I think improvisation is overrated

[pamosmusic]

I love Giant Steps. And free jazz!

James is the best among us.

[RLetson]

From what I've observed, even a never-before-actualized solo is clearly built from pre-existing components, anything from basic structures (scales, arpeggios, conventional chord sequences) to familiar operations (modulation, change time signature or tempo). And gifted players might actually generate a new melody over the changes--the miracle of on-the-spot invention. But it does not strike me as invention ex nihilo. Spontaneously generated music, I suspect, is always in conversation with something--the composition from which it springs, the underlying harmonic system, the cultural traditions and conventions that surround it (think how Ziggy Elman's solo in "And the Angels Sing" reasserts its klezmer roots).

On the audience side, some or all of this will make sense--they'll get it. But it's also possible for the performer's invention to be so transformative that it loses the audience. My wife, who has listened to our very large record collection for more than 50 years and can spot Monk or Grappelli at 100 yards, will often remark that an uptempo boppish solo is "just noodling," even though I can hear what's going on--and might agree with her aesthetic judgment. (My aesthetic does not much value "outside" playing. I might get it, but I usually don't dig it.)

[pamosmusic]

From what I've observed, even a never-before-actualized solo is clearly built from pre-existing components, anything from basic structures (scales, arpeggios, conventional chord sequences) to familiar operations (modulation, change time signature or tempo). And gifted players might actually generate a new melody over the changes--the miracle of on-the-spot invention. But it does not strike me as invention ex nihilo.

This whole thread strikes me as one very long and very predictable straw-man argument (as others have mentioned, a thread descends into this exact debate maybe once a year).

Does anyone actually think “improvising” in music is “invention ex nihilo?”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone—including arrogant college kids, or free jazzers—make the argument that it is. So what exactly are we talking about here?

[nyc chaz]

Laurindo Almeida (RIP), who used to play with Stan Kenton. I went and saw him at the Horton Grand in San Diego, and talked to him about it, he told me 'I don't improvise'. He prefers well arranged pieces. He is classically trained, (as am I).

If you listen to him fronting the MJQ on 'one note samba' (YouTube), no one can doubt his accomplishment on the nylon string guitar.

Laurindo was truly fabulous.I loved his work with the LA Four which included Bud Shank.Ray Brown and Shelly Manne.I bought a book of his arrangements probably over 30 years ago of standards and people loved hearing those arrangements when i played them.While i don't agree with improvisation being overrated,i do agree that the endless choruses/ soloing has become boring to me in my elder years.The 16/32 bar solo you suggested i totally agree with.

[John A.]

Languages are under constant change, modern standard German is different from the medieval one. The fact that the Ashkenazim kept the old German is due to the fact that they stayed under themselves, especially in Eastern European countries where many had fled to after medieval pogroms in Germany and where other languages were spoken. On the one hand they stayed under themselves because of the rejection (and again and again persecution) by the Christian majority until the time of enlightenment when more and more rulers started to give them full citizen rights (which did not stop prejudice and persecution, culminating in the Shoa). On the other hand they stayed under themselves because of the exclusive nature of their religion which had stopped to be a missionary one centuries ago.

I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole of the history of Yiddish. I will say, though, that while self-isolation is probably an element the more significant factor for Jewish physical and linguistic isolation is the partitions of Poland, which brought the majority of Europe's Jews under Russian dominion. Russia imposed strict controls on where Jews could live and travel (the Pale of Settlement laws), in contrast to their relative freedom of movement within Poland-Lithuania. It's not just that Jews didn't want to intermingle. They weren't allowed to by the Imperial government. That didn't change until after the Tsar was deposed.

Is it hard to process for you because you get the notion that the main part of the lingua franca of the "Ashkenazishe Yidn"*) is the language of those who murdered millions of them in the first half of the last century?

*) Yiddish was originally written with Hebrew letters. The modern transliteration to Latin letters from Hebrew letters (which some ultra-orthodox probably still use) is most of the time made in such a way that English speaking Americans can pronounce it correctly. The German transliteration would probably be "Aschkenasische Jiddn".

