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Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians. [1] Thus, musical ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in Western music [2] Because improvisation is a performative act and depends on instrumental technique, improvisation is a skill. There are musicians who never improvised and there are musicians who have devoted their entire lifes to improvisation[3].
Historical development in Western musicThroughout the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, improvisation was a highly valued skill. Francesco Landini, Adrian Willaert, Diego Ortiz, Frescobaldi, J.S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and many other famous composers and musicians were known especially for their improvisational skills. Though the evidence is sketchy, improvisation certainly played an important role in the monophonic period. The earliest treatises on polyphony, such as the Musica enchiriadis (ninth century), make plain 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 (Horsely 2001). Many classical scores contained sections for improvisation, such as the cadenza in concertos, or the preludes to some keyboard suites by Bach and Handel, which consist solely of a progression of chords, which performers are to use as the basis for their improvisation. Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach all belonged to a tradition of solo keyboard improvisation that was not limited to variations, but included the concerto form, typically with moving voices in both hands, occasionally exploring fugue. Medieval periodAlthough 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.[4] 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 should be regarded as the most important kind of unwritten music before the Baroque period.[5] Renaissance periodFollowing 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.[6] 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.[7] Keyboard players likewise performed extempore, freely formed pieces.[8] Baroque periodMelodic instrumentsEighteenth-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.[9] Keyboard, lute, and guitar
The pattern of chords in many baroque preludes, for example, can be played on keyboard and guitar over a pedal tone or repeated bass notes. Such progressions can be used in many other structures and contexts, and are still found in Mozart, but most preludes begin with the treble supported by a simple bass. J.S. Bach, for example, was particularly fond of the sound produced by the dominant seventh harmony played over, i.e., suspended against, the tonic pedal tone. Bach's Cantata BWV 54 uses this suspension as the opening chord in E-flat Major. There is little or no Alberti bass in baroque keyboard music, and instead the accompanying hand supports the moving lines mostly by contrasting them with longer note values, which themselves have a melodic shape and are mostly placed in consonant harmony. This polarity can be reversed—another useful technique for improvisation--by changing the longer note values to the right hand and playing moving lines in the left at intervals—or with moving lines in both hands, occasionally. This shift of roles between treble and bass is another definitive characteristic. Finally, in keeping with this polarity, the kind of question and answer which appears in baroque music has the appearance of fugue or canon. This method was a favorite in compositions by Scarlatti and Handel especially at the beginning of a piece, even when not forming a fugue. Organ improvisation and church musicImprovised accompaniment over a figured bass was a common practice during the Baroque era, and to some extent the following periods. There is a tradition of improvised organ competition, because of the more solid foundation of organ improvisation. Polyphony
The polyphony in late baroque music also lends itself to improvisation. One ought to avoid parallel fifths and parallel octaves in this style of classical playing,[citation needed] except perhaps when playing chords in parallel, such as in Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. In later music such exceptions apply more often.[citation needed] Practicing polyphonic improvisation, one will mostly encounter the problem of parallel octaves. Contrary motion, and parallel thirds, sixths, and tenths are the basic methods of avoidance. Parallel fifths and octaves are noticeable to the ear, if not the more difficult to discern hidden fifths and hidden octaves, which are hard to find even in a written score. Baroque melodic lines, in any case, are similar to the later homophonic styles, except that more passing tones are added. In Volume II of The World as Will and Representation,[10] Schopenhauer discussed at some length the frequent shifts in baroque melodic passages between tonic and dominant. Fugal improvisationAdorno levelled two different arguments against fugue writing. On the one hand, he claimed that classicist fugue composition is so overshadowed by Bach, that it is unlikely to produce genuine art.[11] Second, however, several pages later he elaborated his argument against a return to fugue, by criticizing atonal fugue writing as "functionless and technically false."[12] To begin learning to improvise short fugues, it is helpful merely to play a fugue subject and attempt to add an answer in another voice, i.e., to play an exposition. Or one may begin by playing a one voice improvisation with occasional statements of the subject. If the two voice fugues are practiced consistently, the next step is to add a third voice.[citation needed] The Classical periodClassical 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.[13] The introductory gesture of "tonic, 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's sonata Hob.16/No. 52 and Beethoven's opus 78. Beethoven and Mozart cultivated slightly new musical moods. These are often indicated by mood markings such as con amore, appassionato, cantabile, and expressivo. In fact, it is perhaps because improvisation is spontaneous that it is akin to the communication of love.