Musical improvisation (also known asmusical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment")musical composition, which combines performance with communication ofemotions andinstrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to othermusicians.[1] Sometimesmusical ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based onchord changes inclassical music[1] and many other kinds of music. One definition is a "performance given extempore without planning or preparation".[2] Another definition is to "play or sing (music) extemporaneously, by inventingvariations on a melody or creating new melodies, rhythms and harmonies".[2]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."[3] Improvisation is often done within (or based on) a pre-existing harmonic framework orchord progression. Improvisation is a major part of some types of 20th-century music, such asblues,rock music,jazz, andjazz fusion, in which instrumental performers improvise solos, melody lines and accompaniment parts.
Throughout the eras of theWestern art music tradition, including theMedieval,Renaissance,Baroque,Classical, andRomantic 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 onpolyphony, such as theMusica 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.[4]
Some classical music forms contained sections for improvisation, such as thecadenza in soloconcertos, or thepreludes to some keyboard suites by Bach and Handel, which consist of elaborations of a progression of chords, which performers are to use as the basis for their improvisation. Handel and Bach frequently improvised on theharpsichord orpipe organ. In the Baroque era, performers improvisedornaments, andbasso continuo keyboard players improvisedchord voicings based onfigured bass notation. However, in the 20th and early 21st century, ascommon practice Westernart music performance became institutionalized in symphony orchestras, opera houses and ballets, improvisation has played a smaller role. At the same time, some contemporarycomposers from the 20th and 21st century have increasingly included improvisation in their creative work.
InIndian classical music, improvisation is a core component and an essential criterion of performances. InIndian,Afghan,Pakistani, andBangladeshi classical music,raga is the "tonal framework for composition and improvisation".[5] TheEncyclopædia Britannica defines a raga as "a melodic framework for improvisation and composition".[6]
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 calledorganum.[4] Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, improvisedcounterpoint over acantus 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.[7][8]
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.[9] In addition to improvising counterpoint over a cantus firmus, singers and instrumentalists improvised melodies overostinato chord patterns, made elaborate embellishments of melodic lines, and invented music extemporaneously without any predetermined schemata.[10] Keyboard players likewise performed extempore, freely formed pieces.[11]
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'sRegole, passaggi di musica (1594), and the preface toGiulio Caccini's collection,Le nuove musiche (1601/2)[12][13]
Eighteenth-century manuals make it clear that performers on the flute, oboe, violin, and other melodic instruments were expected not only to ornament previously composed pieces, but also spontaneously to improvise preludes.[14]
Thebasso continuo (accompaniment) was mainly improvised, the composer usually providing no more than a harmonic sketch called thefigured bass. The process of improvisation was calledrealization.
According toEncyclopædia Britannica, the "monodic textures that originated about 1600 ... were ready-made, indeed in large measure intended, for improvisational enhancement, not only of the treble parts but also, almost by definition, of the bass, which was figured to suggest no more than a minimal chordal outline."[3] Improvised accompaniment over afigured bass was a common practice during the Baroque era, and to some extent the following periods. Improvisation remains a feature of organ playing in some church services and are regularly also performed at concerts.
Dieterich Buxtehude andJohann Sebastian Bach were regarded in the Baroque period as highly skilled organ improvisers. During the 20th century, some musicians known as great improvisers such asMarcel Dupré,Pierre Cochereau andPierre Pincemaille continued this form of music, in the tradition of theFrench organ school.Maurice Duruflé, a great improviser himself, transcribed improvisations byLouis Vierne andCharles Tournemire.Olivier Latry later wrote his improvisations as compositions, for exampleSalve Regina.
Classical music departs from baroque style in that sometimes several voices may move together aschords 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'sItalian 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 theItalian Concerto as a more flexible, improvisatory form, in comparison to Mozart, suggesting the gradual diminishment of improvisation well before its decline became obvious.[15]
The introductory gesture oftonic, subdominant, dominant, tonic, however, much like its baroque form, continues to appear at the beginning of high-classical and romantic piano pieces (and much other music) as in Haydn'sPiano Sonata Hob. XVI/52 and Beethoven'sSonata No. 24, Op. 78.
