Free Form & Structured Music

[WanderingLands]

For me, as a musician, I feel more more drawn to playing music in a more improvised and free-form, or free flowing, manner, as opposed to the more structured and mechanical music that's present in many known genres and especially popular music. It was how I learned to play mainly the guitar, where I would improvise completely atonally and free-form and then progress to learning more controlled and tonally (even though I still do improvise without structure). The reason why I like to improvise that way, instead of playing more controlled, is because it has given me a much better scope on the fretboard beyond the usual scales that I have learned and practiced, and also, it gives me the strength to play from my feeling in a much easier and spontaneous fashion.

Preferring free-form is thus the reason why I reject the metronome as a tool of practice. I find the metronome to be limiting to the creative and intuitive process of music as it restricts movement to just a constant robotic beat, which eschews all of the possible ideas that can be made to invigorate the music, with whatever it be: playing in a different time signature, a different tempo, or just going completely free-form. The metronome, I believe, is completely contrary to the natural rhythm within the Universe, which is spontaneous, oscillating, and flowing with ease and not mechanically.

It's not to say that we should completely discard keeping a beat and having some structure, or to discard practicing the conventional techniques in various instruments. Playing too much in a free-form style can actually break down the technical ability to actually play the instrument, making it sloppy and leads to poor practicing as I have experienced in playing guitar and other instruments. However, in order to play music that 'breathes' and 'lives', we must at least try and explore the dissonant and free improvisational realms (which would include experimenting with non-'orthodox' instruments and ways of playing).

[WanderingLands]

In addition to the original post above, I shall provide some resources that offers ways to explore free improvisation and experimentation. Just for those curious enough.

Just Intonation Explained - Kyle Gann: http://www.kylegann.com/tuning.html
Prepared guitar - Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_guitar
Prepared piano - Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_piano
Twelve-tone technique - Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique

Things to search: 'free improvisation', 'avant-garde jazz', 'free jazz', 'minimalism'.