Here it is, silly question... improvising.

[ken]

Can someone, ne everyone, enlighten to me as to what improvisation actually means, especially any specific meaning/implimentation within jazz???

I'm quiet happy to take an established melody and turn it into something "I like". I'm also 'fairly' happy to pick out a chord progression and sling in a few notes in accompaniment at our local jam nights and no one seems to complain 'too' much.

I'm sure I'm missing the point, so apologies if I'm being dopey.

 

[oliver_bentley]

"To create/perform (musically and otherwise) something spontaneously without preparation" OED

Guess its right in one sense, its something not pre-practiced, perhaps you havent played before (depending how many licks you do/dont practice) But to say unprepared is a bit harsh - hours of practice every week strikes me as quite well prepared.

Either way its making up on the spot/as the moment takes you/as you feel at the time, rather that preparing a set out solo your going to perform.

Not a daft question at all, sure theres gonna be a good few people who dont agree with my definition. Oli

 

[tengu01]

That is a really good question

I think improvisation can be seen as a sliding scale. On one hand, you can play the tune straight which would equate to improvisation level 0.

However, as you start to introduce elements of your own interpretation to the tune and depart from the melody, the element of improvisation increases.

Heading towards the other end of the scale, some people use the chordal structure of the tune as a framework within which to insert musical ideas which they either make up on the spot (or are variations of things they have practiced already - see Oliver's reference to the hours of practice a week and playing nice phrases in 12 keys etc...)

At the far end, some don't even use that......but I don't always like the sound of that.

I would define improvisation to be a reinterpretation of a tune on the fly. However the degree of deviation from the tune varies from person to person. Reinterpretation can mean the inclusion of some extra notes and trills, or taking an element of the melody, manipulating it and modifying it or just using the chordal structure as a framework for other motifs (which may or may not have been pre-practiced).

There will be other, and better definitions, I am sure.

🙂

 

[RedBottom]

I once wrote a 2000 word essay on the topic for an Open University music course. Lots of students argued with my viewpoint (as they'll probably do here), but I don't think there's any such thing as 100% improvisation/extemporisation for the following reasons:

1) Even when musicians improvise, they will do so according to codes that they've internalised from their musical experience (listening or playing). For instance, they will know roughly how, say, a sixteen bar tune needs to be 'built'.

2) They'll often use phrases, licks and riffs that they've played over and over again in practice and/or performance, even though they may put them together in a different order/key/tempo/time signature etc.

3) They usually have an idea of what they're going to play before they play it, even if they intend to experiment and try to break away from 1 and 2.

So I see improvisation as just 'learning' codes and then being able to use them to play a made-up tune. It's a bit like having a spoken conversation. We learn things like subject-verb agreement and sentence structure by listening to others, copying and being corrected by them. Eventually we're able to pull our words from our heads quite spontaneously, knowing just where to place them in our speech. For exampled, "the wug fuggled the zug" makes syntactical and grammatical sense, even though it's a load of nonsense, because I've used the correct 'codes'. Yet it's just something I 'improvised' as I sat here typing. I could use any mix of daft words for the nouns and verbs and it would still make sense.

"Fuggle zig zom shwex drigkiy", however, is similarly 'improvised', but without using any kind of 'code' (although I suppose jazz allows for this breaking away). However, if I repeat it in another post, it wouldn't be improvised, but would be 'learned' or copied from here.

I just don't think any musician can come up with something completely new (thus 100% improvised) every time he improvs a number.

 

[Bobby G]

I see what you're getting at Redbottom, very often you have an idea of where you are going to go with a solo, but also sometimes you can surprise yourself when you find something new, or stumble on an idea, so yes you are improvising but generally on some preconceived idea or learned techniques. Then an extension of that could be that in one sense nothing is truly improvised in the mechanical sense, but that if you can go beyond the technique i.e. not think about 'what' you are playing, but just playing 'music' from within yourself using your instrument as part of yourself then you are improvising.

Admittedly, you will still be playing the mechanics of your instrument and most likely a lot of what you are playing will have been 'learned' consciously, but if you can get to the point where you are almost playing from the subconscious then it's improvisational.

