Copyright

Fatima Lahham;

Published On

2025-04-30

Page Range

pp. 17–52

Language

  • English

Print Length

36 pages

1. Improvising the Human

Extemporary Practice and the Body in Early Modern England

  • Fatima Lahham (author)
Chapter of: Improvising Otherwise: A Decolonial Feminist Approach to Improvisation in Early Modern English Culture(pp. 17–52)
This chapter introduces the topic of improvisation in early modern England, starting with an etymological survey of contemporaneous language used and locating the ‘extemporary’ as a historical term that encompassed a wide variety of improvised practice. Starting with the English musician Christopher Simpson’s work The Division Viol (1659), the chapter explores the musical practice of making ‘divisions on a ground’ and contextualises this practice within memory practices and beliefs about imagination and embodiment in early modern England, as well as within histories of print culture and (un)written legal structures. The chapter also explores extemporary prayer, contextualising writers who argued for and against this practice within contemporary theories around improvisation and the body, and within discourses of coloniality and ‘otherness’. The chapter concludes by bringing the non-musical explorations of improvisation to bear on the practice of making divisions on a ground.

Contributors

Fatima Lahham

(author)
https://fatimalahham.com/

Fatima Lahham (b.1993) is a musician and researcher with interests across musical improvisation, feminist methodologies, early modern historiographies, and music and healthcare. After studies at Oxford University and the Royal College of Music in London, she received an AHRC studentship to support her PhD research at the University of Cambridge. Since then she has held academic positions at the Royal College of Music and Royal Holloway, University of London, and is currently employed as a researcher at Nordoff & Robbins, the UK’s largest music therapy charity. Fatima performs widely as a recorder player across baroque music, Arabic music and various improvisatory settings. Her solo album 'bulbul' (2022) has been followed by several singles and she also works as a community musician.