The philosophy of the troubadour: collective improvisation as a practice reinforcing listening, solidarity, and community

On nomadic resonance

Sound is made of resonances, vibrations that reverberate across beings. Sonic waves are nomadic ¹ , they have no borders, no static belonging, they are in constant movement, entering and leaving ears that may later reproduce what they heard. Indeed, as studies on listening have shown, we can only reproduce sounds that we hear: we are “transmitter” and “receiver”. ² We make sounds re-sonate, literally, sound again. In that regard, sounds seem to be, by essence, communal. Sonic waves echo among beings, and thus, belong to all.

Before the 19th century, music was most of the time made collectively, in the everyday life context, and not in concert halls. Playing music was social and playful rather than elitist. Oftentimes, composers and their ethnic backgrounds were not even mentioned: moments of “musicking” ³ were simply happening. Yet, high-music Western practices seem to have forgotten the history of musical traditions, which arose from communitarian co-creations, often bridging cultural divides and fostering feelings of solidarity. Furthermore, the recent construction of nation states have reinforced an artificial divide between cultures, to assess their authority and glory, leading to the belief that national cultures are singular, distinct, “pure” and authentic. Today’s communal practices of sound making are, according to me, slowed down by all these divides, which prevent them from happening spontaneously in daily life. Moreover, the phenomena of globalization and the various forms of cultural colonialism have weakened communitarian sonic practices. Yet, we may be coming back today to an artistic era where the transcultural musical practices of the past inform and inspire many contemporary artists, ⁴ as a way to challenge cultural divisions, such as the division[1] between artists, composers and audiences, or cultural bridges,[2] to make sound art again a community-driven practice. Musical practice of the past can inspire the present, in order to bring new dynamics of sonic co-creations, mutual support, fostering feelings of belonging. In that regard, the artist becomes an essential mediator, who has an important role in gathering or joining communities, fostering a dynamic of participation and solidarity among these creative circles.

The nomadic troubadour’s philosophy : around playfulness and love : improvisation as a practice of communality

In many various folk cultures, the nomadic troubadours, also called bards or minstrels, were improvising songs from villages, often mixing languages. I am thinking for example about the African griot, the Central Asian bards (Kazakhs, Kyrgyz), the Balkan Sevdalinka, the French troubadours in the South and trouvères in the North, or the Caucasian and Anatolian “Ashugh” which means “to be in love”, in arabic. The love spread by troubadours across cultures and communities is oftentimes forgotten.

Open your ears, close your eyes and imagine yourself walking back in time. Folkloric music and dance takes birth in villages. ⁵ ] There, singing is spontaneously performed. Authors of songs are not necessarily known – improvising music is part of everyday life. No importance is given to individual creativity: initial authors are often forgotten because songs are the results of co-creations. Within the moment, speech, melody, poetry and music are simultaneously coming together, in an instinctive way, without preparation. The song starts and then develops, modifies, varies, complexifies, and enriches itself. The memory of these songs used to be transmitted mainly orally, from ear to ear. Any song, when you hear it from the next person, is already modified. There, sonic creativity belongs to everyone.

The memory of these songs were broadcast by the nomadic troubadours, which used to be cultural “living museums”, to borrow de Certeau’s words. Traveling troubadours were gathering people during social moments of co-creation, where villagers, oftentimes, could take part in the improvisation. Musicians’ aim wasn’t to perform a treasured musical piece, but to play a music which enhances human encounters. What was central to music historically, was the memorable emotions shared through sounds. Moreover, troubadours such as Sayat Nova ⁶ often sang in several languages, bridging the gaps between sometimes historically opposed peoples and sharing emotional moments with which everyone could relate.

Improvisations could take place within the natural environments, thus, ensuring a resonant relationship with nature, from which the musicians were inspired, sometimes, answering the natural sounds they would hear. For example, Armenians played music in the valley to make the stones of the mountains vibrate. The “best” musician was the one who managed to instaure a dialogue of vibrations with the natural landscape. According to a legend, musical modes may be based on the artistic transcription of sounds such as the stream of rivers, the vibrations of rocks or the flow of sea waves. ⁷ Hence, this feeling of communality included not only a community of people from different villages, but also, the environment itself, which was part of the improvisation process. Music was developing an ecology of listening.

