just as
the performer must understand the difference between Its impossible and I cant
do it (yet) the composer must retain some kind flexibility when writing for a specific
performer. The no-thats-what-I-wanted-and-Im-not-going-to-change-it approach
only results in frustration for the performer and in most cases, making changes
without the knowledge of the composer.
Are there any conclusions to be made from this course of research? There are no
certainly no guarantees: no expectations can be had of a collaborative process; there
are an infinite number of variables. So can a model really be devised for intimate
collaboration? Can one really find an ideal collaborative space? Perhaps not. But we
can, as performers and composers, continue to grow and develop our practice by
asking questions of how we collaborate. We can continue to strive for a dialoguebased model that is founded on trust and respect, where goals are shared and conflict
is in the realm of the communal.
[1] Katherine Clark in Jes Fernie, Two Minds: Artists and Architects in Collaboration.
(New York: Continuum, 2006), 52

[2] The Ensemble Modern (http://www.ensemble-modern.com) and Arditti Quartet

(http://www.ownvoice.com/ardittiquartet) do provide concrete examples, however,
they are not alone in this. Other ensembles across the globe claim the same emphasis
on collaborative practices. Further examples include:
musikFabrik (http://www.musikfabrik.eu)
It is never just a question of interpretation, but of taking new paths of development.
The Cologne-based soloist ensemble has built up a close collaboration with prominent
conductors and composers.
ensemble intercontemporain (http://www.ensembleinter.com)
Under the artistic direction of Susanna Mlkki, the musicians work in close
collaboration with composers, exploring instrumental techniques and developing
projects that interweave music, dance, theater, film, video and visual arts.
ELISION (http://www.elision.org.au)
The ensemble has a reputation for delivering authoritative interpretations of
complex, unusual and challenging aesthetics often developed in close collaboration
with the composer.
[3] Jane Davidson and James Good, Social and Musical Co-Ordination between
Members of a String Quartet: An Exploratory Study, Psychology of Music No. 30
(2002) 186-201, 186
[4] M Alm, The role of talk in the writing process, in Peck, E. & Mink, J. (eds.),
Common Ground: Feminist Collaboration in the Academy. (New York: State
University of New York Press, 1997)
[5] H. Gadamer, Truth and Method (J. Weinsheimer & D.G. Marshall, trans.) (New
York: Continuum, 1989): 383
[6] M Alm, The role of talk in the writing process, in Peck, E. & Mink, J. (eds.),
Common Ground: Feminist Collaboration in the Academy. (New York: State
University of New York Press, 1997): 132
[7] ibid. 130
[8] J Harris, Toward a Working Definition of Collaborative Writing, in J.S. Leonard
et al. (eds.), Author-ity and Textuality: Current Views of Collaborative Writing. (West
Cornwall: Locust Hill, 1994): 80
[9] Henry Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media
Education for the 21st Century 2006: 4
[10] S. Carrington, & S. Hope, Taking Play Seriously, in J. Billing., etc. al. (eds.)
Taking the Matter into Common Hands: On Contemporary Art and Collaborative
Practices (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007)

[11] Fabrice Fitch & Neil Heyde, Recercar The Collaborative Process as
Invention Twentieth-Century Music Vol. 4, No. 1 (2006) 71-95: 72
[12] Brian Ferneyhough, Divining Rods and Lightening Conductors in J. Boros., R.
Toop. (eds.), Brian Ferneyhough: Collected Writings (London: Routledge, 2006): 31
[13] S. Moran & V. John-Steiner, How collaboration in creative work impacts
identity and motivation in D. Miell and K. Littleton (eds.), Collaborative Creativity:
Contemporary Perspectives (London: Free Association Books, 2004)
[14] R.C. Solomon, Building trust in business, politics, relationships and life (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002): 50
[15] J. Ranciere, The Ignorant Schoolmaster (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1991)
[16] Carlos Salzedo, Modern Study of the Harp (Milwaukee: Schirmer, 1921): 6
[17] Fabrice Fitch & Neil Heyde, Recercar The Collaborative Process as
Invention Twentieth-Century Music Vol. 4, No. 1 (2006) 71-95: 72-73
[18] S. Moran & V. John-Steiner, How collaboration in creative work impacts
identity and motivation in D. Miell and K. Littleton (eds.), Collaborative Creativity:
Contemporary Perspectives (London: Free Association Books, 2004): 18
[19] Saltern & Hearn qtd. E. Creamer Working Equal: Academic Couples as
Collaborators (New York: Routledge, 2001): 556
[20] B. Wheaton Interpersonal Conflict and Cohesiveness in Dyadic Relationships
Sociometry Vol. 37. No. 3. (1974) 328-348
[21] S. Moran & V. John-Steiner, How collaboration in creative work impacts
identity and motivation in D. Miell and K. Littleton (eds.), Collaborative Creativity:
Contemporary Perspectives (London: Free Association Books, 2004): 12
[22] Brian Ferneyhough qtd. In R. Heaton The Versatile Clarinet (London: Taylor and
Francis Group, 2006)