In communities where it's still a live language (e.g., Haredi communities in the US and Israel) it still is written with Hebrew letters for the most part. As an object of scholarship, though, it tends to be transliterated into the Latin alphabet.

[lawson-stone]

This whole thread strikes me as one very long and very predictable straw-man argument (as others have mentioned, a thread descends into this exact debate maybe once a year).

Does anyone actually think “improvising” in music is “invention ex nihilo?”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone—including arrogant college kids, or free jazzers—make the argument that it is. So what exactly are we talking about here?

I think it has been quite a useful and helpful conversation with little to no vitriol or personal attacks. The "de novo" improvisation idea is not a straw man but more of a kind of ideal template that is convenient for thinking about how much of a solo is new (and how it's new) and how much is adaptation, and how much adaptation/adoption is involved.
I'm a Bible translator and we have this debate about "literal" translation. It's impossible, of course, to produce a pure and entirely "literal" translation of any text, much less an ancient one from an alien culture. But the construct is still useful as a baseline for asking questions about how large the unit equivalence is between the original and the translation. I tend also to think in improvisation, how large the incorporated material is makes a difference. If it's maybe 4 bars, we call it a quote and think it's clever. Larger blocks might seem less improvisational. Small blocks, like 1-2 bar cliches, "vocabulary" and such, are unavoidable and have to be seen in the light of the larger "sentence" or 8-16 bar statement.

[pamosmusic]

I think it has been quite a useful and helpful conversation with little to no vitriol or personal attacks. The "de novo" improvisation idea is not a straw man but more of a kind of ideal template that is convenient for thinking about how much of a solo is new (and how it's new) and how much is adaptation, and how much adaptation/adoption is involved.
I'm a Bible translator and we have this debate about "literal" translation. It's impossible, of course, to produce a pure and entirely "literal" translation of any text, much less an ancient one from an alien culture. But the construct is still useful as a baseline for asking questions about how large the unit equivalence is between the original and the translation. I tend also to think in improvisation, how large the incorporated material is makes a difference. If it's maybe 4 bars, we call it a quote and think it's clever. Larger blocks might seem less improvisational. Small blocks, like 1-2 bar cliches, "vocabulary" and such, are unavoidable and have to be seen in the light of the larger "sentence" or 8-16 bar statement.

Okay this is an excellent analogy. I will stand down.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah I think a lot non improvisers think improvisation means something like that. If not literally that, the idea that you should always be improvising spontaneously from day one and that anything less is ‘not jazz’.

I feel there are members of the forum for example who would make more progress as *jazz* players if they saw spontaneous improv in jazz as more of a long term goal, and perhaps worried less about the process for the moment.

Which is NOT a fashionable viewpoint where I am….

[James W]

I feel there are members of the forum….

C'mon dude. Name names!

[rpjazzguitar]

Long threads have a tendency to be about alternative definitions of terms that have no widely accepted definition.

You can write out a solo in advance, or you can make up every note on the spot, or you can do anything in between.

Most players do some of each and, if the tempo is really fast, it's probable that a player is going to have to rely more on practiced lines. And even if you think you're making stuff up on the spot, you may be using practiced rudiments like fragments of scales or arps. How could you not?

What should you do? My response to that is: how did the word "should" elbow its way into that sentence?

For myself, when I'm enjoying music, I don't think about this issue. When I'm listening for the nth time to a player I like and I hear a familiar lick, I usually respond by thinking, oh, that one ... I wonder how he figures out where to begin it? And, I still enjoy it.

When I'm playing, there are a handful of practiced licks I use and an embarrasing number of scale and arp fragments. At a slow enough tempo I don't use them much. Faster tempo, less familiar tune, complicated harmony -- out come the chestnuts.

[Christian Miller]

C'mon dude. Name names!

haha ‘fraid not. but it’s usually quite clear from what people say … my assumption has always been if people really want my opinion on their playing they’ll at least ask.