The problem: the Westernization of sound and music

For various reasons, these folk practices almost disappeared today. The influence of Western dominant urge for “authenticity” in classical Western music has replaced the trans-cultural improvisations of the nomadic troubadours*.* The Western structures of scores may have denatured the spontaneity of folkloric music in everyday life. Indeed, the musician Christopher Small writes in his book Musicking that “the moment the musicians feel the need to write down instructions for the performance in order to preserve it (…) a change begins to (appear) in the nature of the musicking and in the relationship between those taking part. A crack appears (…) separating composer from performers, performers from listeners, centralizing power in the hands of the composer.” ⁸ The scores created a distinction between participatory, presentational and listening roles, which used to be blurred and variable in everyday life settings. ⁹ There is an “anxious insistence on fidelity”, a need to know the original text. ¹⁰ Smalls writes that, in the 18th and 19th century, it was common for performers to make changes in scores**,** cut out or interpolate additional material. There were many more ornaments and improvisation.

The loss of improvisation may explain a loss of communality in high-music practices. It was through a comeback of improvisation that the first community-focused sound art practices were born.

Practices of sonic communities

Improvisation as a community-driven sonic practice

Despite the scarcity of improvisation in everyday life, they are some artists who are thriving to explore alternative collective practices of sonic art. I will develop here a few of the many examples that I could have chosen, and I will end by describing my own artistic projects which I developed recently during a residency in Art Basis, Armenia.

Scratch Orchestra, in the 1970’s

The Scratch Orchestra, founded in 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, was experimenting with improvisation, participation and openness. They aimed to create emancipatory scores ¹¹ to radicalize and redefine the pre-establish division between composer, performer and public. ¹² The performers were composed by a mixture of trained and untrained musicians in order to “negate the elitism of standard notations”. ¹³ Scratch Orchestra’s scores are communal as they are performable notations for everyone that can read English and interpret visual symbols. Instead of a score, some of their pieces are even called rite, such as Nature Study Notes, a prompt for improvisation written collectively by Scratch members. They are free of copyright and can be reproduced and performed freely, without restrictions. Anyone wishing to contribute to a second set of rites can contact the editor.

Ancestral modal singing and its resonances in today contemporary sound practices

I am part of a community of modal singing, led by Aram Kerovpyan. This singing practice has meditative, healing qualities. It starts from a drone, which is a sort of meditative, zen prayer. Today, the practice of modal singing, related to the oriental “Mughams” or “Maqams”, dating back from medieval ages, tends to disappear, especially among Armenians. I’m going to describe here these modal singing sessions, rare testimony of this unfortunately disappearing century-old Armenian practice. These singing circles welcome people of all origins, not only to sustain an endangered culture, but also strengthen the sense of belonging to a community, notwithstanding ethnicity.

Aram and Virginia Kerovpyan welcomed me to join their modal singing sessions, taking place each Tuesday in their Parisian apartment. We started with an improvisation, guided by the choreography of Aram’s hands drawing in the air. Aram first introduced the importance of listening to our breath. Then the Keropyan started to sing a sustained note, the “drone”, and invited the group to enter into this frequency. Collectively, we fuzzed by resonance, ¹⁴ we faded into each other’s voices, into the vibrant sound of the room – each individual voice should be heard at the same intensity, in an almost unique melodic tone. Albeit aiming to unisson, the drone weaves together the unique grains of each voice. We were resonating altogether, in a sonic and emotional way, without losing our individuality. ¹⁵ From this sound, Aram began to improvise a melody guiding the choir with his hand gestures. His hands and voice is a trembling-score ¹⁶ that the choir follows, while allowing singers to enact trembling imperfections.

