Abstract
Starting in the late 1960s, the experimentation of blending jazz, rock, funk, and other musical genres gave birth to the sub-genre known as Fusion. The early and mid- 1970s marked the starting point of fusion synthesizer improvisation. Some of the primary keyboardists who pioneered expressive synthesizer improvisation in Fusion were Jan Hammer of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea of Return to Forever, and Herbie Hancock of the Headhunters. This paper seeks to analyze and detail the synthesizer performance techniques as well as the harmonic, rhythmic, and motivic material contained within selected improvisations of Hammer, Corea, and Hancock from 1973 – 1976.
Real-time synthesizer performance techniques have been discussed by others such as composers and authors Jeff Pressing and Don Muro. These writings are more based around how one would theoretically perform synthesizer while providing various exercises rather than excerpts and/or transcriptions of actual recordings. Certain magazine issues of Keyboard which explore Hammer’s, Corea’s, and Hancock’s approach to synthesizers are saved in an online database. However, while the text of the articles is available, many of these archives are missing the actual figures and excerpts that demonstrate the techniques these fusion pioneers implemented. It is because of this lack of access to practical real-time synthesizer improvisation techniques that transcriptions and analyses of these keyboardists’ respective approaches and stylistic differences on the instrument are necessary. In addition to analyzing and discussing the techniques used during select improvisations, this paper explores some of the influences of each keyboardists performance style and how they came to develop their unique approaches to synthesizer improvisation and sound design.