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EspañolMUSICAL IMPROVISATION
(Redirected from Improvised music)
'Musical improvisation' is the spontaneous creative process of making music while it is being performed. To use a linguistic analogy, improvisation is like speaking or having a conversation as opposed to reciting a written text. Among jazz musicians there is an adage, "improvisation is composition speeded up," and vice versa, "composition is improvisation slowed down." This is perhaps due to the emphasis on linearity in jazz, both in solos and in the "melody" of jazz "tunes" as that term is employed uniquely in jazz.[1]
Improvisation exists in almost all music - whilst the term is most frequently associated with melodic improvisation as found in jazz, spontaneous real time variation in performance of tempo and dynamics within a classical performance may also be considered as improvisation.
Most improvisation is structured, with certain predetermined structures shaping the improvisation, such as the form of a song.
Blues, jazz, bluegrass and Indian classical music are well-known for using improvisation. Almost all of the improvisation heard in rock and roll, blues, jam, and metal bands is in the form of lead guitar or other soloing. These musical improvisations are very song-oriented, usually working within the demands of the background rhythm and harmony.
Blues and traditional rock improvisation leans heavily on the use of the blues scale (a variation of the minor pentatonic scale), which sounds good in either major or minor keys and simple enough for beginning guitarists to execute. Many rock and jam bands use these, although forms of music are very open to individual interpretation, so the possibilities for improvisation are almost limitless.
Improvisation is one of the basic tenets of jazz. Typically in a jazz piece, the "head" (the song's melody along with any backing harmony) is played once by the musicians and often repeated. Improvisation by any of the musicians follows, and this is typically the longest section of a song as each musician improvises their own melody over the harmonic and rhythmic foundation of the head. When the end of the head is reached it is repeated and a solo's length is specified by the number of repetitions of the head necessary. After one musician has finished improvising, another will begin, and no instrument is forbidden from improvising. A repetition of the head will usually end a jazz piece. There are many variations to this pattern; new sections can be added before and after the head, two musicians can alternatively improvise for short amounts of time (known as "trading"), or several musicians can improvise in a group (collective improvisation is common in Dixieland jazz).
Many varied scales and their modes can be used in improvisation. These mainly depend on the nature of the harmonic framework. Against a C Minor seventh chord, for example, an improvisor would usually have a choice of using C Dorian, C Aeolian, C blues, and others, depending on the situation and personal taste. Chord changes are very important in jazz improvisation as well. Whole solos can be built around chord tones. The variety is achieved with the rhythmic aspects of the solo.
In the bebop era of jazz in the early 1950s there was a common theme of urgency and technical proficiency. Performers would often construct intricate melody lines at speeds of up to 300BPM. These improvisations varied considerably from the song's main melody. The modal era of jazz, mainly started by Miles Davis, moved the harmonic framework for a piece from the fast, dynamic chord progressions of bebop to more static, relaxed chords with longer durations. The prevailing tendency of modal performers was to improvise not over specific chords, but in a musical mode instead. Free jazz performers eschew the explicit harmonic framework for improvisation; the harmony in free jazz is less rigid and less traditional.
Improvisation is absolutely essential for jazz musicians. Illinois Jacquet, for example, is best known for a single solo on the tune Flying Home, and such solos are often transcribed. They are often not written down in the process, but they help musicians practice the jazz idiom. In university jazz programs, transcription tends to be the main weekly assignment in improvisation class. Charlie Parker's improvisations were distinctive, helping to shape the bebop period. Though it is helpful to transcribe on one's own, Parker's solos are often studied in a published collection known as the Omni Book, and groups such as Supersax arrange his solos with their own harmonic backing. Often, an improvised melody can give rise to an entirely new jazz head.
Vocal jazz improvisations is known as scat singing and made up from syllables that help articulate jazz phrasing.
Throughout the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, improvisation was a highly valued skill. J.S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and many other famous composers and musicians were known especially for their improvisational skills. Many classical scores contained sections for improvisation, such as the cadenza in concertos. The preludes to some keyboard suites by Bach and Handel, for example, consisted solely of a progression of chords. The performers used these as the basis for their improvisation. Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach all belonged to a tradition of solo improvisation that was not limited to variations, but included the concerto form, typically with moving voices in both hands, occasionally exploring fugue.
Classical musicians are rarely taught to improvise even in professional academe. Ironically, however, while there is something intimidating and (for some) all-too-serious about the bravura of Beethoven, the set of variations Mozart wrote on "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" is very popular, implying that the stereo-typically non-adventurous listener of classical music in fact is drawn to at least this form of improvisation.
With the increasing importance of the written score and the rise of publishing, music that was once performed with improvisation such as baroque music and the cadenza section of concertos are now rarely performed with improvisation. Few classical artists in the world today are known to have improvised publicly on a known or on-the-spot theme, yet in the early 21st century the art is experiencing a revival, and it is taught at such schools as Juilliard and the Martyn Ferenc Free School of Art in Budapest. Top performers include pianists Leslie Howard and Robert D. Levin. On the other hand, there are pianists who blend classical idiom with jazz and rock such as Fazil Say, Gabriela Montero or the David Rees-Williams Trio, and there are the jazz interpretations of John Bayless. The roots of synthesizing jazz and baroque music are not new, however, but date back to earlier artists such as P.D.Q. Bach and The Swingle Singers. Between these two stylistic groups, classicist embellishment and classical-jazz, which are in fact radically different, an unacknowledged controversy may rage. It is the idiomatically more free group that has the widest popularity and list of exponents.[2]
Several excellent pianists also teach improvisation and perform, such as David Dolan, William Goldstein, and Eric Barnhill. It is probable that most of the best concert pianists have explored this art. The pianist who has combined classical improvisation with the most extensive study of theory is Christopher Gontar. On the other hand, in classicist arranging and composing in a manner related to improvisation, Sergio Tiempo is most remarkable. Glenn Gould was said to improvise in the style of Beethoven and others.[3]. There are not yet competitions for this art form, nor is it clear how the different forms will be adjudicated if competitions do arrive. They may never arrive, because of the break between non-idiomatic improvisation and the astute study of embellishment and cadenza. The improvised cadenza is a very creative skill, but it is not a substitute for improvisation of a rondo, sonata, scherzo, or the many other forms that can be composed and played impromptu.
Because of the principles of progress and individual expression which oppose anachronism, any purely classical improvisation tends to be the most marginalized. Glenn Gould, in a few of his filmed interviews, declared that all of the potential statements of western music had been exhausted, in the mid-20th century, by which he meant the complete arsenal of basic approaches to composition and expression. For Gould this meant that the best alternative was to promote interpretation, not on the concert stage, but in audio recording and its creative parameters. He was biased against concert performance, and he tried to use recording creatively, while only in a few cases finding traditional interpretation inadequate. For example, he felt that Mozart was sufficiently "jaded" to require unorthodox interpretation. Gould, though himself an improvisor, did not seriously consider that improvisation might provide a diverse alternative to an aging repertoire. Despite his desire for spontaneity, in recordings he found a permanence akin to that of composition.
Improvisors like Say and Montero gravitate towards jazz and a fusion with classical music. It is very difficult to untangle jazz and improvisation (and perhaps not possible or necessary), conceptually or in the popular consciousness.
Baroque music offers some not very difficult techniques that can quickly start one on a path to improvising. The pattern of chords in many baroque preludes, for example, can be played over a pedal tone, repeated octaves, or imitative melodic lines in the left hand. A favorite of J.S. Bach's, for example, was the passage from the tonic, to the tonic dominant, to the submediant, to the dominant, and the tonic again. A popular folk melody, on which the Violin Sonata in G Major and the Great Fugue in g minor are based, also figures prominently in Bach themes that move initially from the tonic to the dominant, as an inverse alternative.
This kind of progression, compressed into a short theme, is the basis of many of the fugue subjects in the ''Well-Tempered Clavier''. This ''limits'' the possibility of emulating in an original way the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'' fugues, and makes them a more likely candidate as an improvisatory source. Bach was particularly fond of the sound produced by the dominant seventh harmony played over, i.e., suspended against, the tonic pedal tone. Bach's Cantata BWV 54 uses this suspension as the opening chord in E flat Major.
It is also wise to begin by improvising minuets, and to continue this practice when arriving at Mozart's style.
The polyphony in late baroque music also lends itself to improvisation. One ought to avoid parallel fifths and parallel octaves in this style of classical playing, except perhaps when playing chords in parallel, such as in Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor. If he was indeed the composer, here Bach ignored the prohibition. In later music such exceptions apply more often. Parallel fifths and octaves are noticeable to the ear, if not the more difficult to discern hidden fifths and hidden octaves, which are hard to find even in a written score.
Baroque melodic lines, in any case, are similar to the later homophonic styles, except that more passing tones are added. There is also a more strict pulse in baroque music. But much like the later classical style, in the melodic passage from one scale degree to another there are usually constant shifts between tonic and dominant. One essential harmonic difference, however, may be in baroque harmonic progression, in the pull towards the dominant. In such music as the tonic comes continually to rest on the dominant, it is more like a plagal cadence than in the later style.
