For Ted

[pianowolfi]

Well today I sat at the piano for the first time after having been sick for two days, I had missed it and it was good to be there again and starting to explore things! I thought somehow of Ted during this improv, probably because there are many fast figurations that reminded of his style.

[birba]

I was just curious.  IMprov has always been an enigma to me.  I mean I understand jazz improv to a certain extent, but there is a definite pattern and outline there.  This free improv I'm sort of puzzled about.  Do you mean you don't think one iota before beginning and it's like you're just listening to the gods  or your "innerself"?  You never know where you're headed?  I guess I should just break down and try it myself.  Give me a hint.   

[ted]

Thanks Wolfi, that was a nice surprise ! 1:08 to 1:18 is indeed very like me; I would have been very happy about producing that cell, with its sinister, irregular bass motif. Bill Harris, whose essays on improvisation are still the best on the internet, told me in a letter after I posted him a CD of my stuff, that he liked the way I often "almost repeat" cells exactly four times. I didn't know I did that, but he was right ! You must have picked up on it too, perhaps unconsciously.  Well done !

[ted]

I was just curious.  IMprov has always been an enigma to me.  I mean I understand jazz improv to a certain extent, but there is a definite pattern and outline there.  This free improv I'm sort of puzzled about.  Do you mean you don't think one iota before beginning and it's like you're just listening to the gods  or your "innerself"?  You never know where you're headed?  I guess I should just break down and try it myself.  Give me a hint.   

This answer applies to me and is not necessarily valid for other improvisers.

Yes, no and sometimes. The things I plan beforehand are usually of necessity general matters, vague enough not to inhibit dynamic flow, which must always be given complete freedom. For instance, in that thread where we all improvised on the Wilson/McPartland motif, I realised that certain general things were going to occur before I started. I was going to use two styles in more or less alternating short episodes, one blue, the other romantic. I was also going to put it through the twelve keys, juxtaposed but not harmonically related in the usual sense. Because the tune was initially in F minor I knew that I was going to start accompanying it with the other hand in D minor - for the blues combinations. How I would round it off I hadn't a clue before starting.

For myself, I don't believe in "trying out" stuff before an improvisation, and I didn't in that case. But I do remember thinking about it while in the garden.

But no, you're right, that was exceptional in that in most cases I just sit down and start with nothing. Usually around ten minutes into it, a feedback loop establishes itself, producing a torrent of ideas over which the conscious "I" in the usual sense has no control and becomes an interested spectator. One of my personal weak points is that I like neither endings nor beginnings. Endings still cause me a great deal of discomfort, if only because the state of extreme pleasure must be brought to a close. When I used tape I just played until it ran out, but with this Zoom thing nothing runs out and I have to invent an ending or hope that the phone rings. It's a damn nuisance. Beginnings aren't so bad aside from the fact that most of mine are weak.

The big difference about learning to improvise - and it is a lifetime process - is that you begin with a state of freedom and gradually, over time, work toward order. This learning process is so greatly at variance with the serial, step by step, teaching conventions, not just in music but in everything else, that people, especially highly trained adults find it almost impossible. Most children, of course, are as yet uncontaminated by wearisome serial disciplines and inhibitions, and have no difficulty at all.

I think many prior discussions exist here, involving m1469, quantum, Bernhard, Derek, Wolfi and several others, about specific ways to instigate the habit of improvisation ( there is no single "right" way or easy "method" applicable to all individuals I'm afraid) so have a read through them.

[pianowolfi]

I was just curious.  IMprov has always been an enigma to me.  I mean I understand jazz improv to a certain extent, but there is a definite pattern and outline there.  This free improv I'm sort of puzzled about.  Do you mean you don't think one iota before beginning and it's like you're just listening to the gods   or your "innerself"?  You never know where you're headed?  I guess I should just break down and try it myself.  Give me a hint.  

You can listen to yourself, or the gods, or your inner self, you can think a lot, sometimes even for decades, or you might think only for one second, or it can be entirely unprepared and spontaneous. There are many approaches, many individual inspirational factors, and many starting points. However, at some point there appears this deep desire to play "that particular thing" and that's the moment that counts, and you have no more time to think, it just happens, quasi out of time, and "afterwards" (those quotation marks are there because you really feel like being out of time) you ask yourself where you are and how you got there. These are the best moments

[Derek]

Once you reach a certain level of experience with improvisation you realize that almost any initial bit of musical material can be turned into something interesting. In other words, once you get the hang of creating some random musical fragment, you learn to pay attention to things in that random mass of notes that feel good or right, that seem to want to push you in a certain direction melodically, harmonically, or rhythmically. The hard thing to understand for the uninitiated is that the generation of much of the material can happen before you consciously think about it. But once you hear it, there's a feeling of "pull" on you. Kind of like, when you're listening to a piece that is well known, you may anticipate where you feel the music is going. It is a similar feeling, only the anticipation is not because there's some common progression or because you've heard the piece before, but because the music is inside you and must come out.