I do want to make clear, the idea of spontaneous improv is cool. i value my one performances by how much real improv I do. It IS actually really important to me.

you know, the Tristano school are kind of a big deal and they absolutely enshrined this as an article of faith that an essential quality of ‘good jazz’ is that it should be spontaneous. Bill Evans echoed this sentiment. And if you are up to that level who am I to disagree?

They also had a clear and worked out pathway to this ideal.

idealism can get in the way when people don’t know what to prioritise. I don’t think working stuff out is antithetical to improvisation. That’s clearly not true of course when we think of the great improviser/composers. But people do sometimes worry they are ‘not doing it for real’ if they are not coming up with the stuff spontaneously. And spontaneity is .. well… how spontaneous is truly spontaneous? Argh rabbit hole of doooooooooom

of course my idea of what to prioritise is based on my experiences, but it’s based as much on my mistakes and what I learned from the masters I’ve been lucky to have contact with than what I’ve wanted to do or how I’ve done things…. Also priorities can and should change over time as the musician develops.

Despite the Tristano ethos (which I think is a very widespread concept of what jazz is) there’s a lot of great jazz that was pretty worked out. It is kind of a spectrum. If it’s undocumented it’s all a bit of a ‘black box’ and you would have to listen to loads of alternate takes or consecutive live dates etc to from an impression of that - which is something that has become a lot easier in the past few decades with releases of boxed sets and alternate takes on albums now all up on streaming.

[pingu]

i think overprovisation is
inderated ….

but i am fairly drunk

[Christian Miller]

Long threads have a tendency to be about alternative definitions of terms that have no widely accepted definition.

You can write out a solo in advance, or you can make up every note on the spot, or you can do anything in between.

Most players do some of each and, if the tempo is really fast, it's probable that a player is going to have to rely more on practiced lines. And even if you think you're making stuff up on the spot, you may be using practiced rudiments like fragments of scales or arps. How could you not?

What should you do? My response to that is: how did the word "should" elbow its way into that sentence?

For myself, when I'm enjoying music, I don't think about this issue. When I'm listening for the nth time to a player I like and I hear a familiar lick, I usually respond by thinking, oh, that one ... I wonder how he figures out where to begin it? And, I still enjoy it.

When I'm playing, there are a handful of practiced licks I use and an embarrasing number of scale and arp fragments. At a slow enough tempo I don't use them much. Faster tempo, less familiar tune, complicated harmony -- out come the chestnuts.

Should. Flipping hate that world.

Consider that anything you’ve practiced enough to show up on fast tunes will be things you’ve heard WAY too many times. I don’t care who you are haha.

Your audience will be more fortunate.

[supersoul]

Johnny Smith... I have it in my head that he didn't really improvise but does anyone know for sure? His playing sure seems worked out, but I don't really know.

[AllanAllen]

Johnny Smith... I have it in my head that he didn't really improvise but does anyone know for sure? His playing sure seems worked out, but I don't really know.

He improvised on stage but had solos roughly worked out for recording dates to save time. Which I bet was incredibly common back when you would book a studio for 2 hours to cut an entire album. Common but not discussed, if you want my guess.

[princeplanet]

Tristano. I respect the dude, can't say he's my favourite improvisor, but he couldn't care less, perhaps because it was about how it made him feel, not me.

Let's face it, there's a lot of us here that have put in thousands of hours trying to develop our own way to improvise in some kind of Jazz style or other. And I'm sure that at some point we have asked ourselves "Why should I spend all these extra hours learning to truly improvise, when I can kind of fake it to a large extent, and most people, perhaps even some Jazz musicians, won't know the difference?"

See, that's the crux of it for me right there. If you're in this Jazz caper to make a living, or even just to entertain others, then how others perceive your playing is probably more important than how you perceive your own playing.
But I'd be surprised if more than 15% of the members of this forum perform for others enough to even have the need to cultivate any such professional "fakery" (c'mon, you know what I'm talking about) .

Now, if that's the case, then the other 85% of us might consider why we are learning what we are. Is it to impress others on the rare occasion you get a chance to? Or is it to draw personal enjoyment and satisfaction? If the latter, then what gives you the most satisfaction? Playing something well rehearsed (say, like you might a classical piece)? Or playing something that comes out different each time? For me, the more improvised my comping and soloing is, the more I challenge myself and the more rewarding and satisfying it is. Despite the imperfections.