There is little or no Alberti bass in baroque keyboard music, and instead the accompanying hand supports the moving lines mostly by contrasting them with longer note values, which themselves have a melodic shape and are mostly placed in consonant harmony. This polarity can be reversed--another useful technique for improvisation--by changing the longer note values to the right hand and playing moving lines in the left at intervals--or with moving lines in both hands, occasionally. This shift of roles between treble and bass is another definitive characteristic. Finally, in keeping with this polarity, the kind of question and answer which appears in baroque music has the appearance of fugue or canon. This method was a favorite in improvisation of Scarlatti and Handel especially at the beginning of a piece, even when not forming a fugue.
To begin learning to improvise short fugues it is helpful to play a fugue subject and attempt to add an answer in another voice, i.e., simply to play an exposition. Or one may begin by playing a one voice improvisation with occasional statements of the subject. If the two voice fugues are practiced consistently, the next step is to add a third voice. Not all of Bach's fugues use the diatonic sequences of harmonies mentioned in the next section, but they are found in similar forms in many of his compositions.
Classical music after the baroque period involves less polyphony, and a basso continuo is no longer common. However, it also departs from baroque style in that sometimes several voices may move together as chords involving both hands, to form brief phrases without any passing tones. Though such motifs were used sparingly by Mozart, they were taken up much more liberally by Beethoven and Schubert, who had a more percussive approach to the piano. Such chords appeared to some extent in baroque music, as mentioned before in Bach's organ preludes, toccatas and overtures. But there they were often in one hand or consisted only of a scale or series of more or less equally emphasized chords. Continuing to improvise minuets, one will find that Mozart's and Beethoven's feature percussive harmonies and more accented bass notes not found in Bach.
Schubert's sonatas are closely related to improvisation. His Sonata in c, D. 958, has an introductory theme which Beethoven had created, for his 32 Variations in c, WoO 80.
Beginning with the age of J.C. Bach and W.A. Mozart, musical phrases often form more isolated structures of question and answer. The question phrase might seek a harmonic resolution in the answer, for example, or the answer might follow more like a repetition or echo. Musical phrases, in other words, are characterized by how they end, which is determined by the cadences that they use.
In general, the shorter phrases are, a somewhat greater variety of harmonies is possible. This is often achieved by chromaticism, or by a deceptive cadence that ends in a rather unorthodox way, such as on a dominant or diminished chord. In a drawn out phrase, on the other hand, the options are mainly restricted to the tonic, dominant, and subdominant. But one must never assume that the melody note is the root of the harmony (see below regarding harmony). Adding the supertonic and submediant to the root movement of a phrase tends to have a more high classical sound--archaic, that is, in relation to Beethoven in particular and all later music in general.
Classical phrases can consist of several bars, however, which was the norm in the ''high classical'' style. These typically moved from the tonic to the dominant and back again, in which case even some extra harmonization added in between would be more strict.[4]
Different moods are associated with classical improvisation. Bach's music may be said to have primarily a religious focus, while the second movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 is marked "''affetuoso.''" Bach also shows an admiration or love for nature and mathematical beauty that anticipates much later music. Beethoven and Mozart, on the other hand, cultivated slightly new musical moods. These are often indicated by mood markings such as ''con amore'', ''appassionato'', ''cantabile'', and ''expressivo''. While all music should have some degree of ''cantabile'', ''con amore'' (with love) playing is associated very much with Beethoven and some of his piano works such as the Variations Opus 34, the Diabelli Variations, and Für Elise and other bagatelles. In fact, it is perhaps because improvisation is spontaneous that it is akin to the communication of love.[5]
It is very helpful in classical improvisation, as it is in jazz playing, to break down the major and minor scales by assigning alternative harmonies for each note of the scale. To make this task even simpler, on any instrument, one may begin by playing single notes and experimenting with possible accompaniment harmonies for them as played by a pianist.[6] This may seem to lead to a habitual and oversimplified chordal left hand for the solo pianist, but there are many ways to avoid such constraints. The left hand harmonization can be reversed, for example, by harmonizing bass notes with two or more notes in the right hand. Jazz pianist Barry Harris similarly advises against playing more than a couple of tones in the left hand at once.
Playing three or more voices in such combinations between the hands, a pianist can practice inversions of the triad, which are mainly distinguished by whether the root, mediant, or fifth appear in the bass. These three inversions each have a distinct quality and use. Harmonization can be taken even further when it is applied to passing tones and chromaticism.
An improvisor can practice by "reharmonizing" the major scale for example, by playing the scale tones in succession in the right hand (or left) while providing a progression of single notes, chords, arpeggios with the other hand. It is best to start with the simplest options and work forward. Triplet arpeggios are also common, in various patterns.
The first four notes of the major scale, for example, can be harmonized as I, V, I, V, or I, v (minor), I, IV, or I, V, I, IV, or I, V, VI, ii. Homophonic structure such as this is one of the first steps to improvisation, and it is also the basis of some of the idioms common in mid-18th century homophony. The technique is also reflected in the first fugue theme in C Major in Book I of Bach's ''Well-Tempered Clavier''.
Another useful technique is the harmonization or adding of tones directly within melodic lines. This may involve the use of extra passing tones in a repeating pattern, or a series of arpeggios.
A piano improvisor is helped by observing the distance of certain harmonies from the tonic triad, in terms of cadences and melody, and how one might approach and depart from certain harmonies through modulation. This is important for understanding classical idioms but it does not mean that one must imitate exactly any particular composer. Modulation is greatly aided by the Circle of Fifths, but in two different senses. The true circle of fifths shows all 12 keys usually as major keys. From the point of view of any one of the 12, the circle appears as a series of dominants or subdominants in either direction, depending on how they are interpreted.
An adjusted circle of fifths keeps within the tonic key signature, creating a much shorter circle of modes, each of a ''different'' quality, which still may be adjusted in modulation. The chords created by this diatonic circle, or simply by playing a triad shape through the major scale,[7] help make certain modulations and cadences smoother and less harsh, i.e., they form the secondary dominants. In the late classical style, the supertonic is often used, and would be harmonized as a minor triad (Dorian mode).
The ''adjusted'' or diatonic circle, within a particular key, is played as a sequence, a technique polished in the Baroque period, for the purpose of cadencing either on the tonic or the dominant. Typically in Bach this sequence starts on the tonic, but then moves within the ''dominant'' key. In Mozart, by contrast, at least in the major key version that he typically used, it begins on the dominant or on any tonic chord, and proceeds in the key of the initial harmony of the sequence. Mozart and other classical composers did not revert to the minor key version of such a sequence, which remains a strictly baroque idea.
An improvisor approaches this series of harmonies, in other words, with the question whether to revert to a neighboring key signature. But the goal of the sequence is the dominant in relation to the current key. This sequence was also a very frequent habit of Mozart, who reworked it as part of his individual style, at various tempos. While it is true that the third scale degree, for example, produces a minor triad, in Mozart's embellishment of it (and to some extent Bach's) it is articulated as a Phrygian mode, which reveals its character more clearly.
Though classical music makes use of modes in several ways, it generally differs from jazz, however, in the following way. In both classical and jazz there are frequent accidentals, but in jazz playing these do not usually imply a strong change in the tonic center of a song. In classical music, on the other hand, the harmonic shifts are more emphasized, rather than merely moving from one mode to another--such as in modulation to the supertonic or relative minor (submediant). Jazz, therefore, is more modal.
By introducing a new leading tone in such melodic phrases, classical improvisors tend to impose minor scales within major key phrases. For example, the supertonic and submediant are outlined by melodic lines using the ''melodic minor''--not the modes that correspond to the tonic key signature. The sense of melody and cadence is not quite the same in later jazz (Many late romantic and early modern composers, however, such as Rachmaninov, make harmonic use of modes that are of linear use in jazz such as the fifth mode of the melodic minor, or Mixolydian flat-6).
Mozart, on the other hand, experimented with modal passages a great deal, in particular in the Piano Concerto in c K. 491 (a personal favorite of Beethoven, who played it at his Vienna debut in March, 1795). In the K. 491 there are a few scale passages in the first movement where Mozart appears to have been uncertain about what mode to use, making the accidentals a matter of some debate. In modern jazz one has the option of respecting the modes of harmonies in modulation, playing them as modes, in addition to many further modes derived from the melodic minor and harmonic minor scales themselves.
Typically, the phrase leading to an authentic cadence in Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, and to some extent in Beethoven, is preceded by a deceptive cadence on the submediant, which is also minor (Aeolian mode) to be answered by the authentic cadence. In this case question and answer taken together can be thought of as one phrase.
Improvisors might also reverse the method of harmonization by creating melodies over existing and well-known harmonic progressions, such as Bach's Prelude to the aforementioned fugue, and many other ground basses or passacaglias such as the Spanish Folia. An improvisor who wishes to become more serious about playing variations might then try some of Mozart's arias, which at one time were prime territory. More freedom and inspiration might be derived from applying alternative sections or endings to various sonatas, sonatinas and other works of the 18th or 19th century.