Beethoven and Mozart cultivated mood markings such ascon amore,appassionato,cantabile, andexpressivo. In fact, it is perhaps because improvisation is spontaneous that it is akin to the communication of love.[16]
Beethoven and Mozart left excellent examples of what their improvisations were like, in the sets of variations and the sonatas which they published, and in their written out cadenzas (which illustrate what their improvisations would have sounded like). As a keyboard player, Mozart competed at least once in improvisation, withMuzio Clementi.[17] Beethoven won many tough improvisatory battles over such rivals asJohann Nepomuk Hummel,Daniel Steibelt, andJoseph Woelfl.[18]
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 wereFranz Liszt,Felix Mendelssohn,Anton Rubinstein,Paderewski,Percy Grainger andPachmann. Improvisation in the area of art music seems to have declined with the growth of recording.[19]
After studying over 1,200 earlyVerdi recordings,Will Crutchfield concludes that "The solocavatina was the most obvious and enduring locus of soloistic discretion in nineteenth-century opera."[20] He goes on to identify seven main types of vocal improvisation used by opera singers in this repertory:[21]
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.[22] 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.[23] 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.[24] Many varied scales and theirmodes can be used in improvisation. They are often not written down in the process, but they help musicians practice the jazz idiom.
A common view of what a jazzsoloist does could be expressed thus: as theharmonies go by, he selectsnotes from eachchord, out of which he fashions amelody. He is free to embellish by means ofpassing and neighbor tones, and he may addextensions to the chords, but at all times a good improviser must follow thechanges. ... [However], a jazz musician really has several options: he may reflect the chord progression exactly, he may "skim over" the progression and simply decorate with notes from the key of the piece (parentmusical scale), or he may fashion his ownvoice-leading, using his intuition and listening experience, which may clash at some points with the chords therhythm section is playing.[25]
Certain folk music traditions, includingIrish Fiddle Music,[26]Old-time,Traditional Blues[27] andBluegrass Music[28] commonly include improvised sections. In Bluegrass, short improvised solos are called "breaks" and they are performed during specific sections of a tune. As an example, in a song, a break might be performed at the end of each chorus, and each break within that song would be performed by a different musician. Certain Bluegrass tunes are known as "breakdowns"; those are pieces that are entirely composed of instrumental breaks from start to end, where different musicians take turns improvising.[29]
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 contemporary classical music.[30] 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 theScratch 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; theONCE Group at Ann Arbor; the Sonic Arts Group; andSonics, the latter three funding themselves through concerts, tours, and grants. Significant pieces include FossTime Cycles (1960) andEchoi (1963).[31]
Other composers working with improvisation includeRichard Barrett,Benjamin Boretz,Pierre Boulez,Joseph Brent,Sylvano Bussotti,Cornelius Cardew,Jani Christou,Douglas J. Cuomo,Alvin Curran,Stuart Dempster,Hugh Davies,Karlheinz Essl,Mohammed Fairouz,Rolf Gehlhaar,Vinko Globokar,Richard Grayson,Hans-Joachim Hespos,Barton McLean,Priscilla McLean,Stephen Nachmanovitch,Pauline Oliveros,Henri Pousseur,Todd Reynolds,Terry Riley,Frederic Rzewski,Saman Samadi,William O. Smith,Manfred Stahnke,Karlheinz Stockhausen,Tōru Takemitsu,Richard Teitelbaum,Vangelis,Michael Vetter,Christian Wolff,Iannis Xenakis,Yitzhak Yedid,La Monte Young,Frank Zappa,Hans Zender, andJohn Zorn.
British and Americanpsychedelic rock acts of the 1960s and 1970s used improvisations to express themselves in a musical language.[32] The American Rock bandGrateful Dead based their career around improvised live performances, meaning that no two shows ever sounded the same.[33][34] Improvisation was a key part ofPink Floyd's music from 1967 to 1972.[35] Another progressive rock band that implemented improvisation wasKing Crimson, whose live performances consisted of many improvisational pieces.[36] The improvisation died down in the 1980s, but saw a resurgence in the 1990s.
Rock bands that perform largely improvised music are also known asJam Bands.
