Klarinet Archive - Posting 000070.txt from 1995/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Improvisation
Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 12:41:48 -0400

I would like to add some words to the subject begun by Fred
Jacobovits: "Improvisation."

In the 1950s there was a movie made with Kirk Douglass called
"Young Man With a Horn." In the movie, Douglass (a sort of
high class Bix Beiderbecke) begins as a young man roaming the
streets of New Orleans listening to jazz.

At one club he is fascinated by the elegance of the trumpet
player and, emboldened by something or other, he approaches
the trumpeter and asks, "How do you do that?" meaning, "How
do you play so brilliantly and effectively while making it up as
you go along?"

The wizened, wrinkled, old trumpet player looks at the young
Douglass/Beiderbecke and says, "Son - you just got to feel it.
That's all."

And instantly transformed by this sudden burst of knowledge,
Douglass than "feels it" at once and plays 75 brilliant choruses
of "Royal Garden Blues."

Being a relatively inexperienced player when I first saw that
movie, and also having been brainwashed into thinking that
whatever came off the silver screen had some basis in fact, I
presumed that this perspective of how to play jazz was true.
And it made me feel terrible because I just couldn't feel it.
And I didn't know what to do to make me feel it. And I
thought that the absence of feeling it was indicitive that I had
no talent for doing this. And I was miserable and insecure.

I thought that there was an improvisation chromosome and
that you either had it (in which case you did Benny Goodman
things without thinking) or you didn't have it (in which case,
you were, like me, a giant non-improvisational putz!).

The idea that improvising was a learnable skill never, never,
never dawned on me until I began to study classical
improvisation. I am not going to go into the debate of the
wisdom (or lack of it) in using improvisation in Mozart's
music, but state that I came to the conclusion that it was a
normal performance practice in late 1700, so how did they
learn to do it then. Did they, like Kirk Douglass, simply just
feel it? How does one do 3 hot choruses of the Mozart
Quintet?

Now if you look around at music education today, you will not
find a single school in America that teaches the principles
behind classical improvisation. Baroque, sometimes, but
classical, never. In the absence of such education, it is not
surprising that so few players do it. First, of course, they don't
know that the opportunity exists, and, even if they did, most
are simply unable to "feel it."

Yet, and simultaneously, schools all over America (and Europe)
teach jazz improvisation which is a clear demonstration that
improvisation is a learnable skill.

All of this is by way of saying that, classical or jazz
improvisation is not a genetic gift that one has or does not
have. While talent is necessary, as it is in all things, the ability
to improvise is a learnable skill, and, given stylistic
considerations and guidelines, the learned skill is
fundamentally the same in jazz and in classical music.

One has to be very sensitive to the stylistic considerations to be
sure, but the mechanics of invention is independent of the
period for which you are inventing it. Once you have mastered
the craft, you can apply those skills if you understand the
specific rules for the period of music in which you wish to
apply them. (For example, dotted rhythms are likely to be less
common in 18th century improvisations.)

It is unfortunate that we have good teachers of improvisation
in large quanities only in the jazz world. Good teachers of
baroque improvisation are far fewer in number. And,
tragically, the two disciplines don't talk much to each other. If
there were teachers of classical improvisation, they would think
of themselves as a third discipline. In fact, it is kind of like
teaching history: any history teacher can specialize to be sure,
but they can also teach any of the historical periods with
considerable competence, too.

Good subject, Fred.
====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================