Within the vast which separates embellishment from fully fledged improvisatory composition can be found the practice of playing variations, which is actually a compositional form, and was originally tonal and predates jazz. As long as it is not agreed whether such improvisation can include elements of jazz and still be considered classical, there is not a consensus on what counts as classical art.
Atonal, modern, or jazz-infused improvisation may result in greater spirituality and originality. Yet this is only likely given a hegemony favoring those elements (i.e., atonality and jazz). A prevailing trend of atonal or jazz-classical improvisation would appear perhaps more contrived than would a prevailing classicism, because of the many essential links, historical, stylistic, and structural, between improvisation and tonality.
A resolution to this difficulty would be required in order for a mixture of these two forms of classical improvisation, technical embellishment and free expression, to be common. That would mean frequent use of forms and expressions typical of the 18th century, which is unlikely for various reasons, including popular views in aesthetics, which affirm as values expression and progress. In addition to that, the old custom of variations seems as if it would be subordinate in the existing regime. Beethoven was the composer and essentially the philosopher of music who attempted to dismantle the break between the banal implications of tonality and the expressive implications of atonality.[8] But Beethoven's prophecy or legacy has no established result or product, and even jazz could arguably be the closest art to resolving the problem.
Jazz, in its freedom from intellectual clutter, is able to sustain improvisation without the need for the kind of overt, tangible analysis of classical music. Instead of inviting philosophical criticism nor being marginalized, despite its obvious contributions to mass culture, jazz rises above at least the negative aspects of popular culture, in a manner epitomized by John Coltrane. [9] It may seem odd not to think of improvisation as the very essence of originality, and yet it involves a great deal of predetermination. The idea of a post-1960's progress in jazz improvisation is elusive and uncertain, and it was jazz more than classical music which shared the climactic status of the 1960's with other arts and social practices. Such deeper questions perhaps occupied such jazz artists as Ornette Coleman.[10]
Improvisation is rare in classical music partly because the audacity and freedom it involves tend to be at odds with certain aspects of musical scholarship. Fugue is another option and is extraordinarily difficult.
The ''contingency'' and possible impermanence of the improvised work itself are other factors that make it either subordinate to, or perhaps of a special higher value than unhindered, procedural composition. This raises questions about the nature of art and art's permanence. For example, it might be held that in the case of Mozart who could produce compositions of relatively equal quality in improvisation as otherwise, improvised works might stand as valuable in virtue of their very contingency and non-recoverability, as easily as they might be devalued for those reasons.
On the other hand, and ironically, anachronism is perhaps the main problem with improvisation.
Just as they affirm cultural diversity and spirituality, modern musicians and composers oppose anachronism, and so did most earlier western composers, who were as a rule stylistically progressive. This somewhat resists the very concept of improvisation in this field, mainly for reasons of tonality and the use of familiar forms. Improvisors usually play solo, and they tend to rely on a preceding statement or phrase for their response, or on the immediacy of a fortuitous experience. Improvisors may thus be inspired in a way otherwise more elusive to composition. Because of such stylistic dependency and immediacy, classical improvisors operate at a distance from procedural composition, and essentially for that reason they lean toward anachronism. Classical improvisation is also forever evocative of certain cultural and social practices, which tend to call to mind antiquated musical styles, though the gestures of musical expression themselves may be considered timeless. To say that improvisation was "spontaneous" would have a double meaning, since it may not be clear if what is meant is its immediacy in time, or its freedom of content.
Furthermore, alternatively applying classical improvisation to modern music ''does'' to some extent simplify the question of how originality is to be achieved. However, this can be done in two ways, either by jettisoning or entirely reshaping form, or by playing classical forms atonally.
Moreover, it is the former option of these two that is relatively free of problems and objections, while there is a strain in the juxtaposition of atonality with forms belonging to tonality. Adorno, for example, found the combination of fugue with atonality to be "functionless and technically false."[11] Adorno's argument, directed at composers, here can be applied to other forms, however, and in improvisation as well. Improvisors, in other words, tend to fall into a polarity of theme and accompaniment reminiscent of fugue just as do composers. Also, just as in fugue, composers and improvisors tend to explore the ideas of reprise and development characteristic of the sonata and suite. But Adorno's concern is mainly that of anachronism. His argument is that, though forms can be inspiring (Formen wirken zuzeiten inspirierend) and are important to authenticity, "the construction of a predeterminant form acquires an 'as if' quality that contributes to its own destruction."[12] As a result, to take Adorno's pronouncements seriously, the only way that improvisation could be authentically modern would be if form were dealt with very carefully, either by being created anew or given some meaningful adjustment. If Adorno's position seems unrealistic only in the case of improvisation, perhaps that is because improvisors have a daunting task, which has its own special significance as a form of composition.
Adorno's focus on fugue as the paradigm case of modern anachronism seems unnecessarily specific, as if he were trying to strengthen authenticity by appealing to its most outrageous transgression, a simultaneous return to both tonality and counterpoint.[13] Adorno is therefore misleading, and implies a much more general claim about anachronism. Adorno did not mention improvisation, but in the sense that it can be equivalent to composition, everything that is said about predeterminant form applies to it, i.e., any prohibition against anachronism as pseudo-art. This is compounded with other more subjective ways in which archaic classical music treads warily on the modern ear. Those who become accustomed to atonality, for example, claim that this causes classical music to sound rustic, or as it is said, "hokey" (an impression also sometimes referred to as twangy).[14] This view itself, however, is also sometimes taken automatically, without comparison to modern forms.
Though composers first began to resist archaism in a departure from counterpoint in the mid-18th century and the rise of the high classical style, the prohibition against tonality is a 20th century phenomenon. It may affirm the contemporary view of new historicism, though that applies mainly to literature and the decorative arts.
It is appropriate to discuss Western Classical music last because it really represents the exception rather than the rule in music making. Improvisation is such a natural mode of music making that its absence should be regarded as unusual. It should also be recognised that it is only in relatively recent history that improvisation has essentially dropped out of Western Classical music completely. As dance, for example, became more generalized in form, improvisation lost a great deal of its individuality with respect to form, placing more of the task of differentiation on the solo interpreter himself. After this event, the era of expressionism had begun to develop. Composers did not want to return to trying new combinations of old materials. Instead, they entered into a period of radical structural exploration, that helped give rise to modernism. On this view, modernism arises as a reactionary movement to romantic banality, but at the same time modernism retained something of the kind of expressivism achieved by Beethoven, which is said to involve a ''truth content'' in addition to a purely sensual or emotive aspect.[15]
The exhaustiveness of theory and technique, in the mid-Romantic period, moreover, also gave rise to skepticism about the spirituality of music, issues faced by Wagner (see modernism and existentialism). Wagner, in turn, and his milieu are believed to have inspired the beginnings of modernism, and new modes of individual, more spiritual expression which, for better or worse, took Beethoven as their ultimate guide. Though there were exceptions, some such new views were opposed to improvisation as belonging to a casual, non-intellectual creative process (for which it is arguable they were entirely off the mark), or were too pre-occupied to take it up. At the same time, the romantic period still produced composers who were very much interested in improvisation, such as Brahms.
Finally, improvisation was a divertissement of the aristocracy, whose self-identity changed dramatically after the early 19th century.
These trends appear to have had their beginnings in the period just after Beethoven, but only finally reached completion in the last quarter of the 19th Century, which also coincides closely with the emergence of atonality. The process also suggests a correlation between improvisation and the popularity and familiarity of music, linking it to the greatly varied melodies of opera and folk music.
Such issues of musical form are dealt with at length by Adorno in his 1970 treatise, most recently translated into English by Robert Hullot-Kentor as Aesthetic Theory. This is considered the definitive text for questions of anachronism, modernism and form in art and music.
Beethoven and Mozart leave excellent examples of what their improvisations were like, in the sets of variations and the sonatas which they published, and in their cadenzas. It is also known that the duels in which they competed featured practices similar to jazz, such as the famous "trading fours" and trading eights, in which jazz musicians share choruses of a standard tune, often with some degree of competitive spirit recalling the cutting contests of the Harlem stride era.
Mozart left an unfinished Fantasia in d minor, and a harmonic prelude that he intended to serve as exemplary of his habitual modulations when improvising. Beethoven, on the other hand, expressed regret at how little he had finally published in terms of keyboard instruction (his planned "piano method"), and his hard-won improvisatory battles over such rivals as Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Joseph Woelfl are relegated to obscure legends, informed by published themes with variations. But it is clear that Beethoven emerged triumphant from among a large society of Viennese keyboard improvisors who were determined to wrest the top position from him.
The improvisations of Mozart and Beethoven, however had no true rivals in their time. Furthermore, theme variation and keyboard exploration were essential avenues by which they conceived music. Many of Beethoven's themes, especially those belonging to the heroic period, for example, focus heavily on the first inversion of the major triad, melodically, and this triadic signature of Beethoven's can be traced to certain themes of Mozart such as the "Ah, Perdona, al Primo Affetto" duet from Mozart's ''La clemenza di Tito''. Beethoven played variations on this aria during one of his concerts in Prague in the late 1790's, (possibly at the famous 'Konvikt' residence which is today a bar on the ground floor).
