2020-08-17
On improvisation
Back in the good old days, like before the pandemic, when we gathered for concerts and sacred services, I would improvise a postlude for church every other Sunday. It seemed always to cause a stir, no matter how many times congregants had heard me do so. (Of course, to the squad hell bent on getting to coffee hour, it was just more background music as they took off to the fellowship hall, but one cannot do much for them.) Many would sit and take it in, and when I finished, some one would invariably ask, "how do you <do> that?"
How indeed. I did not grow up improvising; I grew up composing. They are two facets of the same musical creative impulse, but they have different aspects. In composition, one has an idea and you commit it to some fixed format; that format used to be music paper, now often it is a digital file. Some composers (Beethoven) liked to improvise and iterate as part of this process, some (Mozart, J. S. Bach, Shostakovich) conceived of masterworks literally in their minds. Their amazing gifts of total recall allowed them to commit finished scores to paper. I was first confronted with the possibility of improvising at the Charles River Creative Arts Program in the mid-80's, when I fell in with a bunch of amazingly gifted musical theater, jazz and rock performers who "made stuff up" on the spot. I started improvising as part of the various types of playing I do as a matter of course, and gradually improvisation also became part of my organ work for regular church work and to pass the AGO certification exams.
What is manifestly clear to me now is that improvisers rely heavily on a thorough knowledge of the nuts and bolts of Western music, i.e. music theory. You cannot start creating musical structures in real time without having mastered the building blocks first. That is a considerable task; I was fortunate enough to receive a training in harmony, counterpoint and theory in my musical education. But one can always tell the improvisers who really know the language; they couple that knowledge with a large repertory of prepared forms and styles to improvise.
And this brings me to the last point I'll share today... good improvisers never leave home without a plan. You may believe that the player is making up this musical experience on the spot, but in truth all skilled improvisers will make a road map in their heads (and even sometimes on paper!) before their musical journey begins. Oftentimes, the contents of that map are instances of the player's familiar patterns and textures. So it is rare that an improvisation is truly "out of thin air"... but the illusion is cool!
I almost always have a couple of students who are interested in improvisation. I try to set time aside for developing their skills in every lesson. I love taking some time to do this we when can, because it certainly is not a typical aspect of more traditional music study... but it is important.
So, again, as you can see, the answer is more complex than one might guess. If you need any hints, I would be happy to supply them. If you have more questions about this topic, don't hesitate to contact me and we can chat.
K
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