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| Improvisation plays
a central role in jazz; musicians learn
progressions using scale and chord tones
(Pictured is Johnny Hodges). |
Improvisation
Musical improvisation (also known as musical
extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate
("in the moment") musical composition, which combines
performance with communication of emotions and
instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response
to other musicians. Sometimes musical ideas in
improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord
changes in classical music and many other kinds of
music. One definition is a "performance given extempore
without planning or preparation". Another definition is
to "play or sing (music) extemporaneously, by inventing
variations on a melody or creating new melodies, rhythms
and harmonies". Encyclopædia Britannica defines it as
"the extemporaneous composition or free performance of a
musical passage, usually in a manner conforming to
certain stylistic norms but unfettered by the
prescriptive features of a specific musical text.
Improvisation is often done within (or based on) a
pre-existing harmonic framework or chord progression.
Improvisation is a major part of some types of
20th-century music, such as blues, rock music, jazz, and
jazz fusion, in which instrumental performers improvise
solos, melody lines and accompaniment parts.
Throughout the eras of the Western art music tradition,
including the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical,
and Romantic periods, improvisation was a valued skill.
J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt,
and many other famous composers and musicians were known
especially for their improvisational skills.
Improvisation might have played an important role in the
monophonic period. The earliest treatises on polyphony,
such as the Musica enchiriadis (ninth century), indicate
that added parts were improvised for centuries before
the first notated examples. However, it was only in the
fifteenth century that theorists began making a hard
distinction between improvised and written music. |
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In Western music
Medieval period
Although melodic improvisation was an important factor
in European music from the earliest times, the first
detailed information on improvisation technique appears
in ninth-century treatises instructing singers on how to
add another melody to a pre-existent liturgical chant,
in a style called organum. Throughout the Middle Ages
and Renaissance, improvised counterpoint over a cantus
firmus (a practice found both in church music and in
popular dance music) constituted a part of every
musician's education, and is regarded as the most
important kind of unwritten music before the Baroque
period.
Renaissance period
Following the invention of music printing at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, there is more
detailed documentation of improvisational practice, in
the form of published instruction manuals, mainly in
Italy. In addition to improvising counterpoint over a
cantus firmus, singers and instrumentalists improvised
melodies over ostinato chord patterns, made elaborate
embellishments of melodic lines, and invented music
extemporaneously without any predetermined schemata.
Keyboard players likewise performed extempore, freely
formed pieces.
Baroque period
The kinds of improvisation practised during the
Renaissance—principally either the embellishing of an
existing part or the creation of an entirely new part or
parts—continued into the early Baroque, though important
modifications were introduced. Ornamentation began to be
brought more under the control of composers, in some
cases by writing out embellishments, and more broadly by
introducing symbols or abbreviations for certain
ornamental patterns. Two of the earliest important
sources for vocal ornamentation of this sort are
Giovanni Battista Bovicelli's Regole, passaggi di musica
(1594), and the preface to Giulio Caccini's collection,
Le nuove musiche (1601/2).
Classical period
Classical music 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. Such chords also appeared to
some extent in baroque keyboard music, such as the 3rd
movement theme in Bach's Italian Concerto. But at that
time such a chord often appeared only in one clef at a
time, (or one hand on the keyboard) and did not form the
independent phrases found more in later music. Adorno
mentions this movement of the Italian Concerto as a more
flexible, improvisatory form, in comparison to Mozart,
suggesting the gradual diminishment of improvisation
well before its decline became obvious.
Romantic period
Extemporization, both in the form of introductions to
pieces, and links between pieces, continued to be a
feature of keyboard concertising until the early
20th-century. Amongst those who practised such
improvisation were Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Anton
Rubinstein, Paderewski, Percy Grainger and Pachmann.
Improvisation in the area of 'art music' seems to have
declined with the growth of recording. |
|
Contemporary
Jazz
Improvisation is one of the basic elements that sets
jazz apart from other types of music. The unifying
moments in improvisation that take place in live
performance are understood to encompass the performer,
the listener, and the physical space that the
performance takes place in. Even if improvisation is
also found outside of jazz, it may be that no other
music relies so much on the art of "composing in the
moment", demanding that every musician rise to a certain
level of creativity that may put the performer in touch
with his or her unconscious as well as conscious states.
The educational use of improvised jazz recordings is
widely acknowledged. They offer a clear value as
documentation of performances despite their perceived
limitations. With these available, generations of jazz
musicians are able to implicate styles and influences in
their performed new improvisations. Many varied scales
and their modes can be used in improvisation. They are
often not written down in the process, but they help
musicians practice the jazz idiom.
Contemporary classical music
With the notable exception of liturgical improvisation
on the organ, the first half of the twentieth century is
marked by an almost total absence of actual
improvisation in art music. Since the 1950s, some
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 the Scratch
Orchestra in England; Musica Elettronica Viva in Italy;
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 Sonics, the latter three funding themselves
through concerts, tours, and grants. Significant pieces
include Foss Time Cycles (1960) and Echoi (1963). |
|
Contemporary popular music
British and American psychedelic rock acts of the 1960s
and 1970s used improvisations to express themselves in a
musical language. The progressive rock genre also began
exploring improvisation as a musical expression, e.g.
Henry Cow. |
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|
 Kiddle: Musical improvisation
Wikipedia: Musical improvisation |
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