As composers Beethoven and Mozart were not distinguished so much by altering the established modulatory and melodic vocabularies, but by molding these vocabularies into a personal signature that left the established structures largely intact. Adorno described Mozart's musical texture as an unshakable formal rigor always pushed to the brink of apparent chaos. Beethoven's, on the other hand, he described with somewhat more reverence as a "continuum of nothing" indicating again its extemporaneous quality. Adorno credited Beethoven with making the high classical style capable of individual expression, but this claim is quite debatable.
Improvisation is a form of composition. To improvise in the late 18th and early 19th century style without departing from it for reasons of individual expression or theory would be to compose in it. The difficulties inherent in this are impressing individual expression into tonal music, and avoiding the social implications and historical trappings that belong to the period in which the style was popular. It is probably this set of dilemmas, and not the intimidating genius of either Bach or Beethoven, that prevents such anachronistic improvisation on a wide scale.
Original score notations for medieval organ music commonly include instructions for improvisation and embellishments. The scales that were used were selected according to the same improvisational principles now used in jazz. When the single voice plainsong started to develop into the 2-, 3-, or 4-part organum (during the period 1000-1300 A.D.), one or more of the parts were also commonly improvised, weaving free counter-lines around the written melody line.
Improvised accompaniment over a figured bass was a common practice during the Baroque era, and to some extent the following periods.
There is one exception to the general pattern of loss in classical improvisation and that is in the role of the church organist. The organist's role includes the necessity of accompanying the movement of liturgy and filling voids of silence during church services, and guide the congregation in singing. This practice precludes the use of written music, primarily due to the extent, as well as the harmonic simplicity of the liturgy and hymns for which there is little or no pre-arranged accompaniment. As a result all practical organists are expected to extemporise in a manner appropriate to the atmosphere of the service.
Within the upper ranks of church and cathedral organists, particularly in France, one is expected to be able to improvise in all compositional forms, including symphonic and sonata forms, and fugue.
Since the 1950s, contemporary composers have placed fewer restrictions on the improvising performer, using techniques such as vague notation (for example, indicating only that a certain number of notes must sound within a defined period of time). New Music ensembles formed around improvisation were founded, such as Lukas Foss' Improvisation Chamber Ensemble at the University of California, Los Angeles; Larry Austin's New Music Ensemble at the University of California, Davis; the ONCE Group at Ann Arbor; the Sonic Arts Group; and the San Francisco Tape Music Center, the latter three funding themselves through concerts, tours, and grants. Significant pieces include Foss's ''Time Cycles'' (1960) and ''Echoi'' (1963). (Von Gunden 1983, p.32)
Other composers working with improvisation include Vangelis, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Karlheinz Essl, Christian Wolff, John Zorn (for example ''Game Pieces'', including ''Cobra''), and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Examples of famous rock groups who use improvisation as a composition tool:
★ Genesis (band) - Much of their album material stemmed from a studio improvisation.
★ Grateful Dead
★ Pink Floyd (Live at Pompeii)
★ Primus - Are known to go on lengthy improvisational jams during shows.
★ Can - Have been known to do extremely lengthy improvisations and once did a show that lasted for 6 hours.
★ Sonic Youth (Sonic Death)
★ The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East
★ Frank Zappa
★ Bruce Hornsby - All of his work from 1990 onward.
★ Phish - Phish wrote music and played it in the studio, then jammed to it and improvised on the stage.
★ Cream- Many of their live performances are improvisational jams.
★ The Necks - Live performances are improvisational pieces of up to an hour in length.
★ Led Zeppelin - Many songs during live performances, including Dazed and Confused, would last up to a half an hour.
★ The Mars Volta
★ Red Hot Chili Peppers - A large amount of their live shows are improvisational.
★ Free improvisation
★ Improvisation in music therapy
★ Impro-Visor (software)
★ Indian Classical Music
★ Comparative View of Jazz and Indian Classical Music
★ List of free improvising musicians and groups
★ Musical collectives
★ Musics (magazine)
★ Prepared Piano
★ Prepared guitar
★ 3rd bridge guitar
★ Adorno, Theodor W. transl. Hullot-Kentor, Robert. ''Aesthetic Theory''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
★ Nachmanovitch, Stephen. 1990. ''Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art.'' Penguin-Putnam, New York.
★ Bailey, Derek. 1992. "Improvisation." Da Capo Press. Philadelphia, 146 p.
★ Berliner, Paul. 1994. ''Thinking in Jazz: the Infinite Art of Improvisation'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press)
★ Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra. "Piano Improvisation Develops Musicianship." ''Orff-Echo'' XXXVII No. 1 (2004): 11-14.
★ Von Gunden, Heidi (1983). ''The Music of Pauline Oliveros''. ISBN 0-8108-1600-8.
★ Lucy Hall (2002). ''They're just making it up - Whatever happened to improvisation in classical music?'' The Guardian 22/02/2002
1. In some speakers of American English, the word "tunes" is used to refer to all forms of popular music, but this expression is not universal.
2. It is possible to compare such a divergence of aesthetic views to the debate in literary studies between Harold Bloom and his opposing supporters of multiculturalism, such as Nikki Giovanni.
3. Friedrich, Otto. Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations
4. The shortening of phrases and greater harmonic exploration are aspects of the nominalist turn or "nominalist assault" as Adorno describes the changes brought about by Beethoven. Aesthetic Theory, p. 141. Adorno means by a "nominalism" in music the treating of certain elements in isolation or more as pure sound, which was a new degree of freedom from formality.
5. It has been suggested that the opening chords of Beethoven's Sonata Opus 78, having the characteristic of a prelude, communicate feelings for a young lady then in Beethoven's life, possibly Josephine von Brunswick. (In Heinrich Schenker's remarks in his edition of Beethoven's Sonatas, vol. 2, Dover Publications.) Beethoven also dedicated the so-called "Moonlight" Sonata, a piece with certain improvisatory characteristics, to his fiancée, Giulietta Guicciardi. For example, this sonata is near in its tonic key as well as other factors to Mozart's d minor "fantasy," secondly the second movement returns to a signature theme of Beethoven's, and finally the third movement features elements of theme and variation.
6. In jazz, where it is also important, this results in a much greater harmonic palette.
7. The manner in which these modes are to be treated in modulation is not peremptory, and could account for the distinct sound of an improvisor or composer.
8. It is astonishing that Beethoven's efforts preceded the problem of form versus expression as it appeared to later composers, making it appear almost as if he were the creator of the dilemma itself.
9. However, some jazz scholars make use of psychology and philosophy, such as Ellis Marsalis. Irvin Mayfield has said that classical music compromised its spirituality by becoming "too analytical," which may have become necessary in order for it to fulfill its version of stylistic progress.
10. Miles Davis, moreover, was sensitive to a lack of spontaneity in many jazz soloists, a concern that helped give rise to his stylistic developments, some of which proved more controversial than others.
11. Aesthetic Theory, p. 200
12. Konstruktion der vorgegebenen Form aber wird zum Als ob und trägt bei zu ihrer Zerstörung. p. 298 German ed.
13. Adorno does not mention, in any case, that fugue itself underwent an evolution. Bach exhausted the thematic and modulatory vocabulary of the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'', to the extent that further emulation is redolent of variation and theme, as Joseph Woelfl and many other composers show. Bach turned to earler ideas in polyphony in order to write ''The Art of The Fugue''.
14. Not a technical musical term, this conveys more than the idea of trite and hackneyed, but implies something of the simplicity of earlier music. It also implies something about the subordination of music and art at a time when that mode of artistic creation was exhausted and gave way to individual expression.
15. For Adorno, classical music and Beethoven in particular have a truth content on the one hand, and on the other hand, and relatedly, also an ecstatic contemplation of the oneness of things.
★ Improvisation on ''Improvisation'': Karlheinz Essl and Jack Hauser talking about musical improvisation
★ Losing Control: Indeterminacy and Improvisation in Music Since 1950: by Sabine Feisst
★ A Jazz Improvisation Primer by Marc Sabatella Information about jazz improvisation.
★ improvising for guitar in wikibooks
★ improvising for harmonica in wikibooks
★ International Society for Improvised Music
★ Music for People catalyst in gathering people together to play and sing by creating safe environments in which they can explore music improvisation
★ Thoughts on Improvisation in Classical Music
★ Robert Levin on Improvisation in Classical Music
★ The History of Improvisation
★ BBC Music Magazine October 2006 – Volume 15 Number 2 ''Geoffrey Smith looks at the resurgence of improvisation in classical performances''
★ How to Improvise Jazz Melodies, by Bob Keller
★ iwasdoingallright:Learning to Improvise Several articles discussing the challenges most people face with jazz improvisation. Includes free online ear training tools with jazz improvisation exercises.
