Abstract

This chapter takes improvisation as a model for artistic agency in general. An improvisor works and breaks through the constitutive habits and patterns that constrain their behaviour. An improvisor becomes free as they uncover novel opportunities, engendered through their engagement with idiomatic and wider musical structures. In this way, improvisation is the mechanism by which an individual relates and differentiates themselves from a collective understanding of music—a shared expressive medium of sedimented historical usages. Making a connection between its novelty and expressive freedom, I contend that improvisation presents an intersection between Derrida’s conception of language and Deleuze’s notion of style. An improvisor is immersed within this expressive medium, but divests themselves of the stratified and social habits that constrain what can or should be performed. This eschewal of habit enacts a mutual transformation by which the improvisor expresses themselves, coming to achieve agency as they develop their own style.