"Improvisation is simple. Play what you want to play and when you don't want it anymore, stop."
-Art Lande
"Simple ain't easy."
-Thelonious Monk
Do you know what you want to play? Can you play it? Do you know how to work with other musicians who may or may not want what you want? These are the challenges of improvisation: to find your own sources of inspiration, to manifest your creative ideas effectively, and to collaborate in a way that allows others to do the same.
Unlike other forms of musical performance, the discipline of improvisation is concerned more with process than with the perfection of a particular outcome. The improviser's goal is to make something tangible, something audible out of what is sensed, imagined or felt, to articulate the otherwise inexpressible inner reality of being through music.
Improvisation is both an "inner" contemplative practice and an "outer" path of service to a greater musical good.
Above all, improvisation is an awareness practice that incorporates all aspects of music making simultaneously, including listening, rhythmic acuity, instrumental technique, ear training, compositional development, form, theory and knowledge of musical styles and genres. Improvisation fosters the qualities of concentration, confidence, generosity, patience and trust.
Improvisers are also composers, caring for the well being of the music by skillfully managing all of its aspects. What does the piece need? More energy or less? A melody? Some pulse? Further development? A change of direction? The improviser lives in service to the music.
These and many other aspects of improvisation are addressed in my Naropa class and in my book, coming soon!
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