Musical improvisation - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Musical improvisation (also known as Musical Extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

s. Thus, music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

.

Because improvisation

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

is a performative act and depends on instrumental technique, improvisation is a skill. There are musicians who have never improvised and other musicians who have devoted their entire lives to improvisation.

Historical development in Western music

Throughout the Medieval

Medieval music

Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...

, Renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

, Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

, Classical

Classical period (music)

The dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or...

, and Romantic

Romantic music

Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

periods, improvisation was a highly valued skill. Francesco Landini

Francesco Landini

Francesco degli Organi, Francesco il Cieco, or Francesco da Firenze, called by later generations Francesco Landini or Landino was an Italian composer, organist, singer, poet and instrument maker...

, Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance and founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers who moved to Italy and transplanted the polyphonic Franco-Flemish style there....

, Diego Ortiz

Diego Ortiz

Diego Ortiz was a Spanish composer and musicologist, in service to the Spanish viceroy in Naples and later to Philip II of Spain. Ortiz published influential treatises on both instrumental and vocal performance....

, Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...

, J.S. Bach, Handel

HANDEL

HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt

Liszt

Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz 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

Musica enchiriadis

Musica enchiriadis is an anonymous musical treatise from the 9th century. It is the first surviving attempt to establish a system of rules for polyphony in classical music. The treatise was once attributed to Hucbald, but this is no longer accepted. Some historians once attributed it to Odo of...

(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. Many classical forms contained sections for improvisation, such as the cadenza

Cadenza

In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....

in concerto

Concerto

A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...

s, or the preludes

Prelude (music)

A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...

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

HANDEL

, Scarlatti

Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...

, and Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

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 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

Organum

Organum is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line may be sung on the same text, the melody may be followed in parallel motion , or a combination of...

. Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, improvised counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

over a cantus firmus

Cantus firmus

In music, a cantus firmus is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.The plural of this Latin term is , though the corrupt form canti firmi is also attested...

(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

Ostinato

In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...

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

Giulio Caccini

Giulio Caccini , also known as Giulio Romano, was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the very late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the single most influential creators of the new Baroque style...

’s collection, Le nuove musiche (1601/2)

Melodic instruments

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.

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.

There is little or no Alberti bass

Alberti bass

Alberti bass is a particular kind of accompaniment in music, often used in the Classical era, and sometimes the Romantic era. It was named after Domenico Alberti , who used it extensively, although he was not the first to use it....

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

Domenico Scarlatti

and Handel

HANDEL

especially at the beginning of a piece, even when not forming a fugue.

Organ improvisation and church music

Improvised accompaniment over a figured bass

Figured bass

Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...

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.

Among the most prominent of todays organ improvisers are Olivier Latry

Olivier Latry

Olivier Latry is a French organist, improviser and Professor of Organ in the Conservatoire de Paris. Latry was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France...

and Jean Guillou

Jean Guillou

Jean Victor Arthur Guillou is a French composer, organist, pianist, and pedagogue.-Life:Following autodidactic studies in piano and organ performance, Guillou became organist at the church St. Serge in Angers at age 12. From 1945-1955, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Marcel Dupré,...

. In the past Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, César Franck

César Franck

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

, Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...

, and Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

, amongst others, were regarded as highly skilled organ improvisers. Organ improvisations have occasionally been released on CD, such as the double album Like a Flame

Like a Flame

Like a Flame is a double-album with free improvisations for organ by Frederik Magle released in December 2010 on the Swedish record label Proprius Music . It was recorded on the then new Frobenius pipe organ in Jørlunde Church on December 22-23, 2009...

by Frederik Magle

Frederik Magle

Frederik Magle is a Danish composer, concert organist, and pianist. He studied composition and music theory with Leif Thybo and attended the Royal Danish Academy of Music where he studied composition and organ...