At least, that's how I think it works, never, or only very rarely having got to that place where the ideas just keep flowing from the brain to the fingers unhindered.

Even if you are thinking consciously or planning what to play there's still an improvisational element, then there's the whole area of playing off other people, trying to echo something they've done, or use a phrase they've played as a basis for a part of your solo, or harmonise/counterpoint, it's all a combination of the learned and the improvised.

Basically, in a nutshell it's 'making up tunes' and most of all it's blummen good fun! Plus you don't need Trane's level of technique or 12-hour-a-day practise regime to get out there and do it.

Cheers, Bob

 

[oliver_bentley]

Well... my second 2p comin here

"Fuggle zig zom shwex drigkiy", however, is similarly 'improvised', but without using any kind of 'code "Red Bottom

here your using codes but just less so that you were before - eg Fuggle is based on the english language double g, L, E makes sense to anyone who speaks english, and so we can say it, pronounce it, understand it.

In a way music is the same, we all use codes, theres a set of 12 semitones (bends, quater tones etc aside) that are used for the majority of the time, and things like beats in a bar, chord sequences, falling from a 5th to the tonic because it sounds resolved are all going to be used in improvisation, and so yes in this sense its not new. On the other hand, one solo will probably be unique as a whole. It just depends how far you break it down.

This, just like your word, and your sentence can be copied/imitated, or someone can take just a little bit of it and come up with something new from there. But codes are still needed for listeners, as in speakers of Fuggle, to understand. Even the very free-est jazz has some codes behind it, be they unconventional, so that the audience can understand and enjoy it.

All I'm saying is, while very very few people can create something entirely brand spanking new, without re-inventing western music as we know it, (think free jazz influenced by say eastern traditions in music - they were using rules, just different to those the western audiences were used to so it seemed new and radical) all new ideas come from something that has gone before, thats how ideas work. It doesnt mean that somethings not new. Think how jazz itself came about.

Improv is still improv even though it uses codes and conventions. Not sure I agree with the grading of improvisation- just beacuse something is more original than something else doesnt make it more improvised, it just makes it more advanced/new/original/brilliant/god awful sounding. Improvisation is simply a spontaneous creation with a very small time span between conception and actualisation:

Composition is something created and worked on and developed over time, using developing and breaking musical conventions. Composers all have set styles, set techniques they liked to use that they'd developed over time, and little tricks they put in to impress audiences.

Impovisation is the same, just without the aid of and eraser.

Sorry if thats very long winded, and its only my 2ps worth, so feel free to arrgue back - nothing beats a good discussion.

Oli

PS:

If there are infinite possiblities, there can never be any less left to create.

 

[ken]

Thanks folks, you've reassured me that I haven't been barking entirely up the wrong tree or just being plain stupid.

As I don't read music, or admittedly understand much of the music theory, I tend to play and, I suppose, improvise in a way that sounds/feels right 'to me' and in all honesty I enjoy it that way.

My concern, or perhaps more like confusion, was if a line is drawn between say improvising and interpretation, I feel there is a difference. Also where (if at all) does an individuals 'technique' as in blowing, articulation etc.

The point I make between improvising and interpretation is, I wonder if interpretation is just a matter of small nuances? say as in technique, whilst still retaining deference to the original song writers score/notation/intention, whereas improvisation moves much further beyond that. I don't know, is there a difference (should there be) or is this merely a degree as tengu01 mentions.

I also wonder how far a performer can go without being restrained by music/theory convention, as also mentioned.

Sorry guy's, my knowledge, hence descriptions and ability to express these things is limited and basic, but I'm hanging in there and following most of what you say.

 

[oliver_bentley]

Ken wrote:

Thanks folks, you've reassured me that I haven't been barking entirely up the wrong tree or just being plain stupid.

No need to feel stupid, its a hard thing to define, like most things in jazz, (including the very definition of what jazz is) its constantly up for debate, and even the best players have very different ideas about what makes imporvisation what it is, from the very free players, to the players who are very "lick" based.

If it sounds good then thats all the matters