Poiesis and the Performance Practice of Physically Polyphonic Notations, DR. KEVIN TOKSÖZ FAIRBAIRN

This dissertation sets out to examine complexity in music by focusing specifically on the process of learning rather than on the virtuosity of execution. Taking as a starting point a unique and relatively recent notational trend, physical polyphony (that is, tablaturized notations of dyssynchronous physical actions within a single performative body), this research experiments with learning strategies rooted in embodiment, adaptability, and creativity..

In order to focus on the learning processes relevant to these unique, recently-developed notations, this project shifts attention away from the compositions themselves and instead examines how a performer navigates them as situated challenges of learning, enskilment, and practice-building. In tracing several templates for successfully learning this repertoire, this study slowly builds a methodology that exploits the challenges posed by conflicting, physically polyphonic actions in order to (re)discover capacities for the symbiotic entanglement between body and instrument.

By elucidating this mutual reliance of body and instrument as a form of shared performance and embodied communication, this research then turns to the field of radical embodied cognition in order to reveal how these learning processes can in turn provoke the development or emergence of new idiomaticisms and performance practices. Throughout, the historical and ever-evolving concept of poiesis provides a basic framework, connecting these experiments in learning music to broader domains of political action and social coexistence.