The word IMPROVISE has an interesting etymology.
In the musical sense it means UNFORSEEN. I like that idea very much - that improvisation is about a way of playing which gives unforseen results.
Some other dictionary definitions are:
Recently I held a workshop on improvisation at Royal Trinity College of Music, London. The following is what I said to the students at the beginning of the workshop, before we started playing:
"I'm not here to teach you how to improvise. What I'm gong to do is try to create the conditions in which YOU discover that you CAN improvise. I'm going to try to take away the fear of faliure so that you can play whatever you want.
Improvisation belongs to all of us. It's a great untapped source of music - particularly for instrumentalists like us who have been trained only to respond to the written note. Over the centuries we have handed over responsibility for what we play, more and more, to composers. We have become readers of their written-out improvisations, merely interpreters rather than genuinely creative artists in our own right.
I think there was a time when composers all played their own music. Not any more - some of them can't play at all. They don't need to any more. They can write whatever they want and we are the ones who have to decipher and perform it for them, no matter how difficult it is. They are the architects and we are the builders and labourers. Conductors, then, in this analogy, are the site inspectors who strut around the building-site with the plans, wearing ties and posh suits, pointing out the builders' mistakes. Then, when the jobs finished, they take all the credit - and most of the cash.
When you hear the word improvisation you probably think of Jazz. However, only the great innovators in jazz were true improvisors. Don't feel intimidated by jazzers - apart from the great ones, that is. Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Cotrane,, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Kieth Jarrett, Ella Fitzgerald, to name just a handful, were all pioneers - they did things which nobody had done before. The names of those that copied them, without developing the language further, have slipped into obscurity. By which I mean - most jazz is not particularly improvised - it's just a formula, albeit a complex and difficult one to learn.
For us classically trained instrumentalists, to improvise (without using a jazz, or any other particular style) means to play in an unforseen way. It means to experiment, to search. Practically speaking, it means that a lot of what you will play is not going to be all that interesting to the listener, but with experience it will be possible to keep throwing your musical dice without getting the same combination over and over again and I'm sure you will find some wonderful unforseen music.
Think of what we do today as a glimpse through a keyhole at what might be possible if we become a little more creative. Lets, just for now, kick out the non-performing middlemen who parasitise our performances (all those beginning with C - Composers, Conductors, Copyists, and don't forget that "Klarinetist" is spelt with a K!)
I have produced three albums of improvised horn music. Click here to find out more.