Dunno about you guys, but the reward for me is the ability to be creative in the moment. Yeah, I know you can express a classical piece differently each time you play it (have done so myself a fair bit), but jazz improv is a whole 'nother level of spontaneous creativity. The feeling of teetering on the edge of the changes and just hanging in there, or better still, gliding beautifully over the top whilst weaving freshly minted lines (albeit out of prefab cells)..... there's just no better feeling, even if no one else is listening.

But, "faking it' when no one else is listening, well that's just like a magician doing tricks to himself in the mirror.
If you're gonna be a magician that seldom performs, I'd rather be the magician that spends his practice time inventing new tricks, rather than practicing the same old ones every time. What's the point if no-ones watching?

Anyway, despite the belaboured analogy, my point is that improvisation is it's own reward. For me at least...

[A. Kingstone]

............The feeling of teetering on the edge of the changes and just hanging in there, or better still, gliding beautifully over the top whilst weaving freshly minted lines (albeit out of prefab cells)..... there's just no better feeling, even if no one else is listening.

.........

Anyway, despite the belaboured analogy, my point is that improvisation is its own reward. For me at least...

Yes.

[rpjazzguitar]

I don't quite get what preparing looks like.

In many situations I don't know what is going to be called. I may not know the tune and might be reading it. I don't know how many choruses people are going to take. How do I prepare for that?

If it's a jam where I'm likely to know the tunes and the keys, am I going to remember a solo for every tune that might be called?

Or, are we talking about assembling a series of memorized licks on the fly? I guess some play that way. I never could, with the exception of just a few licks I use when I get stuck.

And, if I could play that way, how do I interact with the band? Rearrange my memorized licks? Alter them rhythmically depending on what others are playing? Recycle them harmonically? How far do I have to go to call it improvised?

[joelf]

But I'd be surprised if more than 15% of the members of this forum perform for others enough to even have the need to cultivate any such professional "fakery" (c'mon, you know what I'm talking about) .

I'm in that 15%, and cultivate no such thing, nor do most professionals I know or have observed. Honesty is not only the best policy but the least opaque, in the sense that listeners can intuit when something is being faked or otherwise dishonest. They may not know the technical term for it, but, trust me, in my years I know they can smell, hear and taste when something's not quite real. And so performers who are less than honest will not resonate with listeners as those who present themselves as they really are and play that way. When someone tells me that I'm an honest player I appreciate it more than someone saying I sound great. People say that to musicians all the time and don't always mean it, or may have some ulterior motive, like hoping you'll get them on your gig.

When you perform in any art that occurs before the public in real time and you're doing it right you stand naked, exposed. That's risky, and why some scared to do that will don metaphorical fig leaves. Maybe they fear that someone will laugh at them, hate what they do, boo them off the stage or who-all knows what else. That's understandable. We're all human and have insecurities and neuroses, especially high-strung, uber-sensitive creative types. (Maybe that's why performers do it in the 1st place, they need the attention and approbation more than some). But this quest for self-protection can not only lead to substance abuse, it can stifle the muse. Anxiety is a performing artist's worst enemy.

But it can be transformed by concentration, and relaxation can be learned and mastered like anything else. Charlie Parker, for all his over-the-top indulgences, also had great wisdom. He is said to have once told someone to pick one person in the audience to play to. I'm sure that works for some people. There are many other relaxation and concentration techniques if we really want them.

Listen, I struggle with anxiety in life and performing, more than anyone here can know. And at times it's held me back artistically and career-wise. But I keep on strokin'. And I'm lucky these days in that my 2 steadies are loose enough situations that if I goof something I can just start over. (These are solo gigs, to be clear). They're not pressure cookers, so it's like a paid rehearsal or workshop to get it together for the gigs that are more so that. But I still take those listeners and situations as seriously as if it were Carnegie Hall. Even with license to goof I still try to dig deep and not BS. And there are good days and bad. I try not to invest in my personal feelings, good, bad or indifferent, and see the bigger picture of what I'm there to do. And I'm fulfilled most of the time and hope I've done some good beyond my little bubble.