. Some improvisations are written down after having been performed, either based on a recording or by memory, such as the case of Marcel Dupré's Symphonie-Passion which began its life as an improvisation on the Wanamaker organ

Wanamaker Organ

The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the largest operational pipe organ in the world, located within a spacious 7-story court at Macy's Center City . The largest organ by some measures is the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ...

Keyboard improvisation

Classical music departs from baroque style in that sometimes several voices may move together as chord

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

s 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.

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

Piano Sonata No. 52 in E-flat major (Haydn)

The Piano Sonata No. 52 in E flat major, Hob. XVI/52, L. 62, was written in 1794 by Joseph Haydn. This is the last of Haydn's piano sonatas, and is widely considered his greatest...

and Beethoven's sonata opus 78

Piano Sonata No. 24 (Beethoven)

The Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp major, Op. 78, nicknamed "À Thérèse" was written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1809. It consists of two movements:#Adagio cantabile - Allegro ma non troppo...

.

Beethoven and Mozart cultivated 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.

Mozart and Beethoven

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 cadenzas. As a keyboard player, Mozart competed at least once with Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi was a celebrated composer, pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer. Born in Italy, he spent most of his life in England. He is best known for his piano sonatas, and his collection of piano studies, Gradus ad Parnassum...

. Beethoven won many tough improvisatory battles over such rivals as Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.- Life :...

, Daniel Steibelt

Daniel Steibelt

Daniel Gottlieb Steibelt , was a German pianist and composer who died in Saint Petersburg, Russia.-Life and music:Daniel Steibelt was born in Berlin, and studied music with Johann Kirnberger before being forced by his father to join the Prussian army. Deserting, he began a nomadic career as a...

, and Joseph Woelfl.

Instrumental

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

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, Anton Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...

, Paderewski, Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger

George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...

and Pachmann. Improvisation in the area of 'art music' seems to have declined with the growth of recording.

Opera

After studying something more than 1,200 early Verdi recordings, Will Crutchfield concludes that "the solo cavatina was the most obvious and enduring locus of soloistic discretion in nineteenth-century opera". He goes on to identify seven main types of vocal improvisation used by opera singers in this repertory :

1. The Verdian “full-stop” cadenza
Cadenza
In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....
2. Aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

s without “full-stop”: ballate, canzoni, and romanze
Romanza
-Commercial performance:First in Europe, then charts around the world, the album amassed a multitude of platinum and multi-platinum awards, outselling even Bocelli's 1995 album, Bocelli, with worldwide sales in excess of 20 million copies to date....
3. Ornamentation of internal cadences
4. Melodic variants (interpolated hight notes, acciaccature, rising two-note "slide")
5. Strophic variation and the problem of the cabaletta
Cabaletta
Cabaletta describes the two-part musical form particularly favored for arias in 19th century Italian opera, and is more properly the name of the more animated section following the songlike cantabile. It often introduces a complication or intensification of emotion and/or plot. Some sources...
6. Facilitations (puntature, simplification of fioratura, etc.)
7. Recitative
Recitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...

Theodor Adorno

Toward 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. It may be assumed Adorno meant classical improvisation, not jazz, which he mostly excoriated. He held jazz, for example, to be antithetical to Beethoven. There is more extensive treatment, essentially about traditional jazz, in Prisms and The Jargon of Authenticity.

Glenn Gould

Improvisation 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, Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould

Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...

appears to have such a view as he clearly thought musical history was a finite exploration of forms and tonal concepts, and exhaustible.

Jazz improvisation

Improvisation is one of the basic elements that sets jazz apart from other types of music. 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. Many varied scales and their modes

Musical mode

In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...

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 jazz soloist
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

does could be expressed thus: as the harmonies
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

go by, he selects note
Note
In music, the term note has two primary meanings:#A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;#A pitched sound itself....

s from each chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

, out of which he fashions a melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

. He is free to embellish by means of passing
Nonchord tone
A nonchord tone, nonharmonic tone, or non-harmony note is a note in a piece of music which is not a part of the implied harmony that is described by the other notes sounding at the time...

and neighbor tones, and he may add extensions
Extended chord
In music, extended chords are tertian chords or triads with notes extended, or added, beyond the seventh. Ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords are extended chords...

to the chords, but at all times a good improviser must follow the changes
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...

