Improvisation

I love improvisation. I should. That's all I do when I play guitar. Bruford talked about this somewhere comparing music to a conversation where your whole conversation is planned in advance, and then night after night you have that same preplanned conversation. I feel like this. I learn specific pieces from time to time and then I get promptly forget them.

Frank Zappa would hover over both extremes. He would have pieces that were meticulously worked out, and then he would have some that were rather free form. Even in Zappa's free form pieces, such as on the Shut Up N' Play Yer Guitar albums, his improvs were not exactly directionless. He would hit moments when he would play a phrase, then play it again but change something, and then play it again a third time changing something else.

I would like to point out to some naysayers that arrangements, even complicated arrangements, can be improvised.

Steve Hackett sticks most often to well worked out arrangements, but he does improvise in a nuanced way within them. He's also talked about liking classical guitar because he can more freely stretch out or shorten notes, being freed of the dictates of a drummer's backbeat.

Edited by HackettFan - August 11 2013 at 06:14

I personally think that what Rogerthat just highlighted in npjnpj's post sadly shows yet another example of people relying too much on made up stickers. You can't boil music down to a label - especially when we're talking about progressive rock releases from the 70s. Some of the albums listed here on PA residing in either Heavy, Symph or related were part of the Krautrock-, Canterbury- and/or psychedelic scene, and they were definitely no strangers to improvising, both on stage as well as in the studio. So for the love of dog, don't read too much into stickers! 

I like my live recording of Bruford playing with Genesis--sounds like he's improvising and doing his own thing with very specific arrangements---I know it frustrated the fastidious Banks.

twosteves wrote: I like my live recording of Bruford playing with Genesis--sounds like he's improvising and doing his own thing with very specific arrangements---I know it frustrated the fastidious Banks.

Yeah, I agree.

"The nature of Genesis when we’re playing the songs… They have a certain kind of structure. If you’re playing “Robbery, Assault, and Battery” you had to play it as written.  I mean, it’s a song – everything in it has been composed. There is no improvisation in it, but the drummer can always do what he likes within that [structure]. If he can do it, he can fiddle about with it." Tony Banks (from a World of Genesis interview).

Edited by HackettFan - August 11 2013 at 15:18

twosteves wrote: I like my live recording of Bruford playing with Genesis--sounds like he's improvising and doing his own thing with very specific arrangements---I know it frustrated the fastidious Banks.

The.Crimson.King wrote: I think Bruford was chosen for the tour primarily by Phil because he respected his abilities and felt they could work together...I had an old boot from the tour and their drum duet was fantastic...but I agree that any divergence from the script would have driven Banks bonkers

True!

Banks was once asked in an interview if there was ever any improvisation in regards to his solos. Banks typical response was he viewed his solos, or any in the band as "arranged instrumentals."

It seems 'Improvisation" here  has sparked-off a variety of reactions, and all valid ones. I was raised in the rigid confines of a university music department and there would often be endless hours of discussion, savage debates and arguments about Improvisation. We can go on and on like a revolving door trying to define what Improvisation is and to what degree it should be applied. The likelihood of  it then falling into the subjective or personal preference.  There was even a class being offered in the dept. titled "JAZZ IMPROV." There's that word again, "Improv," and was the only class being offered that used that word for its title. In those days it was called "jamming."
After I graduated from that rigid enviroment I discovered that most people (musicians & non-musicians) immediately associated the word "Improvisation" with Jazz, but hardly ever associated it with Rock. My conclusion was that there existed a variety of definitions and associations in regards to Improvisation, but not surprised.

I think of the band "Chicago" that often used improvisation within the structure of their highly successful songs. Namely James Pankow, their brilliant trombone player's solo in the song "Mother" from their third album. Or the song "Goodbye" (Chicago V) with trumpet player Lee Loughnane's solo. Just some examples to ponder on.

Improvisation encompasses much more than we think.

I don't know if this has anything to do with music but it sort of has something to do with improvisation. When I fkew in the air force sometimes we would have to show the flag in remote areas. This was sometimes done bythe land guys and sometimes by the Canadian Air Force which at the time was known as Air Command. I was flying a fighter plane known as a Freedom Fighter and was instructed to make three low passes over this Inuit community and then f**k off back to my base in Cold Lake AB. I turned it into a full blown 15 minute spectacle complete with rolls, high speed passes, climbouts and a low speed pass waving to the people assembled below. After that I got sent to Australia as an exchange pilot but I caught a bit of flack from the brass. Just a wee bit.

The Pessimist wrote: infocat wrote: I'm always amazed and delighted with Djam Karet's Still No Commercial Potential, which is apparently all improvisation; though you mostly can't tell!   There is a saying in the jazz world: if people can tell you're improvising then you're not doing it right of course it's to be taken with a pinch of salt...

 

moshkito wrote: Dellinger wrote: For me, it all depends on the context and the ability of the musicians. However, I might begin by saying that I don't usually like pieces that are completley improvised... or I might like them as background music or as part of a record (or concert), or whatever, but I won't feel the urge to hear them again. ... That would take away from a lot of things that we love ... so Fripp and Eno's Evening Star, or No Pussyfooting ... would be crap ... there are, out there, just as many improvised things as there are non-improvised pieces, and in general, with Eno, Robert is there to just let it fly and go ... regardless, because Eno can work with it! You really want to go, check out Faust in that krautrock special by the BBC, and that is ... improvisation ... at its ... worst musically ... but at its BEST in experimentation ... and the point usually is ... to find musicality in the piece. Completely improvised material is just a simple exercise ... again ... start with a 5 year old and a small keyboard and have them bang on it ... and you have to play with it (and encourage the kid to do so and think that this is fun!) ... and what comes out is not musically adept, except in your HEAD ... and you will be able to see the wide gulf in between ... now think of 100% improvisation as a bunch of these kids playing anything ... which is a total anti-thesis of what we think music is! ... Dellinger wrote: But to have improvised bits thrown into the songs in live albums often takes the songs to new levels for me, and more often than not I like those versions better than the simpler studio versions (though I guess in many cases the extended bits aren't really improvised, but composed by the band to complement the song... or perhaps they begin like improvs, and then they become a permantent part of the song). In many cases, the studio versions are like incomplete versions of the songs compared to the extended live versions. I would say that this is over "thought". The extent of the exercises in improvisation, usually tend to meander (actual theater exercise which can be done with music!) for the first 30 minutes. After this, you can see the folks are kinda bored and searching for something. Let them. At 1 hour, folks are really struggling to find something. At the 90 minute mark, you can see that some folks have found something and are working on it ... and one or two others might join them or not. Only at this far point into the improvisation, after the "freakout" (of whatdoIdo?), do you come to find something to work on ... but most musicians are too lazy to get that far ... they know music and will not learn anything else, except what a DAW will tell them they can do, or better yet ... what Eric did ... or what Jimi did ... or what Chris did ... There are no rock bands today, working on this level at all! Most are just doing copycat krautrock things, or copiecat jazz things, for the most part!

Hey, I never said I considered improvisations to be crap, I even said I do enjoy them often enough... just not in the same way I like conventional written songs, and I won't often think "oh yeah, I want to hear such or so improv"... And I'm afraid I don't know those particular albums you mentioned, but I do have some albums with improvs.

Well, I went to concerts where I heard free improvisations without listening to the records (or the videos) later made from these performances... And I don't see what's "crazy" about that.