UC San Diego

This dissertation presents an analysis and interpretation of the 1976 live recording of Roscoe Mitchell’s performance of Nonaah for solo alto saxophone informed by extensive interviews with the artist. It introduces the idea of musical shepherding as a productive lens through which Mitchell’s performance and improvisatory approach can be understood. Musical shepherding provides a novel way of understanding the act of improvising and a method for interpreting how improvised music may be received in a more engaged and embodied way than conventional formalist or structuralist interpretations of the practice allow. In musical shepherding, each sonic occurrence acts as a bread crumb leading the ear towards a position where the experience of a sound situates and informs the listener for each sound thereafter, drawing attention and focus along a particular path. The intent is to shepherd the audience towards a position of engagement where the music acts as the ritualistic medium guiding through the liminal state towards a feeling of communitas. The goal is to achieve this act through improvisation where the limits of audience and performer energy both inform and shape the musical experience.

This dissertation also serves to document and interpret three performances given by the author that were inspired by Mitchell’s Nonaah and were designed to create artistic situations that might implement and test the notion of musical shepherding. Although this written text is a key component of the research, the performances should be considered the primary document with text summarizing their justification and providing some limited explanation of the creative process.