At a certain point, he stopped and pointed at me and my neighbor. He said that he could hear us too loud, because we were trying to imitate the “correct notes” of the melodies. Because we are trained singers, we were too entangled with the Western system of tuning. ¹⁷ Modal singing is attuned to a collective, vibrational frequency, felt within our bodies, connected to breathing. What matters more than the melody is the quality of the listening and the vibrational energy. Aram insisted on how this experience needs to be lived, instead of recorded. Listening is important for the melodies to be incorporated into our bodies. From listening, comes this feeling of community and solidarity. Listening allows the choir to be emotional, and this emotionality allows the sounds to be remembered, through orality.

But, how can one learn to listen?

This score, by listening by Pauline Oliveros, is rooted in deep-listening. It is a score for improvisation which focuses on listening, to oneself, but also to the other. Improvisation is a way of making music together that allows the different performers to be attentive to the other thanks to an active listening. Modal singing has links with contemporary sonic practices such as deep-listening, as developed by Pauline Oliveros. Indeed, Pauline Oliveros was inspired by ancient non-Western cultures, such as Indian Râga, which has some links with Armenian modes. The circularity of the score recalls the diffusion of sound waves or the echo of successive vibrations. The four curves are reminiscent of the inhale and exhale of the air.

Resonance: on vibrations and relational energy as an essential element to community sonic practices… Hartmut Rosa.

Improvisation itself may be activating the process of listening, creating a relation of resonance. Resonance is notably a philosophical concept of Hartmut Rosa, which describes a relationship in which the vibration of a body provokes the activity of the other. ¹⁸ More than a metaphor, the concept designates a capacity to appropriate the world, when something touches us, makes us vibrate body and soul. Psychic vibration refers to a vivid, deep emotion, which may be aroused by our senses (sensibility to the vibration of air, listening…), and/or felt as a vibratory emotion. This vibration, if intensely felt, transforms something within us and becomes part of ourselves.

It is the vibrations that activate an emotional relationship.

Sonic-Tapestry, Marie Yevkiné Tirard.

It is this relationality, activated during moments of resonance, which, according to me, is a key element to any community practice of sound art, and can help to foster feelings of shared experiences, belonging and solidarity. To reach this state of resonance, listening closely to one another and to the environment is primordial.

Just like other sound artists, I am driven by resonance. Resonance is the guiding compass of all the artistic researches and experimentations that I create. The specific figure of the nomadic troubadour, which draws back from my mixed French-Armenian identity, enables me to embody and bring about these moments of resonance. The philosophy of the troubadour, sort of mediator between communities which spreads love, confidence and solidarity, helps me to generate moments of collective improvisations. In March 2025, I have been invited as an artist in residence in Gyumri, in Armenia, to engage creatively with a community of people who survived from a devastating earthquake. During my stay, I did a series of different experimentations, sound installations and performances, under the name “Sonic Tapestry”. Informed and inspired by a previous fiction that I wrote on the links between music, tapestry and the memory of endangered cultures, I used this poetical image to develop two improvisations. One of them was very literally weaving the residents of Mush together, in order to foster the listening of one another’s emotions, movements, feelings, but also, to listen to the space in which we are evolving, together. In a nutshell, materialising the invisible links of relationality, in order to feel within our bodies a need for solidarity. These links were sonified through this vocal and sonic improvisation.

My initial idea was to create a community-choir which could help to appease people’s anxiety linked to potential new earthquakes or to the threat of a potential new conflict with Azerbaïdjan. ¹⁹ During our gathering, we sung almost forgotten Armenian lullabies and old mystical poems, in order to infuse and breathe-back these millenary-old songs into the daily lives of Armenians. Together, we explored how bodies can become “receiver” and “transmitter”, sensorial captors, in a search of a sort of calm harmony within one another. A harmony yet dissonant to the main politics. Singing famous Armenian songs was a primordial ice-breaker, as I noticed that it is easier to involve people into participatory vocal acts when they feel surrounded by familiarity. Then, little by little, I proposed to sing the almost forgotten ones. Singing Armenian lullabies is getting lost because of Armenian genocide’s and USSR cultural erasure’s aftermath. These lullabies are precious, because they express the history, oppression and memories of Armenian in an oral, genuine and authentic way. They are, hence, a form of resistance to memory erasure, because no one can prevent us from singing. No colonialist force can erase the capacity of one to sing from the memory of their ancestors. I was infinitely grateful to discover that some Armenians are still writing new lullabies in Armenian, such as the music teacher of Mush II district who composed a beautiful lullaby. I had the honour to record her, while she was singing on a detuned piano.

