Abstract

The variety of compositional and performative practices associated with musical experimentalism and improvisation in the mid-twentieth century highlight problems of identity, thingliness, taxonomy, and canon formation of musical works. Canons of cultural products are valuable in that they work to perpetuate ideological values inscribed in the works they collect. But if there is no “real” body of works, how can a representative canon of experimental and improvised works be constructed? By exploring the idea of domains of conceptual possibility in experimental composition, authorial voice in free jazz, and embodied cognition theory, I arrive at the idea of a recombinant ontology of experimental musical works. While I concede that musical works are not “things,” I argue that a recombinant consideration of a work’s thingliness—to be deployed as is methodologically and theoretically convenient—recognizes the complexity of taxonomization and canon formation. This is an imperfect mediation of the problem, but contributes to the conversation by offering conceptual handholds for how we might talk about these otherwise slippery pseudo-objects.