As far as what's 'real' improvising and what's not, if you ask 10 different musicians you may get 11 different answers. I personally think that if you take what you know and what you are gifted with and worked to develop, put it in a funnel and stay open to the moment the resulting art will at least be you. And listen to everything going on---to other players or singers and listeners too. Do those things and you may hit it out of the park once in a while. And if you're having one of those uninspired 'meh' nights craft and professionalism can carry you and at least it won't be terrible.

Maybe this all sounds vague and non-specific but art is not any one thing. Anyway this is all I, still a work in progress at nigh 70, can think to say...

[princeplanet]

Despite the Tristano ethos (which I think is a very widespread concept of what jazz is) there’s a lot of great jazz that was pretty worked out. ....

Was The Modern Jazz Quartet a bit like that? I was surprised to hear that (if true) because the players were obviously capable of improvising their asses off.

[princeplanet]

I'm in that 15%, and cultivate no such thing, nor do most professionals I know or have observed. Honesty is not only the best policy but the least opaque, in the sense that listeners can intuit when something is being faked or otherwise dishonest. ...

Ah yes, well of course there are the pros that do it for a living, and have no need to fake anything, kudos and deep respect to you all .

I also meant no disrespect for those pros that may rely on more pre fab material for performance than they might when noodling around at home.

[pauln]

Maybe this all sounds vague and non-specific but art is not any one thing. Anyway this is all I, still a work in progress at nigh 70, can think to say...

As a fellow nigh 70, I read your observations as clear and true. Resonating with the audience is always enlightening, often wonderful, certainly my musical goal.

Once, after performing a new original composition for the first time, I was surprised when someone approached and said, "I can't believe you played my favorite song, I've never heard anyone else play it!"

No way I was going to break that beautiful spell with an "honest" clarification.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

This was where I going to go, if OP ever came back.

I'm back. Look, I started in on guitar in 1967. You'd think by now I'd have tried lots of things, including the aforementioned.

No, I know improvisation isn't something I want to put an audience through, other than some nice notes I've arranged beforehand for 16 or 32 bars, and leave it at that and get the vocalist back to the tune.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

As a fellow nigh 70, I read your observations as clear and true. Resonating with the audience is always enlightening, often wonderful, certainly my musical goal.

Once, after performing a new original composition for the first time, I was surprised when someone approached and said, "I can't believe you played my favorite song, I've never heard anyone else play it!"

No way I was going to break that beautiful spell with an "honest" clarification.

I wouldn't have hesitated. Maybe your song sounded similar to another, that's an honest mistake, and it's not particularly a bad thing, lots of songs have elements of other songs in them, it's not an insult.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

Wonderfully cheesy. Tony could play just about anything--and did. This is the sort of over-produced album that one would pull out to show off a new stereo rig.

Here's my favorite of that kind of LP--my parents got a copy (RCA Record Club), and decades later I chased down a decent copy. I still put it on every so often and enjoy the over-the-top, no-holds-barred arrangements. On this track I hear two guitarists--one classical and one archtop, along with the usual overripe strings and horns. The whole LP is on YouTube, and it takes me back to 1959--though our little suitcase mono record player couldn't do it justice then. (Our Klipsch Cornwalls, on the other hand, really shake the walls.) Apologies for contributing to thread drift, but 'tis the season for nostalgia, innit.

Tony, as you know, used to be the guitarist on the Johnny Carson Show. Johnny related a story that he asked Tony if he could teach Johnny, who does not play the guitar, 'Here's That Rainy Day', which is a cool standard, Johnny's favorite song. What Johnny wanted to do is perform and sing it (and never do it again, a one shot deal). He asked how long it would take. Several months, Tony replied. Well, I'll be danged if Johnny didn't do a bad job of it for a guy who doesn't play guitar. And, he's not a bad singer. There's a video of him doing it. I think it's on YouTube.