I also created a sound installation that could remix my sound recordings. A weaving frame, used for Kilim crafting, became a musical instrument. The installation encourages people to weave, listen and sing at the same time sing or create new songs from archival materials. While weaving a new thread in between the weft, they would at the same time weave lullabies, voices and poems. The act of remixing songs and poems refers to the ancient oral transmission which used to be at the heart of many folk non-Western cultures and which today disappeared. Oral memory was allowing for more remix and improvisation than today. In a book about Gusan and Ashugh arts written by Hasmik Harutyunyan, director of Gyumri conservatory whom I had the chance to meet, it is written that all murmurs and chants are linked to pathwork, making also here an analogy between music and textile. Meeting this researcher was also very hopeful, as this topic is unfortunately under researched. One of her motivations was to counter the propagandist Azeri writers who deny the existence of Armenian Ashugh arts, and claim that Armenians’ stole this tradition, whereas it was already existing in Armenian culture during medieval times, even before the Turkic presence in the region. ²⁰ Azerbaïdjan memorial politics systematically erase every element of Armenian culture (destruction of Armenian churches, cemeteries…) in order to erase their historical presence in the territory. ²¹ dating back from thousands of years. Azerbaijan and Armenia political relationship today are still very hostile, after the last war in 2023. One of my Armenian friends told me how she recently met Azeris during this political meeting. She said that despite the cold, at some point, they sung the same song, in their respective languages, and that this moment was very beautiful and touching. A moment suspended in time. As if they met, half-way, through music, forgetting for a moment the political division between their nations, forgetting their wounds and their pride, to become simple human-beings, craving to share emotional moments. It might not be too romantic to say that sound has magical powers — enabling anyone to share vibrations, enabling us to feel humans together, sharing the same earth — making us feel that we all belong to the same community and we should all feel solidarity for one another.

Bibliography:

• Åkesson, Ingrid, “Oral/Aural Culture in Late Modern Society? Traditional Singing as Professionalized Genre and Oral-Derived Expression”, Oral Tradition, 27/1 (2012): 67-84
• Arutiunian, Andrius. “This World Will Disappear Before you Read It.” in The Book of Gharib, Hallow Ground, 2022.
• Biserna, Elena, Going Out: Walking, Listening, Soundwalking, Paris, Les Presses du Réel, 2022
• Boon, Marcus, The Politics of Vibration: Music as a Cosmopolitical Practice, Durham London, Duke University Press, 2022
• Farabet, René, Le Son Nomade, Lucie éditions, 2016
• Harutyunyan, Hasmik, Craft Union Tradition in the Armenian Ashugh Art, Shirak Center for Armenological Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ra, Yerevan, 2024
• Kerovpyan, Aram and Kopczyński, Jakub. “The greatest loss was diversity, An interview with Aram Kerovpyan.” Awedis 23, 2015
• L’Huillier, Nicole. Review of Membranas. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2022
• Ouzounian, Gascia. ‘Counterlistening’. ESC: English Studies in Canada 46, no. 2–4 (2020): 311–17. https://doi.org/10.1353/esc.2020.a903549 .
• Manoukian, André. “Sur Les Routes de La Musique : Podcast et Émission.” 2021. France Inter. June 25, 2021. Podcast. https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/sur-les-routes-de-la-musique
• Rosa, Harmut, Resonance, Paris, éditions La Découverte, 2016)
• Rosenthal, Dean, Review of File under: Cardew, Cornelius, Great Learning, the performance and discussion, Montreal, McGill University, 1996
• Small, Christopher, Musicking, The Meaning of Performing and Listening, (Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1998), 115