A lot of people kill off their ability to improvise by developing a habit of declaring that whatever they are creating is rubbish and cannot go anywhere. By creating this negative atmosphere in one's mind, if something interesting or with a good feeling appears within randomness, one cannot respond to it because one has already declared it is not worthwhile. It's like panning for gold, only once you "connect," the nuggets of gold suddenly shine brightly and you can see them glowing in the pile of sediment, and they start to get bigger, until every grain of sediment is actually a fleck of gold. I can't say I always get in this state yet, but it does happen more and more as time goes on.

[birba]

It's daunting... I don't know, yet.     I'm very intrigued by the idea.

[Derek]

It need not be daunting if you start simple, and have the capacity to enjoy simple things. If you're used to playing complex masterworks, it may take practice to coax yourself to again enjoy simplicity. But it may be a step that you need to take if you wish to learn improvisation. You may have to get used to being a beginner again. The funny thing is, no matter how much you grow as an improviser, you will actually always feel like a beginner because of how infinite music is. It is impossible to level out.

One thing pianists take for granted is that many of them have teachers or academic colleagues who can give them feedback. As improvisers, there are fewer such people available to help us grow. This website is a good resource, obviously, but another resource is yourself. Recording yourself can help with improvisation as much as it does with playing repertoire. Especially in the beginning. I remember lots of times when I was a beginner at improv, listening to recordings I made and thinking: "hey, that was kinda cool, I didn't even know I did that." As though I was able to videotape myself panning for gold, and saw a fleck that I missed while the video was being taken. Does that make sense?

[m1469]

some point there appears this deep desire to play "that particular thing" and that's the moment that counts, and you have no more time to think, it just happens, quasi out of time, and "afterwards" (those quotation marks are there because you really feel like being out of time) you ask yourself where you are and how you got there. These are the best moments

I like this statement .  You have fancy fingers here, Wolfi.  It's fun to hear a different style from you - thanks for posting .

[edit] ohhh ... I am listening as I go.  I like this calmer section very much, too!

[pianowolfi]

Thank you m1469! I'm listening again now, I didn't remember that I played sooo many notes, haha!    

[m1469]

I didn't remember that I played sooo many notes, haha!  

 A rather interesting-to-me concept that I've recently percolated over is that the same amount of time is passing in real or absolute time, regardless of fast or slow playing/sound.  In a relative sense, it doesn't always seem that way and if there is an aim to play fast, one can inadvertently think that they must have the ability to speed up time.  Lately I am very interested in this absolute time.  

[pianowolfi]

Chronos, time..hmm... good point. Some say that time per se is relative. Maybe time is relative, means it has to do with relations between entities, beings.

[m1469]

I think that in the relative perception, much more complex matters may be occurring when there seems a kind of simplicity in the midst of it.   I think this is when, perhaps, a person may be playing faster and more notes, etc., than it might seem in the time.

Lately, aside from the perception of relativity (and currently I believe relativity is only a perception, humanly scientifically supported, but a perception all the same), I become aware ever so slightly of different form of time, which involves everything existing all together, at once, in a kind of complete way.  It seems a good word for it is 'absolute' time and, it is connected to music being actually breathing, and actually alive.  I just started in a more conscious way with this, but my theory is that should there be a direct connection with this absolute time, music will be a living experience for all individuals involved, and that it would be my goal to do this.

[chopinatic]

Really powerful, virtuosic playing. Some amazing textures and fantasic clarity all the way through. A pleasure to listen too. What were you recording on?

[Derek]

Ted's probably my biggest influence musically when I improvise freely. I don't deliberately or consciously try to incorporate aspects of his style but they do come out sometimes. And the funny thing is, the parts that I would identify as "influenced by Ted" don't really sound like Ted. But anyway, this improvisation sounded like it was "for Ted" too.

[ted]

As I hear it, Ted is present in the cellular form but not in the cell content. The harmony and more particularly the rhythm is not Ted but Derek. This is good because it tends to show cellular form is invariant and effective over content and style; something I suspected might be the case.