★ Learn Jazz Guitar Improvisational Jazz Guitar Information
★ Improvisation and the Classical Musician Blog and book-in-progress by cellist Eric Edberg
★ The Daily Improvisation Blog of improvised music and articles by pianist and Dalcroze teacher Eric Barnhill
'Musical improvisation' is the spontaneous creative process of making music while it is being performed. To use a linguistic analogy, improvisation is like speaking or having a conversation as opposed to reciting a written text. Among jazz musicians there is an adage, "improvisation is composition speeded up," and vice versa, "composition is improvisation slowed down." This is perhaps due to the emphasis on linearity in jazz, both in solos and in the "melody" of jazz "tunes" as that term is employed uniquely in jazz.[1]
Improvisation exists in almost all music - whilst the term is most frequently associated with melodic improvisation as found in jazz, spontaneous real time variation in performance of tempo and dynamics within a classical performance may also be considered as improvisation.
Most improvisation is structured, with certain predetermined structures shaping the improvisation, such as the form of a song.
Blues, jazz, bluegrass and Indian classical music are well-known for using improvisation. Almost all of the improvisation heard in rock and roll, blues, jam, and metal bands is in the form of lead guitar or other soloing. These musical improvisations are very song-oriented, usually working within the demands of the background rhythm and harmony.
Blues and traditional rock improvisation leans heavily on the use of the blues scale (a variation of the minor pentatonic scale), which sounds good in either major or minor keys and simple enough for beginning guitarists to execute. Many rock and jam bands use these, although forms of music are very open to individual interpretation, so the possibilities for improvisation are almost limitless.
Jazz improvisation
Improvisation is one of the basic tenets of jazz. Typically in a jazz piece, the "head" (the song's melody along with any backing harmony) is played once by the musicians and often repeated. Improvisation by any of the musicians follows, and this is typically the longest section of a song as each musician improvises their own melody over the harmonic and rhythmic foundation of the head. When the end of the head is reached it is repeated and a solo's length is specified by the number of repetitions of the head necessary. After one musician has finished improvising, another will begin, and no instrument is forbidden from improvising. A repetition of the head will usually end a jazz piece. There are many variations to this pattern; new sections can be added before and after the head, two musicians can alternatively improvise for short amounts of time (known as "trading"), or several musicians can improvise in a group (collective improvisation is common in Dixieland jazz).
Many varied scales and their modes can be used in improvisation. These mainly depend on the nature of the harmonic framework. Against a C Minor seventh chord, for example, an improvisor would usually have a choice of using C Dorian, C Aeolian, C blues, and others, depending on the situation and personal taste. Chord changes are very important in jazz improvisation as well. Whole solos can be built around chord tones. The variety is achieved with the rhythmic aspects of the solo.
In the bebop era of jazz in the early 1950s there was a common theme of urgency and technical proficiency. Performers would often construct intricate melody lines at speeds of up to 300BPM. These improvisations varied considerably from the song's main melody. The modal era of jazz, mainly started by Miles Davis, moved the harmonic framework for a piece from the fast, dynamic chord progressions of bebop to more static, relaxed chords with longer durations. The prevailing tendency of modal performers was to improvise not over specific chords, but in a musical mode instead. Free jazz performers eschew the explicit harmonic framework for improvisation; the harmony in free jazz is less rigid and less traditional.
Improvisation is absolutely essential for jazz musicians. Illinois Jacquet, for example, is best known for a single solo on the tune Flying Home, and such solos are often transcribed. They are often not written down in the process, but they help musicians practice the jazz idiom. In university jazz programs, transcription tends to be the main weekly assignment in improvisation class. Charlie Parker's improvisations were distinctive, helping to shape the bebop period. Though it is helpful to transcribe on one's own, Parker's solos are often studied in a published collection known as the Omni Book, and groups such as Supersax arrange his solos with their own harmonic backing. Often, an improvised melody can give rise to an entirely new jazz head.
Vocal jazz improvisations is known as scat singing and made up from syllables that help articulate jazz phrasing.
Western Classical Music
Current Trends
Throughout the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, improvisation was a highly valued skill. J.S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and many other famous composers and musicians were known especially for their improvisational skills. Many classical scores contained sections for improvisation, such as the cadenza in concertos. The preludes to some keyboard suites by Bach and Handel, for example, consisted solely of a progression of chords. The performers used these as the basis for their improvisation. Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach all belonged to a tradition of solo improvisation that was not limited to variations, but included the concerto form, typically with moving voices in both hands, occasionally exploring fugue.
Classical musicians are rarely taught to improvise even in professional academe. Ironically, however, while there is something intimidating and (for some) all-too-serious about the bravura of Beethoven, the set of variations Mozart wrote on "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" is very popular, implying that the stereo-typically non-adventurous listener of classical music in fact is drawn to at least this form of improvisation.
With the increasing importance of the written score and the rise of publishing, music that was once performed with improvisation such as baroque music and the cadenza section of concertos are now rarely performed with improvisation. Few classical artists in the world today are known to have improvised publicly on a known or on-the-spot theme, yet in the early 21st century the art is experiencing a revival, and it is taught at such schools as Juilliard and the Martyn Ferenc Free School of Art in Budapest. Top performers include pianists Leslie Howard and Robert D. Levin. On the other hand, there are pianists who blend classical idiom with jazz and rock such as Fazil Say, Gabriela Montero or the David Rees-Williams Trio, and there are the jazz interpretations of John Bayless. The roots of synthesizing jazz and baroque music are not new, however, but date back to earlier artists such as P.D.Q. Bach and The Swingle Singers. Between these two stylistic groups, classicist embellishment and classical-jazz, which are in fact radically different, an unacknowledged controversy may rage. It is the idiomatically more free group that has the widest popularity and list of exponents.[2]
Several excellent pianists also teach improvisation and perform, such as David Dolan, William Goldstein, and Eric Barnhill. It is probable that most of the best concert pianists have explored this art. The pianist who has combined classical improvisation with the most extensive study of theory is Christopher Gontar. On the other hand, in classicist arranging and composing in a manner related to improvisation, Sergio Tiempo is most remarkable. Glenn Gould was said to improvise in the style of Beethoven and others.[3]. There are not yet competitions for this art form, nor is it clear how the different forms will be adjudicated if competitions do arrive. They may never arrive, because of the break between non-idiomatic improvisation and the astute study of embellishment and cadenza. The improvised cadenza is a very creative skill, but it is not a substitute for improvisation of a rondo, sonata, scherzo, or the many other forms that can be composed and played impromptu.
Techniques of Classical Improvisation
Because of the principles of progress and individual expression which oppose anachronism, any purely classical improvisation tends to be the most marginalized. Glenn Gould, in a few of his filmed interviews, declared that all of the potential statements of western music had been exhausted, in the mid-20th century, by which he meant the complete arsenal of basic approaches to composition and expression. For Gould this meant that the best alternative was to promote interpretation, not on the concert stage, but in audio recording and its creative parameters. He was biased against concert performance, and he tried to use recording creatively, while only in a few cases finding traditional interpretation inadequate. For example, he felt that Mozart was sufficiently "jaded" to require unorthodox interpretation. Gould, though himself an improvisor, did not seriously consider that improvisation might provide a diverse alternative to an aging repertoire. Despite his desire for spontaneity, in recordings he found a permanence akin to that of composition.
Improvisors like Say and Montero gravitate towards jazz and a fusion with classical music. It is very difficult to untangle jazz and improvisation (and perhaps not possible or necessary), conceptually or in the popular consciousness.
The Baroque Style
Baroque music offers some not very difficult techniques that can quickly start one on a path to improvising. The pattern of chords in many baroque preludes, for example, can be played over a pedal tone, repeated octaves, or imitative melodic lines in the left hand. A favorite of J.S. Bach's, for example, was the passage from the tonic, to the tonic dominant, to the submediant, to the dominant, and the tonic again. A popular folk melody, on which the Violin Sonata in G Major and the Great Fugue in g minor are based, also figures prominently in Bach themes that move initially from the tonic to the dominant, as an inverse alternative.
This kind of progression, compressed into a short theme, is the basis of many of the fugue subjects in the ''Well-Tempered Clavier''. This ''limits'' the possibility of emulating in an original way the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'' fugues, and makes them a more likely candidate as an improvisatory source. Bach was particularly fond of the sound produced by the dominant seventh harmony played over, i.e., suspended against, the tonic pedal tone. Bach's Cantata BWV 54 uses this suspension as the opening chord in E flat Major.
It is also wise to begin by improvising minuets, and to continue this practice when arriving at Mozart's style.
The polyphony in late baroque music also lends itself to improvisation. One ought to avoid parallel fifths and parallel octaves in this style of classical playing, except perhaps when playing chords in parallel, such as in Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor. If he was indeed the composer, here Bach ignored the prohibition. In later music such exceptions apply more often. Parallel fifths and octaves are noticeable to the ear, if not the more difficult to discern hidden fifths and hidden octaves, which are hard to find even in a written score.
Baroque melodic lines, in any case, are similar to the later homophonic styles, except that more passing tones are added. There is also a more strict pulse in baroque music. But much like the later classical style, in the melodic passage from one scale degree to another there are usually constant shifts between tonic and dominant. One essential harmonic difference, however, may be in baroque harmonic progression, in the pull towards the dominant. In such music as the tonic comes continually to rest on the dominant, it is more like a plagal cadence than in the later style.
