Do you improvise?

Do you improvise? Do you use the ideas you come up with when composing? How long have you been improvising? Does it comprise a large or minimal part of your compositional process? What instrument do you improvise on? Piano, violin, clarinet, what?

Do you improvise?

Occasionally.

Do you use the ideas you come up with when composing?

Occasionally, especially when writing (or trying to) in my "modern" style.

How long have you been improvising?

Since I was about 13 (30 years +). I had to overcome the training I had from when I was 8 or so, forbidding me to "play by ear." I didn't know the difference between improvisation and playing by ear at first.

Does it comprise a large or minimal part of your compositional process?

Minimal.

What instrument do you improvise on? Piano, violin, clarinet, what?

Keyboard, occasionally stringed instrument (either violin or viola).

Almost never. I find it really awkward, actually, for the most part, on any instrument. The small percentage of the time that I do get something out of it I almost invariably forget. Instead I work more slowly, just waiting to get inspired a bit at a time, looking for what would sound good after the last completed part. (I suppose in a way that has an element of improvisation in it, but not to any significant degree.)

Well, I am in jazz band. The only reason I am there is because I can improvise. I've been doing it for now seven years. I generally do not use any ideas from improve sessions for major works of mine but I do use some ideas for jazz band ideas. Yea, my instrument is the guitar. Only eletric guitar.

They say that Mozart was not a great composer - he was a great improviser. That was sort of irrelevant, I just thought I'd say it.

I improvise all the time on the piano. It makes up a great deal of my compositional process, and, on occasion is the sole component of that process. I also do some live improvisations - I'm in the process of recording a CD of my live piano improvisations based on works of literature. I believe that improvisation should be something all composers do - it is the foundation of ideas and melodies which can then be modified and structured into meaningful works.

I improvise a bit on viola, usually accompaniment lines to other music... probably says something about my counterpoint style in compositions. I'm somewhat capable of improvising on piano, but I rarely improvise when composing, because it tends to only distract me. I'm not very good at it, probably related to the fact that I'm a really terrible melodist when composing. (If you don't notice, it's because I take so long to compose that I can afford to have about one melodic idea every few weeks.)

I started improvising about the same time I started composing... 3 1/2 years ago, when I was about 19.

Improvisation and Composition have quite the blurry boundaries. Frederic Rzewski has deep thoughts concerning this.

Improvise? OF COURSE all the time, probably more than I practice. When there is a piano around I improvise, very little of the time do I play what I learn. Does it help with composition? definitely I have my keyboard set it on the strings section and go with the flow. Though singing is starting to replace some of my improv on piano. I do alot of 20th century techniques on the cello, the only way I can get something good to come out of the cello has to be the unnatural way. haaaa..........though it definitely lacks form to a degree.

:thumbsup: Don't tell your mama/parental guardian what I had just told you :o and from a long break from caffeine has been well, broken :wub:

I can improvise till the cows come home and never get tired of it. Something interesting always comes from it.

To get good at improvising just need to have the scales and chords all like a second language so that you don't have to think when moving to a new chord. The problem I have is I have a Monumental difficulty taking peices I make and putting it on score sheet mainly dealing with rythmic issues, but I may try recording to a midi as I have a midi Weighted Piano.

I mainly improvise on the guitar.. Which I've probably been doing since I started.. so that's probably around.. 17 years or so? I like to improvise better then play pre composed material.. I just like playing with sound, I guess.. And I have no problem improvising on instruments that I "don't know how to play." I feel as if 'composing' exists for me on the level of muscle memory.. Like my finger's seem to know how to compose without my conscious mind even having to bother with it.. I built a video podcast that sorta demonstrates this..

When I "compose for electric guitar" the compositions come from noodling around on my guitar searching for stuff... Often my guitar solos will just be improvised takes.. Sometimes an improvised performance can become the center of a composition.. Where after I perform and record my solo.. I write the rest of the music around the solo... The results of which I find pretty interesting..

I should say that most of my compositions are the results of programing out stuff inside of a sequencer.. But I try to approach composition from as many different angles as possible.. just to keep the results interesting... And I like the feel of improvising.. There's usually a different energy to it... I guess just because your coming at it from a different place.. Like thinking on an instrument.. how you conceptualize stuff is very different then if your stairing at a staff.

Hell yeah!

I love improvising! In fact, that's probably why I hated piano lessons as a kid because I had to do what my teacher wanted me to do.

Then I discovered jazz. Then I discovered the fakebook, and I've picked up the piano at a surprisingly astonishing speed again, and can now vamp stuff and come up with things and play standards and all that stuff.