In the realm ofsilent film-music performance, there were musicians (theatre organ players andpiano players) whose improvised performances accompanying these film has been recognized as exceptional by critics, scholars, and audiences alike.[37][38]Neil Brand was a composer who also performed improvisationally.[39] Brand, along with Guenter A. Buchwald, Philip Carli, Stephen Horne, Donald Sosin, John Sweeney, and Gabriel Thibaudeau, all performed at the annual conference on silent film inPordenone,Italy,Le Giornate del Cinema Muto. In improvising for silent film, performers have to play music that matches the mood, style and pacing of the films they accompany. In some cases, musicians had to accompany filmsat first sight, without preparation. Improvisers needed to know a wide range of musical styles and have the stamina to play for sequences of films which occasionally ran over three hours. In addition to the performances, some pianists also taught master classes for those who wanted to develop their skill in improvising for films. Whentalkies–motion pictures with sound–were introduced, these talented improvising musicians had to find other jobs. In the 2010s, there are a small number offilm societies which present vintagesilent films, using live improvising musicians to accompany the film.
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Worldwide there are many venues dedicated to supporting live improvisation. InMelbourne since 1998, the Make It Up Club (held every Tuesday evening at Bar Open onBrunswick Street, Melbourne) has been presenting a weekly concert series dedicated to promotingavant-garde improvised music and sound performance of the highest conceptual and performative standards (regardless of idiom, genre, or instrumentation). The Make It Up Club has become an institution in Australian improvised music and consistently features artists from all over the world.
A number of approaches to teaching improvisation have emerged injazz pedagogy,popular music pedagogy,the Dalcroze method,Orff-Schulwerk, andSatis Coleman's creative music. Current research in music education includes investigating how often improvisation is taught,[40] how confident music majors and teachers are at teaching improvisation,[41] neuroscience and psychological aspects of improvisation,[42] and free-improvisation as a pedagogical approach.[43]
Araga is one of themelodic modes used inIndian classical music. Joep Bor of theRotterdam Conservatory of Music has definedRaga as "tonal framework for composition and improvisation".[5]Nazir Jairazbhoy, chairman of UCLA's department ofethnomusicology, characterized ragas as separated by scale, line of ascent and descent,transilience, emphasized notes and register, and intonation and ornaments.[44] A raga uses a series of five or moremusical notes upon which amelody is constructed. However, the way the notes are approached and rendered inmusical phrases and the mood they convey are more important in defining a raga than the notes themselves. In the Indian musical tradition, rāgas are associated with different times of the day, or with seasons. Indian classical music is always set in a rāga. Non-classical music such as popularIndian film songs andghazals sometimes use rāgas in their compositions.
According toEncyclopædia Britannica, a raga, also spelled rag (in northern India) or ragam (in southern India), (from Sanskrit, meaning "colour" or "passion"), in the classical music of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, is "a melodic framework for improvisation and composition. A raga is based on a scale with a given set of notes, a typical order in which they appear in melodies, and characteristic musical motifs. The basic components of a raga can be written down in the form of a scale (in some cases differing in ascent and descent). By using only these notes, by emphasizing certain degrees of the scale, and by going from note to note in ways characteristic to the raga, the performer sets out to create a mood or atmosphere (rasa) that is unique to the raga in question. There are several hundred ragas in present use, and thousands are possible in theory."[6]
Alapa (Sanskrit: "conversation") are "improvised melody structures that reveal the musical characteristics of a raga".[6] "Alapa ordinarily constitutes the first section of the performance of a raga. Vocal or instrumental, it is accompanied by a drone (sustained-tone) instrument and often also by a melodic instrument that repeats the soloist's phrases after a lag of a few seconds. The principal portion of alapa is not metric but rhythmically free; in Hindustani music it moves gradually to a section known as jor, which uses a rhythmic pulse though no tala (metric cycle). The performer of the alapa gradually introduces the essential notes and melodic turns of the raga to be performed. Only when the soloist is satisfied that he has set forth the full range of melodic possibilities of the raga and has established its unique mood and personality will he proceed, without interruption, to the metrically organized section of the piece. If a drummer is present, as is usual in formal concert, his first beats serve as a signal to the listener that the alapa is concluded."[45]
Machine improvisation uses computer algorithms to createimprovisation on existing music materials. This is usually done by sophisticated recombination of musical phrases extracted from existing music, either live or pre-recorded. In order to achieve credible improvisation in particular style, machine improvisation usesmachine learning andpattern matching algorithms to analyze existing musical examples. The resulting patterns are then used to create new variations "in the style" of the original music, developing a notion of stylistic reinjection. This is different from other improvisation methods with computers that usealgorithmic composition to generate new music without performing analysis of existing music examples.[46]
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