There is little or no Alberti bass in baroque keyboard music, and instead the accompanying hand supports the moving lines mostly by contrasting them with longer note values, which themselves have a melodic shape and are mostly placed in consonant harmony. This polarity can be reversed--another useful technique for improvisation--by changing the longer note values to the right hand and playing moving lines in the left at intervals--or with moving lines in both hands, occasionally. This shift of roles between treble and bass is another definitive characteristic. Finally, in keeping with this polarity, the kind of question and answer which appears in baroque music has the appearance of fugue or canon. This method was a favorite in improvisation of Scarlatti and Handel especially at the beginning of a piece, even when not forming a fugue.
To begin learning to improvise short fugues it is helpful to play a fugue subject and attempt to add an answer in another voice, i.e., simply to play an exposition. Or one may begin by playing a one voice improvisation with occasional statements of the subject. If the two voice fugues are practiced consistently, the next step is to add a third voice. Not all of Bach's fugues use the diatonic sequences of harmonies mentioned in the next section, but they are found in similar forms in many of his compositions.
Later Classical Style
Classical music after the baroque period involves less polyphony, and a basso continuo is no longer common. However, it also departs from baroque style in that sometimes several voices may move together as chords involving both hands, to form brief phrases without any passing tones. Though such motifs were used sparingly by Mozart, they were taken up much more liberally by Beethoven and Schubert, who had a more percussive approach to the piano. Such chords appeared to some extent in baroque music, as mentioned before in Bach's organ preludes, toccatas and overtures. But there they were often in one hand or consisted only of a scale or series of more or less equally emphasized chords. Continuing to improvise minuets, one will find that Mozart's and Beethoven's feature percussive harmonies and more accented bass notes not found in Bach.
Schubert's sonatas are closely related to improvisation. His Sonata in c, D. 958, has an introductory theme which Beethoven had created, for his 32 Variations in c, WoO 80.
Beginning with the age of J.C. Bach and W.A. Mozart, musical phrases often form more isolated structures of question and answer. The question phrase might seek a harmonic resolution in the answer, for example, or the answer might follow more like a repetition or echo. Musical phrases, in other words, are characterized by how they end, which is determined by the cadences that they use.
In general, the shorter phrases are, a somewhat greater variety of harmonies is possible. This is often achieved by chromaticism, or by a deceptive cadence that ends in a rather unorthodox way, such as on a dominant or diminished chord. In a drawn out phrase, on the other hand, the options are mainly restricted to the tonic, dominant, and subdominant. But one must never assume that the melody note is the root of the harmony (see below regarding harmony). Adding the supertonic and submediant to the root movement of a phrase tends to have a more high classical sound--archaic, that is, in relation to Beethoven in particular and all later music in general.
Classical phrases can consist of several bars, however, which was the norm in the ''high classical'' style. These typically moved from the tonic to the dominant and back again, in which case even some extra harmonization added in between would be more strict.[4]
Different moods are associated with classical improvisation. Bach's music may be said to have primarily a religious focus, while the second movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 is marked "''affetuoso.''" Bach also shows an admiration or love for nature and mathematical beauty that anticipates much later music. Beethoven and Mozart, on the other hand, cultivated slightly new musical moods. These are often indicated by mood markings such as ''con amore'', ''appassionato'', ''cantabile'', and ''expressivo''. While all music should have some degree of ''cantabile'', ''con amore'' (with love) playing is associated very much with Beethoven and some of his piano works such as the Variations Opus 34, the Diabelli Variations, and Für Elise and other bagatelles. In fact, it is perhaps because improvisation is spontaneous that it is akin to the communication of love.[5]
It is very helpful in classical improvisation, as it is in jazz playing, to break down the major and minor scales by assigning alternative harmonies for each note of the scale. To make this task even simpler, on any instrument, one may begin by playing single notes and experimenting with possible accompaniment harmonies for them as played by a pianist.[6] This may seem to lead to a habitual and oversimplified chordal left hand for the solo pianist, but there are many ways to avoid such constraints. The left hand harmonization can be reversed, for example, by harmonizing bass notes with two or more notes in the right hand. Jazz pianist Barry Harris similarly advises against playing more than a couple of tones in the left hand at once.
Playing three or more voices in such combinations between the hands, a pianist can practice inversions of the triad, which are mainly distinguished by whether the root, mediant, or fifth appear in the bass. These three inversions each have a distinct quality and use. Harmonization can be taken even further when it is applied to passing tones and chromaticism.
An improvisor can practice by "reharmonizing" the major scale for example, by playing the scale tones in succession in the right hand (or left) while providing a progression of single notes, chords, arpeggios with the other hand. It is best to start with the simplest options and work forward. Triplet arpeggios are also common, in various patterns.
The first four notes of the major scale, for example, can be harmonized as I, V, I, V, or I, v (minor), I, IV, or I, V, I, IV, or I, V, VI, ii. Homophonic structure such as this is one of the first steps to improvisation, and it is also the basis of some of the idioms common in mid-18th century homophony. The technique is also reflected in the first fugue theme in C Major in Book I of Bach's ''Well-Tempered Clavier''.
Another useful technique is the harmonization or adding of tones directly within melodic lines. This may involve the use of extra passing tones in a repeating pattern, or a series of arpeggios.
A piano improvisor is helped by observing the distance of certain harmonies from the tonic triad, in terms of cadences and melody, and how one might approach and depart from certain harmonies through modulation. This is important for understanding classical idioms but it does not mean that one must imitate exactly any particular composer. Modulation is greatly aided by the Circle of Fifths, but in two different senses. The true circle of fifths shows all 12 keys usually as major keys. From the point of view of any one of the 12, the circle appears as a series of dominants or subdominants in either direction, depending on how they are interpreted.
An adjusted circle of fifths keeps within the tonic key signature, creating a much shorter circle of modes, each of a ''different'' quality, which still may be adjusted in modulation. The chords created by this diatonic circle, or simply by playing a triad shape through the major scale,[7] help make certain modulations and cadences smoother and less harsh, i.e., they form the secondary dominants. In the late classical style, the supertonic is often used, and would be harmonized as a minor triad (Dorian mode).
The ''adjusted'' or diatonic circle, within a particular key, is played as a sequence, a technique polished in the Baroque period, for the purpose of cadencing either on the tonic or the dominant. Typically in Bach this sequence starts on the tonic, but then moves within the ''dominant'' key. In Mozart, by contrast, at least in the major key version that he typically used, it begins on the dominant or on any tonic chord, and proceeds in the key of the initial harmony of the sequence. Mozart and other classical composers did not revert to the minor key version of such a sequence, which remains a strictly baroque idea.
An improvisor approaches this series of harmonies, in other words, with the question whether to revert to a neighboring key signature. But the goal of the sequence is the dominant in relation to the current key. This sequence was also a very frequent habit of Mozart, who reworked it as part of his individual style, at various tempos. While it is true that the third scale degree, for example, produces a minor triad, in Mozart's embellishment of it (and to some extent Bach's) it is articulated as a Phrygian mode, which reveals its character more clearly.
Though classical music makes use of modes in several ways, it generally differs from jazz, however, in the following way. In both classical and jazz there are frequent accidentals, but in jazz playing these do not usually imply a strong change in the tonic center of a song. In classical music, on the other hand, the harmonic shifts are more emphasized, rather than merely moving from one mode to another--such as in modulation to the supertonic or relative minor (submediant). Jazz, therefore, is more modal.
By introducing a new leading tone in such melodic phrases, classical improvisors tend to impose minor scales within major key phrases. For example, the supertonic and submediant are outlined by melodic lines using the ''melodic minor''--not the modes that correspond to the tonic key signature. The sense of melody and cadence is not quite the same in later jazz (Many late romantic and early modern composers, however, such as Rachmaninov, make harmonic use of modes that are of linear use in jazz such as the fifth mode of the melodic minor, or Mixolydian flat-6).
Mozart, on the other hand, experimented with modal passages a great deal, in particular in the Piano Concerto in c K. 491 (a personal favorite of Beethoven, who played it at his Vienna debut in March, 1795). In the K. 491 there are a few scale passages in the first movement where Mozart appears to have been uncertain about what mode to use, making the accidentals a matter of some debate. In modern jazz one has the option of respecting the modes of harmonies in modulation, playing them as modes, in addition to many further modes derived from the melodic minor and harmonic minor scales themselves.
Typically, the phrase leading to an authentic cadence in Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, and to some extent in Beethoven, is preceded by a deceptive cadence on the submediant, which is also minor (Aeolian mode) to be answered by the authentic cadence. In this case question and answer taken together can be thought of as one phrase.
Improvisors might also reverse the method of harmonization by creating melodies over existing and well-known harmonic progressions, such as Bach's Prelude to the aforementioned fugue, and many other ground basses or passacaglias such as the Spanish Folia. An improvisor who wishes to become more serious about playing variations might then try some of Mozart's arias, which at one time were prime territory. More freedom and inspiration might be derived from applying alternative sections or endings to various sonatas, sonatinas and other works of the 18th or 19th century.