Improvising is really important because the melodies just come pouring out and the harmonies too over time.

Improvising, in my opinion, is probably the most universally pure form of creating music. Most cultures of the world, excluding the Western one and a couple others, generally lack written notation, thus improvising mostly. Japanese shakuhachi music a prime example.

Improvisation is the best way of expressing one's emotions, because you can just sit down the piano, play a bouncy little ditty, and then when depressd fool around with some lush sounding chords that have that yearning feeling.

I don't know, it's just my Romantic style :P

I love improvising. I sit at the piano, come up with stuff, and use it in my compositions, both jazz and classical.

Improvisation is great, though is depressing when it becomes better than your compositions :P

See.. I regard improvising as composing.. it's composing in real time.. it's it's a hell of a lot more efficient.. with regard to how much time you put into it versus who long the composition is.. it being real time and all.. accept that all the time you spend preparing should probably be added to how much time and energy you regard it taking..

Sure, once in a while... I'm not great at it though. Back when I was playing guitar very seriously I was much better at improv. Now I just focus on composition when I spend time on music.

It seems I improvise everytime I sit

at the piano now. I do use some of what

comes to me in compositions to, as the

style I write in seems to be free spirited.

It is a bummer though when improvising

and you forget the whole progression you

just played but it sounded so good.

Jeremy

See.. I regard improvising as composing.. it's composing in real time.. it's it's a hell of a lot more efficient.. with regard to how much time you put into it versus who long the composition is.. it being real time and all.. accept that all the time you spend preparing should probably be added to how much time and energy you regard it taking..

I agree that improvisation is composing. What I don't like about it is that it's temporary, lost as soon as it is finished - and it is usually not feasible to reproduce it. What written composition may lack in efficiency it makes up for in permanence and the capability of being reproduced by not only the composer, but potentially anyone. Still, I like listening to the organist at church improvise, and I enjoy improvising myself now and again. It's about as close as I ever get to "letting my hair down" musically.

It's interesting to know that people like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and their ilk were amazing at improvisation. But knowing that doesn't do us much good now. Their written work gives us a more-or-less permanent record of their musical capabilities.

To follow on, what's pretty good is that we have some sort of records of some of their improvisations.

Mozart's variations on Unser dumer Poebel Meint by Gluck are meant to be a written down version of what he improvised at a concert one night.

The only thing is he wrote them down like a year later, but this is Mozart, I wouldn't be suprised if they're accurate.

Forgive the spelling..

I think a similar thing happened for another of his variations.

And of course with Beethoven, we have the intro of the Choral Fantasy.

I agree that improvisation is composing. What I don't like about it is that it's temporary, lost as soon as it is finished - and it is usually not feasible to reproduce it. What written composition may lack in efficiency it makes up for in permanence and the capability of being reproduced by not only the composer, but potentially anyone. Still, I like listening to the organist at church improvise, and I enjoy improvising myself now and again. It's about as close as I ever get to "letting my hair down" musically.

Well.. you could record your improv session... Indeed, if you were playing some sort of midi instrument.. It could even generate a score for you. On the other hand.. I think of Buddhist's with there sand paintings.. Where.. once it's done they just blow them all a way.. as a kind of meditation on the temporal.

Well, if you don't improvise your music ideas, improvising meaning coming up with short little melodies on the spot and fooling around with them, how otherwise does one compose? Do you just write a brief little phrase, and then analyse it by pen? I'm confused

I assumed Derek was speaking specifically of improvisation as in sitting down at an instrument and performing a composition extemporised on the spot, since I believe this is how he composes most of the time, producing little if any notated output. But using Monkey's analogy, I would say I improvise a great deal, then.

At least for the time being, my not writing things out will be the norm. I have a tremendous amount of things to do what with college and my job, learning to play classical pieces from a piano teacher AND playing my own improvisation takes up quite a bit of time on its own. I'd much rather play and record improvisation than I would notate pieces, anyway...its much more gratifying. If someone ever loves my music enough, they can either 1) ask me to notate it or 2) pick it out by ear. My dear friend Alydia loves my piano music so much she learns some of it by ear. hahaha

So..I guess...if the people who like my music are the ones who take the initiative to learn it/write it out....that's going to make me lazy! If only my music wasn't this good...maybe I'd start writing more of it out! =D

Improvisation is great, though is depressing when it becomes better than your compositions :w00t:

Why would that be depressing? It seems to me that would produce quite the opposite reaction! Improvisation is so immediately gratifying...and notating music is so tedious and detail oriented. Bleh.