[14] Mozart and BeethovenBeethoven and Mozart leave excellent examples of what their improvisations were like, in the sets of variations and the sonatas which they published, and in their cadenzas. Their duels featured practices similar to jazz, such as the famous "trading fours" and trading eights, in which jazz musicians share choruses of a standard tune, often with some degree of competitive spirit recalling the cutting contests of the Harlem stride era. Mozart left an unfinished Fantasia in D minor, and a harmonic prelude. Beethoven, on the other hand, expressed regret at how little he had finally published in terms of keyboard instruction (his planned "piano method"), and his hard-won improvisatory battles over such rivals as Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Joseph Woelfl are relegated to obscure legends, informed by published themes with variations. Adorno described Mozart's musical texture as an unshakable formal rigor always pushed to the brink of apparent chaos.[15] Beethoven's, on the other hand, he described with somewhat more reverence as a "continuum of nothing" indicating again its extemporaneous quality.[16] Romantic periodAfter this event, the era of expressionism had begun to develop. Modernism arises as a reactionary movement to romantic banality, but at the same time modernism retained something of the kind of expressivism achieved by Beethoven, which is said to involve a truth content in addition to a purely sensual or emotive aspect. Though there were exceptions, some such new views[weasel words] were opposed to improvisation as belonging to a casual, non-intellectual creative process, or were too pre-occupied to take it up. At the same time, the romantic period still produced composers who were very much interested in improvisation, such as Brahms. Finally, improvisation was a divertissement of the aristocracy, whose self-identity changed dramatically after the early 19th century. These trends appear to have had their beginnings in the period just after Beethoven, but only finally reached completion in the last quarter of the 19th Century, which also coincides closely with the emergence of atonality. The process also suggests a correlation between improvisation and the popularity and familiarity of music, linking it to the greatly varied melodies of opera and folk music. Theory of improvisation
HarmonyIt is very helpful in classical improvisation, as it is in jazz playing, to break down the major and minor scales by assigning alternative harmonies for each note of the scale.[citation needed] To make this task even simpler, on any instrument, one may begin by playing single notes and experimenting with possible accompaniment harmonies for them as played by a pianist. This may seem to lead to a habitual and oversimplified chordal left hand for the solo pianist, but there are many ways to avoid such constraints. The left hand harmonization can be reversed, for example, by harmonizing bass notes with two or more notes in the right hand. If bass notes are played a few octaves below a chord, for example, this does not imply that the bass notes become melodic, rather, more of the harmonization has merely been shifted to the right hand. The first four notes of the major scale, for example, can be harmonized as I, V, I, V, or I, v (minor), I, IV, or I, V, I, IV, or I, V, VI (dominant 7th), ii. Homophonic structure such as this is one of the first steps to improvisation, and it is also the basis of some of the idioms common in mid-18th century homophony. Another useful technique is the harmonization or adding of tones directly within melodic lines. This may involve the use of extra passing tones in a repeating pattern, or a series of arpeggios. Typically, the phrase leading to an authentic cadence in Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, and to some extent in Beethoven, is preceded by a deceptive cadence on the submediant, which is also minor (Aeolian mode) to be answered by the authentic cadence. In this case question and answer taken together can be thought of as one phrase. Improvisers might also reverse the method of harmonization by creating melodies over existing and well-known harmonic progressions, such as Bach's Prelude to the aforementioned fugue, and many other ground basses or passacaglias such as the Spanish Folia. An improvisor who wishes to become more serious about playing variations might then try some of Mozart's arias, which at one time were prime territory. More freedom and inspiration might be derived from applying alternative sections or endings to various sonatas, sonatinas and other works of the 18th or 19th century. ModulationModulation involves the distance of certain harmonies from the tonic triad, and how one might arrive at and depart from harmonies, via cadences and phrases. It treats music like a harmonic map in which harmonies are destinations or residences. This is important for understanding classical idioms but it does not mean that one must imitate exactly any particular composer. Modulation is greatly aided by the Circle of Fifths, but in two different senses. The true circle of fifths is simply the entire array of possible tonic destinations, in order. A diatonic circle, on the other hand, is used mostly for intermittent sequences, forming phrases that follow the circle in a pleasing pattern. The circle of fifths itself may be used for this. But in this case it is usually found in a broad sequence that has more tension in its transitions (Mozart's 24th Piano Concerto, K. 491, first movement, mm. 338-350).