Problems with Classical Improvisation
Within the vast which separates embellishment from fully fledged improvisatory composition can be found the practice of playing variations, which is actually a compositional form, and was originally tonal and predates jazz. As long as it is not agreed whether such improvisation can include elements of jazz and still be considered classical, there is not a consensus on what counts as classical art.
Atonal, modern, or jazz-infused improvisation may result in greater spirituality and originality. Yet this is only likely given a hegemony favoring those elements (i.e., atonality and jazz). A prevailing trend of atonal or jazz-classical improvisation would appear perhaps more contrived than would a prevailing classicism, because of the many essential links, historical, stylistic, and structural, between improvisation and tonality.
A resolution to this difficulty would be required in order for a mixture of these two forms of classical improvisation, technical embellishment and free expression, to be common. That would mean frequent use of forms and expressions typical of the 18th century, which is unlikely for various reasons, including popular views in aesthetics, which affirm as values expression and progress. In addition to that, the old custom of variations seems as if it would be subordinate in the existing regime. Beethoven was the composer and essentially the philosopher of music who attempted to dismantle the break between the banal implications of tonality and the expressive implications of atonality.[8] But Beethoven's prophecy or legacy has no established result or product, and even jazz could arguably be the closest art to resolving the problem.
Jazz, in its freedom from intellectual clutter, is able to sustain improvisation without the need for the kind of overt, tangible analysis of classical music. Instead of inviting philosophical criticism nor being marginalized, despite its obvious contributions to mass culture, jazz rises above at least the negative aspects of popular culture, in a manner epitomized by John Coltrane. [9] It may seem odd not to think of improvisation as the very essence of originality, and yet it involves a great deal of predetermination. The idea of a post-1960's progress in jazz improvisation is elusive and uncertain, and it was jazz more than classical music which shared the climactic status of the 1960's with other arts and social practices. Such deeper questions perhaps occupied such jazz artists as Ornette Coleman.[10]
Improvisation is rare in classical music partly because the audacity and freedom it involves tend to be at odds with certain aspects of musical scholarship. Fugue is another option and is extraordinarily difficult.
The ''contingency'' and possible impermanence of the improvised work itself are other factors that make it either subordinate to, or perhaps of a special higher value than unhindered, procedural composition. This raises questions about the nature of art and art's permanence. For example, it might be held that in the case of Mozart who could produce compositions of relatively equal quality in improvisation as otherwise, improvised works might stand as valuable in virtue of their very contingency and non-recoverability, as easily as they might be devalued for those reasons.
On the other hand, and ironically, anachronism is perhaps the main problem with improvisation.
Just as they affirm cultural diversity and spirituality, modern musicians and composers oppose anachronism, and so did most earlier western composers, who were as a rule stylistically progressive. This somewhat resists the very concept of improvisation in this field, mainly for reasons of tonality and the use of familiar forms. Improvisors usually play solo, and they tend to rely on a preceding statement or phrase for their response, or on the immediacy of a fortuitous experience. Improvisors may thus be inspired in a way otherwise more elusive to composition. Because of such stylistic dependency and immediacy, classical improvisors operate at a distance from procedural composition, and essentially for that reason they lean toward anachronism. Classical improvisation is also forever evocative of certain cultural and social practices, which tend to call to mind antiquated musical styles, though the gestures of musical expression themselves may be considered timeless. To say that improvisation was "spontaneous" would have a double meaning, since it may not be clear if what is meant is its immediacy in time, or its freedom of content.
Furthermore, alternatively applying classical improvisation to modern music ''does'' to some extent simplify the question of how originality is to be achieved. However, this can be done in two ways, either by jettisoning or entirely reshaping form, or by playing classical forms atonally.
Moreover, it is the former option of these two that is relatively free of problems and objections, while there is a strain in the juxtaposition of atonality with forms belonging to tonality. Adorno, for example, found the combination of fugue with atonality to be "functionless and technically false."[11] Adorno's argument, directed at composers, here can be applied to other forms, however, and in improvisation as well. Improvisors, in other words, tend to fall into a polarity of theme and accompaniment reminiscent of fugue just as do composers. Also, just as in fugue, composers and improvisors tend to explore the ideas of reprise and development characteristic of the sonata and suite. But Adorno's concern is mainly that of anachronism. His argument is that, though forms can be inspiring (Formen wirken zuzeiten inspirierend) and are important to authenticity, "the construction of a predeterminant form acquires an 'as if' quality that contributes to its own destruction."[12] As a result, to take Adorno's pronouncements seriously, the only way that improvisation could be authentically modern would be if form were dealt with very carefully, either by being created anew or given some meaningful adjustment. If Adorno's position seems unrealistic only in the case of improvisation, perhaps that is because improvisors have a daunting task, which has its own special significance as a form of composition.
Adorno's focus on fugue as the paradigm case of modern anachronism seems unnecessarily specific, as if he were trying to strengthen authenticity by appealing to its most outrageous transgression, a simultaneous return to both tonality and counterpoint.[13] Adorno is therefore misleading, and implies a much more general claim about anachronism. Adorno did not mention improvisation, but in the sense that it can be equivalent to composition, everything that is said about predeterminant form applies to it, i.e., any prohibition against anachronism as pseudo-art. This is compounded with other more subjective ways in which archaic classical music treads warily on the modern ear. Those who become accustomed to atonality, for example, claim that this causes classical music to sound rustic, or as it is said, "hokey" (an impression also sometimes referred to as twangy).[14] This view itself, however, is also sometimes taken automatically, without comparison to modern forms.
Though composers first began to resist archaism in a departure from counterpoint in the mid-18th century and the rise of the high classical style, the prohibition against tonality is a 20th century phenomenon. It may affirm the contemporary view of new historicism, though that applies mainly to literature and the decorative arts.
Historical Development
It is appropriate to discuss Western Classical music last because it really represents the exception rather than the rule in music making. Improvisation is such a natural mode of music making that its absence should be regarded as unusual. It should also be recognised that it is only in relatively recent history that improvisation has essentially dropped out of Western Classical music completely. As dance, for example, became more generalized in form, improvisation lost a great deal of its individuality with respect to form, placing more of the task of differentiation on the solo interpreter himself. After this event, the era of expressionism had begun to develop. Composers did not want to return to trying new combinations of old materials. Instead, they entered into a period of radical structural exploration, that helped give rise to modernism. On this view, modernism arises as a reactionary movement to romantic banality, but at the same time modernism retained something of the kind of expressivism achieved by Beethoven, which is said to involve a ''truth content'' in addition to a purely sensual or emotive aspect.[15]
The exhaustiveness of theory and technique, in the mid-Romantic period, moreover, also gave rise to skepticism about the spirituality of music, issues faced by Wagner (see modernism and existentialism). Wagner, in turn, and his milieu are believed to have inspired the beginnings of modernism, and new modes of individual, more spiritual expression which, for better or worse, took Beethoven as their ultimate guide. Though there were exceptions, some such new views were opposed to improvisation as belonging to a casual, non-intellectual creative process (for which it is arguable they were entirely off the mark), or were too pre-occupied to take it up. At the same time, the romantic period still produced composers who were very much interested in improvisation, such as Brahms.
Finally, improvisation was a divertissement of the aristocracy, whose self-identity changed dramatically after the early 19th century.
These trends appear to have had their beginnings in the period just after Beethoven, but only finally reached completion in the last quarter of the 19th Century, which also coincides closely with the emergence of atonality. The process also suggests a correlation between improvisation and the popularity and familiarity of music, linking it to the greatly varied melodies of opera and folk music.
Such issues of musical form are dealt with at length by Adorno in his 1970 treatise, most recently translated into English by Robert Hullot-Kentor as Aesthetic Theory. This is considered the definitive text for questions of anachronism, modernism and form in art and music.
Beethoven and Mozart leave excellent examples of what their improvisations were like, in the sets of variations and the sonatas which they published, and in their cadenzas. It is also known that the duels in which they competed featured practices similar to jazz, such as the famous "trading fours" and trading eights, in which jazz musicians share choruses of a standard tune, often with some degree of competitive spirit recalling the cutting contests of the Harlem stride era.
Mozart left an unfinished Fantasia in d minor, and a harmonic prelude that he intended to serve as exemplary of his habitual modulations when improvising. Beethoven, on the other hand, expressed regret at how little he had finally published in terms of keyboard instruction (his planned "piano method"), and his hard-won improvisatory battles over such rivals as Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Joseph Woelfl are relegated to obscure legends, informed by published themes with variations. But it is clear that Beethoven emerged triumphant from among a large society of Viennese keyboard improvisors who were determined to wrest the top position from him.
The improvisations of Mozart and Beethoven, however had no true rivals in their time. Furthermore, theme variation and keyboard exploration were essential avenues by which they conceived music. Many of Beethoven's themes, especially those belonging to the heroic period, for example, focus heavily on the first inversion of the major triad, melodically, and this triadic signature of Beethoven's can be traced to certain themes of Mozart such as the "Ah, Perdona, al Primo Affetto" duet from Mozart's ''La clemenza di Tito''. Beethoven played variations on this aria during one of his concerts in Prague in the late 1790's, (possibly at the famous 'Konvikt' residence which is today a bar on the ground floor).