. ... [However], a jazz musician really has several options: he may reflect the chord progression exactly, he may "skim over" the progression and simply elaborate the background harmony
Backing vocalist
A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...

, or he may fashion his own voice-leading
Voice leading
In musical composition, voice leading is the term used to refer to a decision-making consideration when arranging voices , namely, how each voice should move in advancing from each chord to the next.- Details :...

which may clash at some points with the chords the rhythm section
Rhythm section
A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...

is playing.

Contemporary classical music

While 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

Scratch Orchestra

The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental musical ensemble founded in the spring of 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton....

in England; Musica Elettronica Viva

Musica Elettronica Viva

Musica Elettronica Viva is a live acoustic/electronic improvisational group formed in Rome, Italy, in 1966. Over the years, its members have included Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, Frederic Rzewski, Allan Bryant, Carol Plantamura, Ivan Vandor, Steve Lacy, and Jon Phetteplace.They were early...

in Italy; Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...

's Improvisation Chamber Ensemble at the University of California, Los Angeles; Larry Austin

Larry Austin

Larry Austin is a United States composer noted for his electronic and computer music works. He was a co-founder and editor of the avant-garde music periodical Source: Music of the Avant Garde...

's New Music Ensemble at the University of California, Davis; the ONCE Group

ONCE Group

The ONCE Group was a collection of musicians, visual artists, architects, and film-makers who wished to create an environment in which artists could explore and share techniques and ideas in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The group was responsible for hosting the ONCE Festival of New Music in Ann...

at Ann Arbor; the Sonic Arts Group; and Sonics

San Francisco Tape Music Center

The San Francisco Tape Music Center was founded in 1962 by composers Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender as a "nonprofit cultural and educational corporation, the aim of which was to present concerts and offer a place to learn about work within the tape music medium"...

, the latter three funding themselves through concerts, tours, and grants. Significant pieces include Foss's Time Cycles (1960) and Echoi (1963).

Other composers working with improvisation include Richard Barrett

Richard Barrett (composer)

Richard Barrett is a British composer.-Biography:Barrett began to study music seriously only after graduating in genetics and microbiology at University College London in 1980 . From then until 1983 he took private lessons with Peter Wiegold...

, Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

, Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...

, Alvin Curran

Alvin Curran

Composer Alvin Curran , is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of Musica Elettronica Viva, and a former student of Elliott Carter. Curran's music often makes use of electronics and environmental found sounds....

, Stuart Dempster

Stuart Dempster

Stuart Dempster is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improvisor, and composer.-Biography:After Dempster completed his studies at San Francisco State College, he was appointed assistant professor at the California State College at Hayward, and instructor at the San Francisco Conservatory...

, Hugh Davies

Hugh Davies

Hugh Seymour Davies was a musicologist, composer, and inventor of experimental musical instruments.Davies was born in Exmouth, Devon, England. After attending Westminster School, he studied music at Worcester College, Oxford from 1961 to 1964. Shortly after he traveled to Cologne, Germany to work...

, Karlheinz Essl

Karlheinz Essl

Karlheinz Essl is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser and composition teacher.- Biography :Essl was born in Vienna. His studies at the University of Music in Vienna included: composition , electro-acoustic music and double bass...

, Vinko Globokar

Vinko Globokar

Vinko Globokar is a French avant-garde composer and trombonist of Slovene descent.His work is noted for its use of unconventional and extended techniques, closely allying him to contemporaries Salvatore Sciarrino and Helmut Lachenmann...

, Richard Grayson

Richard Grayson

Richard Grayson is a writer, political activist and performance artist, most noted for his books of short stories and his satiric runs for public office....