I would like to create what I call “trembling-scores for improvisation”, scores that aren’t set in stone can be modified, scores that help to liberate a vibrational listening. These scores could emerge from a blurring of borders and sensorial perceptions, in a synesthetic mode of listening, engaging all bodily perceptions, within a natural context. To go further, I would like to introduce to them an attitude of “counter-listening”, as developed by Gascia Ouzounian, “counterlistening is listening […] against one’s own habits of listening. […] Counterlistening is undisciplined or even anti-disciplinary listening. It is anarchic, unbounded, and free. […] Counterlistening expands the limits of the listening body as they have been determined and reproduced through dominant traditions of listening. […]”. ²²

Footnotes

1. See the book Le Son Nomade, René Farabet, (Lucie éditions, 2016) ↩
2. Free adaptation from André Manoukian, radio emission, Les routes de la musique, France Inter, 26 août 2023 ↩
3. Here, I am referring to an expression of Christopher Small, in his book Musicking, The Meaning of Performing and Listening, (Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1998), 115 ↩
4. I am thinking for example of Stas Shärifullá (aka HMOT) and artists invited to CTM festival’s “Resynthesising the traditional” laboratory, Alexis Paul, the collective Ars Nomadis and many others… ↩
5. All this part is inspired by the description of folk music done by Armenian musicolog Vardapet Komitas, Armenian Sacred Folk Music, ed. N.V. Nersessian, trans. E. Gulbenkian, (London: Routledge, 1998) ↩
6. Sayat-Nova is an Armenian troubadour from the XVIIIth century. ↩
7. “The third DzG (29) mode was copied from the sound made by flowing rivers and male emissions. ↩
8. Christopher Small, Musicking, The Meaning of Performing and Listening, (Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1998), 115 ↩
9. “Traditional music becomes something performed by the few for the consumption of the many, rather than performed in a company where the roles of listener and performer shift to and from, and where participatory and presentational sides of performance are valued as equal.” in Ingrid Åkesson, “Oral/Aural Culture in Late Modern Society? Traditional Singing as Professionalized Genre and Oral-Derived Expression”, 79 ↩
10. Christopher Small, Musicking, 116-118 ↩
11. Dean Rosenthal, Review of File under: Cardew, Cornelius, Great Learning, the performance and discussion, (Montréal: McGill University, 1996), 3. ↩
12. Elena Biserna, Going Out: Walking, Listening, Soundwalking, (Paris: Les Presses du Réel, 2022), 49. ↩
13. Ibid, 3. ↩
14. This term is used by Nicole L’Huillier in her PhD writing, Membranas. She invites the reader to engage in a practice of fuzzing: “fuzzing boundaries, bodies, knowledges, languages, temporalities, signals, and straight lines, among other things that can—and must—be fuzzed. To think about fuzzing as a way of refusing, decentering, rearticulating, and possibly unlearning some of the static and rigid things we have been taught.” ↩
15. Indeed, the meditative drone sound is a weaving of different frequencies and pitch, the highest voices singing in octaves. ↩
16. The trembling-score is a concept invented by the author, which both criticizes the Western scores and advocates for notations that shouldn’t be exactly respected, but rather, incorporated. If the score itself is vibrating, trembling, the nature of music itself changes and becomes more democratic, communal and social. ↩
17. Instead, as Marcus Boon writes, most traditional music forms are in tune in a vibrational way. “When something sounds “in tune,” when there is a feeling of harmony (which is to say, pleasing, even blissful interrelationship), it is because the sounds are connected in a way that obeys the physical laws of sound.”. The Politics of Vibration: Music as a Cosmopolitical Practice, (Durham London: Duke University Press, 2022), 55 ↩
18. Harmut Rosa, Resonance, (Paris: éditions La Découverte, 2016) ↩
19. The threat is very much present. On March 31th 2025, Azerbaijani forces opened fire on the village of Khnatsakh in Syunik Province (Armenian territory). ↩
20. At that time, it was called “Gusan” art. Gusan is specifically an Armenian word. ↩
21. See as an example, the cemetery of Djulfa in Nakhichevan, which had shocked the international press. But also, most recently, the destruction of churches in Artsakh. ↩
22. Gascia Ouzounian, ‘Counterlistening’. ESC: English Studies in Canada 46, no. 2–4 (2020): 311–17. https://doi.org/10.1353/esc.2020.a903549 . ↩