Impromti

[communist]

imprompti are improvisations by the composer that they give no thought before it and sit at the piano and just start playing. If this is the case how do they score it down? do they have someone else with perfect pitch just write it down? or do they just try to remember what they played?

thanks ahead

[m19834]

I have wondered this myself !!  And, with regard to "Fantasia," as well. 

[furtwaengler]

I know in certain cases, Horowitz transcriptions, Art Tatum's jazz, etc. improvisations have been dictated by study of the recordings. I saw in a store a written out improvisation of one, Charles Ives, which I believe also was written down by someone other than Ives...must have been taped. However I have from experience, improvised onto the page, this without an instrument, and I'm sure others have done so. Improvisation is the bases of so much inspiration, I can image a single idea springing forth like a seed, which grows into a tree in the compositional process. I don't know if that answers anything.

[prometheus]

Imprompti aren't improvised.

Improvisations are given a lot of thought. If you are a jazz musician you have to have very clear working frames to improvise. Especially considering you play with other people and you can't read their minds while playing. You can't read their minds period.
Basically a jazz musician never plays something during a concert she never played before. You don't need to create new words to say something you make up on the spot. You almost never say something you memorized beforehand. Almost everything you say you 'improvise'. But you need to learn the language, the words and the grammar first.

You can transcribe any piece of music. When you transcribe a piece of music it makes no difference to you if it was improvised or not. You may be able to tell. But it is very easy to improvise something that looks composed and to compose something that looks improvised. Also, you don't need perfect pitch to do so. If you can hear music you can theoretically write it down. You just need practice to do it better and to do it with more difficult music.