As composers Beethoven and Mozart were not distinguished so much by altering the established modulatory and melodic vocabularies, but by molding these vocabularies into a personal signature that left the established structures largely intact. Adorno described Mozart's musical texture as an unshakable formal rigor always pushed to the brink of apparent chaos. Beethoven's, on the other hand, he described with somewhat more reverence as a "continuum of nothing" indicating again its extemporaneous quality. Adorno credited Beethoven with making the high classical style capable of individual expression, but this claim is quite debatable.
Improvisation is a form of composition. To improvise in the late 18th and early 19th century style without departing from it for reasons of individual expression or theory would be to compose in it. The difficulties inherent in this are impressing individual expression into tonal music, and avoiding the social implications and historical trappings that belong to the period in which the style was popular. It is probably this set of dilemmas, and not the intimidating genius of either Bach or Beethoven, that prevents such anachronistic improvisation on a wide scale.
Original score notations for medieval organ music commonly include instructions for improvisation and embellishments. The scales that were used were selected according to the same improvisational principles now used in jazz. When the single voice plainsong started to develop into the 2-, 3-, or 4-part organum (during the period 1000-1300 A.D.), one or more of the parts were also commonly improvised, weaving free counter-lines around the written melody line.
Improvised accompaniment over a figured bass was a common practice during the Baroque era, and to some extent the following periods.
There is one exception to the general pattern of loss in classical improvisation and that is in the role of the church organist. The organist's role includes the necessity of accompanying the movement of liturgy and filling voids of silence during church services, and guide the congregation in singing. This practice precludes the use of written music, primarily due to the extent, as well as the harmonic simplicity of the liturgy and hymns for which there is little or no pre-arranged accompaniment. As a result all practical organists are expected to extemporise in a manner appropriate to the atmosphere of the service.
Within the upper ranks of church and cathedral organists, particularly in France, one is expected to be able to improvise in all compositional forms, including symphonic and sonata forms, and fugue.
Improvisation and Contemporary Composition
Since the 1950s, contemporary composers have placed fewer restrictions on the improvising performer, using techniques such as vague notation (for example, indicating only that a certain number of notes must sound within a defined period of time). New Music ensembles formed around improvisation were founded, such as Lukas Foss' Improvisation Chamber Ensemble at the University of California, Los Angeles; Larry Austin's New Music Ensemble at the University of California, Davis; the ONCE Group at Ann Arbor; the Sonic Arts Group; and the San Francisco Tape Music Center, the latter three funding themselves through concerts, tours, and grants. Significant pieces include Foss's ''Time Cycles'' (1960) and ''Echoi'' (1963). (Von Gunden 1983, p.32)
Other composers working with improvisation include Vangelis, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Karlheinz Essl, Christian Wolff, John Zorn (for example ''Game Pieces'', including ''Cobra''), and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Improvisation in Mainstream Music
Examples of famous rock groups who use improvisation as a composition tool:
★ Genesis (band) - Much of their album material stemmed from a studio improvisation.
★ Grateful Dead
★ Pink Floyd (Live at Pompeii)
★ Primus - Are known to go on lengthy improvisational jams during shows.
★ Can - Have been known to do extremely lengthy improvisations and once did a show that lasted for 6 hours.
★ Sonic Youth (Sonic Death)
★ The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East
★ Frank Zappa
★ Bruce Hornsby - All of his work from 1990 onward.
★ Phish - Phish wrote music and played it in the studio, then jammed to it and improvised on the stage.
★ Cream- Many of their live performances are improvisational jams.
★ The Necks - Live performances are improvisational pieces of up to an hour in length.
★ Led Zeppelin - Many songs during live performances, including Dazed and Confused, would last up to a half an hour.
★ The Mars Volta
★ Red Hot Chili Peppers - A large amount of their live shows are improvisational.
See also
★ Free improvisation
★ Improvisation in music therapy
★ Impro-Visor (software)
★ Indian Classical Music
★ Comparative View of Jazz and Indian Classical Music
★ List of free improvising musicians and groups
★ Musical collectives
★ Musics (magazine)
★ Prepared Piano
★ Prepared guitar
★ 3rd bridge guitar
Bibliography
★ Adorno, Theodor W. transl. Hullot-Kentor, Robert. ''Aesthetic Theory''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
★ Nachmanovitch, Stephen. 1990. ''Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art.'' Penguin-Putnam, New York.
★ Bailey, Derek. 1992. "Improvisation." Da Capo Press. Philadelphia, 146 p.
★ Berliner, Paul. 1994. ''Thinking in Jazz: the Infinite Art of Improvisation'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press)
★ Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra. "Piano Improvisation Develops Musicianship." ''Orff-Echo'' XXXVII No. 1 (2004): 11-14.
★ Von Gunden, Heidi (1983). ''The Music of Pauline Oliveros''. ISBN 0-8108-1600-8.
★ Lucy Hall (2002). ''They're just making it up - Whatever happened to improvisation in classical music?'' The Guardian 22/02/2002
References
1. In some speakers of American English, the word "tunes" is used to refer to all forms of popular music, but this expression is not universal.
2. It is possible to compare such a divergence of aesthetic views to the debate in literary studies between Harold Bloom and his opposing supporters of multiculturalism, such as Nikki Giovanni.
3. Friedrich, Otto. Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations
4. The shortening of phrases and greater harmonic exploration are aspects of the nominalist turn or "nominalist assault" as Adorno describes the changes brought about by Beethoven. Aesthetic Theory, p. 141. Adorno means by a "nominalism" in music the treating of certain elements in isolation or more as pure sound, which was a new degree of freedom from formality.
5. It has been suggested that the opening chords of Beethoven's Sonata Opus 78, having the characteristic of a prelude, communicate feelings for a young lady then in Beethoven's life, possibly Josephine von Brunswick. (In Heinrich Schenker's remarks in his edition of Beethoven's Sonatas, vol. 2, Dover Publications.) Beethoven also dedicated the so-called "Moonlight" Sonata, a piece with certain improvisatory characteristics, to his fiancée, Giulietta Guicciardi. For example, this sonata is near in its tonic key as well as other factors to Mozart's d minor "fantasy," secondly the second movement returns to a signature theme of Beethoven's, and finally the third movement features elements of theme and variation.
6. In jazz, where it is also important, this results in a much greater harmonic palette.
7. The manner in which these modes are to be treated in modulation is not peremptory, and could account for the distinct sound of an improvisor or composer.
8. It is astonishing that Beethoven's efforts preceded the problem of form versus expression as it appeared to later composers, making it appear almost as if he were the creator of the dilemma itself.
9. However, some jazz scholars make use of psychology and philosophy, such as Ellis Marsalis. Irvin Mayfield has said that classical music compromised its spirituality by becoming "too analytical," which may have become necessary in order for it to fulfill its version of stylistic progress.
10. Miles Davis, moreover, was sensitive to a lack of spontaneity in many jazz soloists, a concern that helped give rise to his stylistic developments, some of which proved more controversial than others.
11. Aesthetic Theory, p. 200
12. Konstruktion der vorgegebenen Form aber wird zum Als ob und trägt bei zu ihrer Zerstörung. p. 298 German ed.
13. Adorno does not mention, in any case, that fugue itself underwent an evolution. Bach exhausted the thematic and modulatory vocabulary of the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'', to the extent that further emulation is redolent of variation and theme, as Joseph Woelfl and many other composers show. Bach turned to earler ideas in polyphony in order to write ''The Art of The Fugue''.
14. Not a technical musical term, this conveys more than the idea of trite and hackneyed, but implies something of the simplicity of earlier music. It also implies something about the subordination of music and art at a time when that mode of artistic creation was exhausted and gave way to individual expression.
15. For Adorno, classical music and Beethoven in particular have a truth content on the one hand, and on the other hand, and relatedly, also an ecstatic contemplation of the oneness of things.
Articles
★ Improvisation on ''Improvisation'': Karlheinz Essl and Jack Hauser talking about musical improvisation
★ Losing Control: Indeterminacy and Improvisation in Music Since 1950: by Sabine Feisst
★ A Jazz Improvisation Primer by Marc Sabatella Information about jazz improvisation.
External links
★ improvising for guitar in wikibooks
★ improvising for harmonica in wikibooks
★ International Society for Improvised Music
★ Music for People catalyst in gathering people together to play and sing by creating safe environments in which they can explore music improvisation
★ Thoughts on Improvisation in Classical Music
★ Robert Levin on Improvisation in Classical Music
★ The History of Improvisation
★ BBC Music Magazine October 2006 – Volume 15 Number 2 ''Geoffrey Smith looks at the resurgence of improvisation in classical performances''
★ How to Improvise Jazz Melodies, by Bob Keller
★ iwasdoingallright:Learning to Improvise Several articles discussing the challenges most people face with jazz improvisation. Includes free online ear training tools with jazz improvisation exercises.
★ Learn Jazz Guitar Improvisational Jazz Guitar Information
★ Improvisation and the Classical Musician Blog and book-in-progress by cellist Eric Edberg
★ The Daily Improvisation Blog of improvised music and articles by pianist and Dalcroze teacher Eric Barnhill
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