[17] ModesThough classical music makes use of modes in several ways, it generally differs from jazz, however, in the following way. In both classical and jazz there are frequent accidentals, but in jazz, many of the transitions that give rise to these are more streamlined. Jazz, therefore, is more modal. Classical improvisors tend to impose minor scales within major key phrases. For example, the supertonic and submediant are outlined by melodic lines using the melodic minor—not the modes that correspond to the tonic key signature. Jazz is more free in the alteration of scales. This is yet more the case in later jazz (Many late romantic and early modern composers, however, such as Rachmaninov, make harmonic use of modes that are of linear use in jazz such as the fifth mode of the melodic minor, or Mixolydian flat-6). Mozart, on the other hand, experimented with modal passages a great deal, in particular in the Piano Concerto in c K. 491. FormBesides theme and variation, there are many kinds of musical score or blueprint that apply to improvisation, as well as different times in which the score might actually be prepared. An improviser could start from no overall structure, and merely explore familiar and unfamiliar patterns and shapes. Or he could prepare an outline ahead of time, one which might not restrict him to a harmonic or melodic progression, or on the other hand, create or prepare the outline on the spot. Finally it is at least possible to imagine composing the entire piece on the spot before playing it. Aesthetics of improvisationTheodor AdornoToward the end of the section of Aesthetic Theory entitled "Art Beauty" (in the English edition), Theodor Adorno included a brief argument on improvisation's aesthetic value. Claiming that artworks must have a "thing-character" through which their spiritual content breaks, Adorno pointed out that the thing-character is in question in the improvised, yet present.[18] It may be assumed Adorno meant classical improvisation, not jazz, which he mostly excoriated. He held jazz, for example, to be antithetical to Beethoven.[19] There is more extensive treatment, essentially about traditional jazz, in Prisms and The Jargon of Authenticity.[20] Glenn GouldIt may be pressed to derive something novel from past material, which becomes outmoded through its limited concepts of tonality, form, and variation. Though his understanding of modern music was itself unorthodox, he clearly thought musical history was a finite exploration of forms and tonal concepts, and exhaustible.[21] The crisis of music theory, however, was one of the primary reasons Gould focused on interpretation as an art in studio recording. In post-baroque music he often found traditional interpretation stale and boring. Gould's technique, which convinced many listeners, became conspicuous in some areas other than Bach and Beethoven. For example, he felt that Mozart could be hackneyed enough, even to cast doubt on the composer's own authority for form and development. Modern improvisationJazz improvisationImprovisation is one of the basic tenets of jazz. Typically in a jazz piece, the "head" (the song's melody along with any backing harmony) is played once by the musicians and often repeated. Improvisation by any of the musicians follows, and this is typically the longest section of a song as each musician improvises their own melody over the harmonic and rhythmic foundation of the head. When the end of the head is reached it is repeated and a solo's length is specified by the number of repetitions of the head necessary. After one musician has finished improvising, another will begin, and no instrument is forbidden from improvising. A repetition of the head will usually end a jazz piece. There are many variations to this pattern; new sections can be added before and after the head, two musicians can alternatively improvise for short amounts of time (known as "trading"), or several musicians can improvise in a group (collective improvisation is common in Dixieland jazz). Many varied scales and their modes can be used in improvisation. These mainly depend on the nature of the harmonic framework. Against a C Minor seventh chord, for example, an improvisor would usually have a choice of using C Dorian, C Aeolian, C blues, and others, depending on the situation and personal taste. Chord changes are very important in jazz improvisation as well. Whole solos can be built around chord tones. In the bebop era of jazz in the early 1950s there was a common theme of urgency and technical proficiency. The modal era of jazz moved the harmonic framework for a piece from the fast, dynamic chord progressions of bebop to more static, relaxed chords with longer durations. Free jazz performers eschew the explicit harmonic framework for improvisation; the harmony in free jazz is less rigid and less traditional. Illinois Jacquet, for example, is best known for a single solo on the tune Flying Home, and such solos are often transcribed. They are often not written down in the process, but they help musicians practice the jazz idiom. Charlie Parker's improvisations were distinctive, helping to shape the bebop period. Though it is helpful to transcribe on one's own, Parker's solos are often studied in a published collection known as the Omni Book, and groups such as Supersax arrange his solos with their own harmonic backing.[citation needed] Classical-Jazz-FusionImprovisors like Say and Montero gravitate towards jazz and a fusion with classical music. Contemporary classical musicWhile the first half of the twentieth century is marked by an almost total absence of actual improvisation in art music,[22] since the 1950s, contemporary composers[weasel words] 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's 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's Time Cycles (1960) and Echoi (1963).[23] Other composers working with improvisation include Cornelius Cardew, Alvin Curran, Stuart Dempster, Hugh Davies, Karlheinz Essl, Vinko Globokar, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Richard Teitelbaum, Christian Wolff, Vangelis, La Monte Young, John Zorn and Yitzhak Yedid. Several pianists also teach classical improvisation and perform, such as David Dolan,[24] William Goldstein,[25] Yitzhak Yedid and Eric Barnhill.[26] Notes
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