Well I'd like to draw attention to the opposite, what comes out of us as "composed" is actually suppressed improvisation
What is the difference between these two anyway? We know that Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu was supposedly improvised on the fly by our beloved Fryderyk..The name itself means improvised fantasy..And still we know that there are at least 2 versions of this piece that differ quite a bit from each other, not talking about p,f,ff markings but vastly differrent notes in the right hand in at least two different sections..So an impro turned into compo?! But what defines that happening? The fact that you notate it?-in those days yes..But how about today? Doesn't the fact that we record our stuff and put it up online for everyone to hear precisely turn them into compositions aswell?!
First of all, thank you for your thoughts because this is helping me very much to clarify some matters for myself. I enjoy your drawing my attention to the opposite, that what comes out as "composed" could actually be suppressed improvisation, and there is certainly a level to that which I do fully agree on. When I'm playing repertoire that I truly have a handle on, it turns into something of an improvisation and that same spirit comes out in me (which is extremely fun

). Interestingly, that doesn't have to exclude prescribed materials, either!
I have so many thoughts rolling around who are trying to all be one thought! Right now, there is a certain characteristic to the sound of improvisation (especially a few of the recordings here which I have listened to recently, as well as a certain sound I've heard in years past), where I might describe it as a kind of free flow. I sense that I hear the improvisor connecting to a kind of flow which is as though the improvisor hopped into a river raft and got onto this river and is going for a ride. Even though form may surface, and even though choices may be getting made, what comes out for the listener doesn't *have* to be much of anything, necessarily besides this kind of flow, yet it *could* include a great deal. An improvisor may be in this flow and that is something which can be felt by others, but textually speaking, there may not be any significant events to speak of (though there also might be). The same could be said of certain compositions, yes, but with the improvisations of my own which I choose to keep, they are the ones which stand out to me as having something of an event within them.
When it comes to composition, I tend to agree with what I understand to be Rachmaninov's thoughts, in that there is one main climax in each piece, though not to exclude the fact that there can be other important points, as well. In my opinion, if there is one main event taking place within the text, everything else is somehow either leading up to it or leading away from it, even if within that everything else there is pulse and beauty and so many other characteristics. Now, I 'get' that there doesn't have to be necessarily a big event within the text in order for it to be a composition, but this is where my own personal thoughts and feelings on music tend to come into my life.
What I feel IS very eventful, and it's as though this kind of eventfulness needs definition, it needs to come out. Yet, strangely, it could be nearly represented in a single note. To hint at it, what I feel/hear within me is something like taking both your arms and dropping them onto the piano keys and evenly striking every single note into full tone at once. That would be a piano-reduction though ... hee hee. What I feel/hear is just this huge wave of sound, color, and what seems to be every morsel of existence (all that seems to be sound and even all that doesn't), all that ever did exist and all that ever will exist, but as though it is all occurring at once. It's something like being in a pitch black room and somebody suddenly opening the curtains to a blast of white light, and that white light just completely knocking your senses silly and changing your entire world. And, once the person has acclimated to the white light, there is this calmness in real time, just this awareness of breath ... and that's as though every individual on the planet has instrument in hand, poised and waiting to play in symphony together, the birds and the mountains and the seas, all the animals are also poised and listening and ready to be a part of this.
And then, it's like ... okay, so ... uh ... what do we play? haha.
oops, I lost the thread of what I'm trying to say! My point is, it seems to me, that the "point" and purpose of improvisation is more to feel that flow and can even be meant more for the improvisor than for an outside listener. Whereas, the point or purpose of a composition is to reveal events, but ideally includes a kind of flow found within improvisation. Perhaps this is all just my perception which *might* be the exact thing making me feel like I'm in a box, I don't know, and therefore it needs to be altered. Or, maybe I just need to better define all of this in sound. I'm not sure! But, what I have decided is that even if I have this huge sound in me, even if I have a sort of ideal somewhere in some distant land, it's OK for me to do things which don't necessarily fully communicate this. That's what I feel I most need to realize right now. Yes, I'm always working in my playing to be better defining these things, but it's okay if everything I do isn't expressing the most huge sound I can imagine right now ... I mean, I should be allowed to still play even if it's not, and most likely I've got learning to do and footsteps to take in order to communicate properly.