The Art of Improvisation

Hi Fellow AJ Authors,

I thought it would be interesting to start a conversation about improvisation; what is improvisation to you? How does it fit into your workflow? Does it melt into any other areas of your lifestyle? Do you find your DAW to be conducive to an improvisational workflow? If so, how!?

I guess I’ll go first,

Improvisation to me is the art of creating “off-the-cuff.” It’s just letting the notes come out naturally without worrying about the specific composition that results. Normally, it feels more natural to do this on an actual instrument, like the guitar or piano, but I find myself using it when I compose with computer plug-ins and sound libraries in my DAW .

I usually don’t sit down to compose a song with any particular ideas in mind, so I guess you’d say I usually uitilize improvisation when composing. Even when I do start with a particular musical idea, I will do some imporvisation with other instruments in order to get ideas. These imporvisations usually make it into the final composition. I do this by playing the sound files from my library on the keyboard while recording. If I am not happy with the take, I can adjust the notes in the DAW , as long as I’m utilizing a midi enabled sound.

If I decide to improv using an actual instrument, say the guitar, I will record it, and if not satisified with the take, I will record more takes. After recording several takes, I will usually pick the best parts of the takes and combine them to make the final take for that instrument.

I think I tend to use improvisation a lot in life, not just in music. If I encounter a problem, I will usually try different things until I reach a solution.

Thanks for starting this thread digital. It made me think a bit about something I usually don’t think about.

Hey, thanks so much for your reply, Guitarjock. I was watching one of my favorite movies the other night (Rattatouille) and there’s an amazing scene where Linguini is flailing around the kitchen (his arms going everywhere) grabbing for spices and pieces of food. It’s exaggerated by the rat controlling him from the top of his head, but anyways, I just thought it was an awesome example of improvisation. A lot of times I find myself in the middle of projects and start grabbing everywhere like a chef gone mad! I really like to improv at the piano (when I can) – I find it’s nice to separate myself from the computer and have something I can just ‘play’ if that makes sense.

I like what you said about using improvisation with your computer plug-ins and sound libraries – I think it’s a really important part of the musician’s process – even if it’s only one track that’s off the grid, it’s probably enough to give something a bit of life.

Thanks again for sharing.

Hey, good question….

For me improvisation is everything. In fact, I have always strongly maintained that it is the very essence of composition. Composition is essentially structured improvisation. A DAW can be a great aid to composition by way of its power to augment improvisation as a compositional tool. You can sit down, hit record, and then improvise something. Then maybe try it with a different sound, maybe put another line over the top. Most of my composing happens this way. I’ll start with a beat, a riff, a chord sequence, a sample, anything, and then just start improvising with it, adding parts etc. Having said all that, it took me a while to come round to seeing this. For the last few years I’ve worked extensively as an accompanist on the piano for ballet and contemporary dance with world class teachers and companies. For contemporary dance, I’ve started to improvise on the spot everything I play. The teacher gives me a tempo and general vibe, and I just start playing and play until they ask me to stop. It gets a great energy going for the dancers and my improvisational skills have improved at warp speed! Its been this baptism of fire, having no choice but to get good at it and fast, that has really helped in my composing. Ideas come faster than I have time to develop them, and I find it so much easier now to develop an idea, because part of improving at improvisation has been gaining an understanding and affinity for harmonic progressions and melody construction that becomes instinctive – you don’t have time to think about it, it just happens. But when you come to sit down and write something in a more controlled, planned way, that knowledge of chord progressions, melodic devices etc. really comes in handy. So yeah, improvisation is a HUGE part of my musical background, and an integral part of my composing. Interesting question here – I’d definitely love to hear a few more opinions, especially from some of the big hitters round here…