, Stephen Nachmanovitch

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Stephen Nachmanovitch is a musician, author, computer artist, and educator. He is an improvisational violinist, and writes and teaches about improvisation, creativity, and systems approaches in many fields of activity.-Biography:...

, Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....

, Terry Riley

Terry Riley

Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...

, Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...

, Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

, Richard Teitelbaum

Richard Teitelbaum

Richard Teitelbaum is an American composer, keyboardist, and improvisor. Born in New York, he is a former student of Allen Forte, Mel Powell, and Luigi Nono. He is best known for his live electronic music and synthesizer performance. For example, he brought the first moog synthesizer to Europe...

, Christian Wolff

Christian Wolff (composer)

Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...

, Vangelis

Vangelis

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...

, La Monte Young

La Monte Young

La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...

, John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

and Yitzhak Yedid

Yitzhak Yedid

Yitzhak Yedid is an Israeli Australian composer of classical music and jazz pianist.-Biography:Yitzhak Yedid was born on September 29, 1971 in Jerusalem, Israel. His family immigrated from Syria. He studied at the Rubin Academy of Music and the New England Conservatory in Boston with Ran Blake...

.

Several pianists also teach classical improvisation and perform, such as David Dolan, William Goldstein, Yitzhak Yedid

Yitzhak Yedid

and Eric Barnhill.

Jam bands

The 1960s saw The Grateful Dead gain popularity and bring a name to the "jam" genre. Since the 1980s, bands like Phish

Phish

Phish is an American rock band noted for its musical improvisation, extended jams, and exploration of music across genres. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983 , the band's four members – Trey Anastasio , Mike Gordon , Jon Fishman , and Page McConnell Phish is an American rock band...

, Widespread Panic

Widespread Panic

Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Todd Nance, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJo" Hermann, and guitarist Jimmy Herring...

, moe.

Moe.

moe. is an American jam band, formed at the University at Buffalo in 1989. The band members are: Rob Derhak , Al Schnier , Chuck Garvey , Vinnie Amico , and Jim Loughlin ....

, Umphrey's McGee

Umphrey's McGee

Umphrey's McGee is an American progressive rock jam band based in Chicago whose music is often referred to as "progressive improvisation", or "improg" ....

, Max Creek

Max Creek

Max Creek is an American rock band that was formed by Dave Reed, John Rider and Bob Gosselin in 1971. Scott Murawski, then aged 15, joined the band in the spring of 1972. Murawski left after two months, but returned in 1973. Mark Mercier the keyboardist joined in January 1973. Dave Reed left the...

, and The String Cheese Incident have used musical improvisation extensively; indeed, for the more devoted followers of any band, these extended improvisational segments—jams—are a large part of what makes a live show so special. The jam band scene has also seen the rise of "jamgrass" with bands like Hot Buttered Rum

Hot Buttered Rum (band)

Hot Buttered Rum is an American five-piece progressive bluegrass act based in the San Francisco Bay Area....

, Cornmeal

Cornmeal (band)

Cornmeal is a roots and bluegrass jamband from Chicago, Illinois. Formed over 10 years ago. Heavily influenced by American roots and folk music....

and Yonder Mountain String Band

Yonder Mountain String Band

The Yonder Mountain String Band is an American progressive bluegrass group from Nederland, Colorado. Composed of Dave Johnston, Jeff Austin, Ben Kaufmann, and Adam Aijala, the band has released five studio albums and several live recordings to date.- History :The band's history stretches back to...

, along with the rise of Livetronica

Livetronica

Livetronica, a portmanteau of the words live and electronica, is a sub-genre of the jam band movement that blends such musical styles as rock, jazz, funk, and electronica. It consists primarily of instrumental music. The terms "Jamtronica" and "Trance fusion" are also used to refer to this style of...

with bands like The Disco Biscuits, Lotus, The New Deal

The New Deal (band)

The New Deal is a three-piece electronic band formed in 1998 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With a drummer , bass guitarist , and keyboard player , the music incorporates many elements of modern electronica, which they have branded live progressive breakbeat house.The band formed in 1998 after a...

