Filosofie Magazine 2021 4 Vragen aan Joris Roelofs
Roelofs 2024 De Belofte van het Moment Muziek Zit Tussen Je Oren
Rekto:Verso (97). 29 November 2022.
Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 82, no.1 (May 2020): 57–92. Doi: 10.2143/TVF.82.1.0000000. Peer-reviewed article on Nietzsche, truth, and improvisation. Language: Dutch (draft in English).
Click here for a link to the PDF.
Keywords: Nietzsche, truth, lies, footing, correctness, art, music, improvisation.
Summary: To Lie Beyond Good and Evil: A Musical Question of Truth (Joris Roelofs)
In this article, I explore the tensions between the notion of truth as fixed, static — and the idea of truth as existing in a constant state of flux. This inquiry elaborates on Nietzsche’s philosophy with my own ideas about musical improvisation. In Nietzsche’s earlier work, truth is an ever-changing, Dionysian “flux of becoming,” something we cannot know. Truth provides nothing fixed. So, if we are to anchor our lives, we must create fixed “truths.” We have an artistic ability to do this, Nietzsche says. We create language and logic, rules and systems, all of which, though life-enhancing, are actually illusions, even lies. The early Nietzsche also proposes that the scientific personality tends to regard these structures as absolute truths. Unlike the scientist, however, the artist doesn’t seek absolute truth. Embracing life as illusion, the artist wants only to create new “truths.” Later, Nietzsche reverses this judgment. In Human, All Too Human, the scientific personality becomes the “free spirit” who gets closer to truth, while the artist regards self-created, fixed “truths” as absolute. Nietzsche posits a reciprocal relation- ship between science and art. Science, bereft of illusion, can be unbearable, while art, without science, is equally untenable. In this article, I expand on Nietzsche’s conception of truth by relating it with the act of musical improvisation — an act that combines science and art. To improvise, I argue, is to search, at every moment, for fluent, ever-changing truth, simultane- ously relying on fixed “truths,” like chords and meter — as well as other musical conventions. In the end, according to Nietzsche, we require scientific truth-seeking and the artistic quest for fixed “truths.” We seek fluidity and fixity; we need both truth and lies.
Pascal Gielen en ik over de politieke waarde van muziek. Klik hier om te lezen.
Hollands Maandblad (July 2022). Essay on Nietzsche’s perspective on improvisation in poetry, in music, and in life. Click here to read.
Opiniestuk over het identiteitsactivisme, en de beperkte opvatting van achterstelling en rechtvaardigheid die daar vanuit gaat. Klik hier om te lezen.
As part of the Rope Dance booklet (see Store). Click here to read. All the words in italics refer to the title tracks on Rope Dance.
As part of the Rope Dance booklet (see Store). All words in italics refer to the title tracks of that album. Click here to read.
Over de spanning tussen vrijheid en veiligheid. Klik hier om te lezen.
In response to the removal of Erik Kessels’ artwork Destroy my Face from a Dutch photo festival, I wrote this article on cancel culture, drawing from Isaiah Berlin’s thought. Click here to read (Dutch only).
In this lecture-concert, I play improvised versions of compositions that are all related to Nietzsche: Beethoven, Strauss, Wagner, Mahler, Bizet. In between, I elaborate on these composers and their connection to Nietzsche.
Freedom is key to improvisation. Jazz music, in particular, lends itself to freedom of form, of imagination, of expression. But freedom is a porous concept, subject to diverse and even conflicting interpretations. In this course, we will reflect on the interplay between freedom and improvisation. Together, we’ll explore the following questions:
What is freedom? Does freedom have the same meaning for all of us? How do we define the different kinds of freedom? How do we define “improvisation?” How free are we when we improvise? How do we experience “non-freedom?” What about the act of creating something unexpected, on the spur of the moment? The word improvisation comes from the Latin word improvisus, meaning “unforeseen” – but can we really create the unforeseeable, or is the concept of “true” improvisation a myth? Don’t we need source material, something to improvise on, as Charles Mingus said? What about John Cage, who believed that even free jazz wasn’t really free? And what do make of free jazz and freedom during the Civil Rights era?
We will also reflect on what philosophers have contributed to the conversation about freedom and improvisation. A passionate improviser, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about the “improvisation of life.” Hannah Arendt defined freedom as the capacity to “start something new” and “unexpected.” And Jean-Paul Sartre, an avid jazz fan, maintained that humans are “condemned to be free.” What did these philosophers mean, and to what extent can we relate to their ideas?
Throughout this course, students will develop their understanding of the complex requirements that they, as musicians, are expected to meet – requirements that ultimately fall under the rubric of freedom. For example, what does it mean to create an artistic identity and to be authentic? How can we relate to the musical heritage of the past, without losing our authenticity, our freedom? How, in fact, do we reconcile tradition with uniqueness? We will discover that musicians are in the company of philosophers in confronting these issues.
We will also discuss whether these questions of improvisation and freedom apply to jazz music only, to improvised music in general, or to allmusic-making. We will listen to various kinds of improvised music and discuss how we can connect these improvisations to our newly refined philosophy of freedom and improvisation.
[Text edited by Lisa Friedman]
Language: German or English.
This lecture elaborates on Nietzsche‘s ideas of identity, freedom, and creativity and connects these ideas to the world of music. I examine Nietzsche‘s relationship to Richard Wagner and his music, Nietzsche‘s studies on rhythm, as well as his own ambitions as a composer. I also discuss Nietzsche’s relationship to improvisation: he was an excellent improviser himself. The lecture includes audio examples of Nietzsche’s own compositions, Wagner’s music, and improvised jazz music. I gave this lecture at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, at Bird’s Eye in Basel, at the Muziekgebouw Aan ‘t Ij, and in the Nietzsche Documentation Center in Naumburg, Germany. I will be giving this lecture again at the Festival der Philosophie Hannover, on 27 May 2021.
