Klarinet Archive - Posting 000330.txt from 2006/10
From: "danyel" <rab@-----.de>
Subj: Re: [kl] For the begginger in improvisation
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:30:36 -0500
The word improvisation is the problem, I think. People are used to it but
don't realise what it means, i.e. unforeseen. Even in a case of "impetuous"
ad hoc ornamentation, this does hardly apply, unless the player is
incompetent. Musicians always prepare and study things in advance and to
what extent they are doing it is nobody else's business. Hence I propose the
term ad hoc. I say this because the constant jabbering about improvisation
amongst jazz aficionados has wrecked my nerves. An entire school of "avant
garde" jazz musicians boasts to go on stage completely unprepared. Yet what
they actually do is reproduce a handful of the most miserable little stock
phrases and awkward noises they have worked out at home and use all the time
in any musical set up. That's the opposite of improvisation. If my e-flat
reed splits in the middle of a concert I can improvise a reed scraping and
shortening a Bb reed. It will do, but won't be as good as a proper, i.e.
well prepared reed. Improvisation is always done if circumstances don't
allow for proper preparation, like a pallet on the floor, etc.... If you
play ad-hoc variations of a Mozart Sonata movement, that's more what we call
fantasieren in German, a thing practiced by the likes of Robert Schumann for
hours every day as a means of musical invention. Calling this improvisation
would be derogatory, wouldn't it?
Best wishes,
danyel
www.echoton.de/clar.html
----- Original Message -----
From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 2:34 AM
Subject: RE: [kl] For the begginger in improvisation
> I'm not quite sure about Laurence Beckhardt's comments, which
> rejected the idea of "prepared improvisations" being an oxymoron
> and also the notion of "[really] impetuous" improvisaitons. When
> I read his comments on the 25th, I tried to figure out some way
> to eliminate what I perceive as a communication problem between
> us. But I was so uncertain about the nature of that difficulty
> that I waited, now for three days, to let it mull around in the
> back of my head.
>
> On one point, he is quite correct when he says, "Levin's
> improvisation results from careful study and preparation." Can't
> argue with that. In fact, in my own case, which is miles behind
> Levin's abilities, I have a pocketful of cliches in terms of
> turns, grace notes, fixed melodic passage, particuarly those
> those that work back to the tonic, and I know where and how to
> put them in place. And I may, or may not, pull a cliche from my
> pocket whenever I feel like it.
>
> In sum and substance, I have no idea what improvisations I will
> or won't use, or even if I will do any improvisations at all.
> What I do, when I do it, is genuine spur of the moment,
> unplanned, unrehearsed (though I have used those cliches in the
> past) and I know that they will or won't work under this or that
> occasion.
>
> I just don't know what to call these acts if not impetuous. Were
> I to do the same ornaments, night after night, unchanged that
> would certainly be the antithesis of impetuous. And when I hear
> an artist do just that (because I played three performances of a
> particular work with the artist, and I've even heard those
> prepared ornaments on recordings), I simply come to the
> conclusion that they are not improvising but simply composing
> something to be attached on top of the Mozart text.
>
> I'm not sure that Laurence and I will ever be able to smooth over
> this bump in communications, but I have tried to explain myself a
> little better.
>
> Both my original note and Laurence's response are contained
> below.
>
> Dan Leeson
> DNLeeson@-----.net
>
>
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