, and STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9), most of whom feature improvisation very heavily in their music.

Venues

Worldwide there are many venues dedicated to supporting live improvisation.
In Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

since 1998, the Make It Up Club (held every Tuesday evening at Bar Open on Brunswick Street, Melbourne

Brunswick Street, Melbourne

Brunswick Street is a street in inner northern Melbourne, known for cafés, live music venues and alternative fashion shops.-Geography:Brunswick Street runs north-south through the inner northern Melbourne suburbs of Fitzroy and Fitzroy North, from Victoria Parade at its southernmost end, crossing...

) has been presenting a weekly concert series dedicated to promoting avant-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.

Silent film music

In the realm of silent film music performance, there are also a small number of musicians whose improvisational work has been recognized as exceptional by critics, scholars and audiences alike: Neil Brand, Guenter A. Buchwald, Philip Carli, Stephen Horne, Donald Sosin, John Sweeney, and Gabriel Thibaudeau, all performers at the annual conference on silent film in Pordenone, Italy, "Le Giornate del Cinema Muto." Their performances have to match the style and pacing of the films they accompany, often at first sight, and demand a knowledge of a wide range of musical styles, as well as the stamina to play for films which occasionally run over three hours in length without a pause. In addition to the performances, these pianists also teach a master class for those who wish to develop their skill in improvising for films.

Pop rock music

Also in pop music musical improvisation is present. Following the structure of previous jazz forms, from the 1950s onwards the most common example of improvisation in pop and rock is the guitar solo

Guitar solo

In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

. Other instrumental solos, and collective improvisation are also used.

British Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

acts of the 1960s and 1970s used improvisations to express the hallucinations of LSD and other drugs in a musical language. Bands like Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

, Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

, Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

, The Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

, Velvet Underground and the Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

Experience have explored musical improvisations into their performances. The progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

genre also began exploring improvisation as a musical expression, Henry Cow

Henry Cow

Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...

The Soft Machine

The Soft Machine is a novel by William S. Burroughs, first published in 1961, two years after his groundbreaking Naked Lunch. It was originally composed using the cut-up and fold-in techniques from manuscripts belonging to The Word Hoard...

, Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...

, Brian Eno

Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

. In the 1980s alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

, shoegaze, post rock and similar genres used improvisation. Bands like Spiritualized

Spiritualized

Spiritualized are an English space rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Jason Pierce after the demise of his previous outfit, space-rockers Spacemen 3...

, Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo, sometimes abbreviated as YLT, is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan , Georgia Hubley , and James McNew .Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential...

, Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

, Mogwai

Mogwai

The word mogwai is the transliteration of the Cantonese word 魔怪 meaning "monster", "evil spirit", "devil" or "demon".-Mogwai/Mogui in Chinese culture:...

, Explosions in the Sky

Explosions in the Sky

Explosions in the Sky is an American post-rock band from Texas. The band has garnered popularity beyond the post-rock scene for their elaborately developed guitar work, narratively styled instrumentals, what they refer to as "cathartic mini-symphonies," and their enthusiastic and emotional live shows...

, Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Canadian post-rock band which originated from Montreal, Quebec in 1994...

.
Modern electronic instruments or 'groove boxes' allow musicians to perform live sets of endlessly improvised material.

Historical development in Western music

Medieval period

Renaissance period

Baroque period

Melodic instruments

Keyboard, lute, and guitar

Organ improvisation and church music

Keyboard improvisation

Mozart and Beethoven

Instrumental

Opera

Theodor Adorno

Glenn Gould

Jazz improvisation

Contemporary classical music

Jam bands

Venues

Silent film music

Pop rock music

See also

Further reading

Articles

Books

Improvisations

Other