A good article on improvisation

I've been following the development of this article for some time now. It used to be quite sparse, but recently someone did their homework and put in a couple of sections on improvisation in classical music.

Musical Improvisation

I don't agree with much in this article, but it was an interesting read anyway.

Very good read. I was talking to a buddy of mine about this the other day. We were talking about what happens when you improvise with different people.

With my friend, we tend to improvise stuff that sounds pre-composed(Or try anyway). He plays drums and I play piano. It's great playing with a drummer because they have a very easy time keeping the music moving. I don't have to play very much over a drumbeat to make things sound "complete". He doesn't have much training but he's got great ears and feel which in my opinion, is all you really need.

If you play with a square jazz cat, the thing usually starts off with a discussion of tunes that you both know. You more or less play solos over chord changes one at a time.

Then there's the crazy noise people where you just play what you feel and if it becomes a cacophony then that's perfect. If it doesn't, then that's also perfect.

And if you play by yourself(Which in my opinion is the most interesting), you have the possibility of improvising a whole piece: figuration, harmony, melody, and rhythm. Probably the truest improvisational challenge.

And if you play by yourself(Which in my opinion is the most interesting), you have the possibility of improvising a whole piece: figuration, harmony, melody, and rhythm. Probably the truest improvisational challenge.

Amen. You know what's hard? Baroque improv. I've been trying it for a while now. I can kinda pull off two voices sometimes and use circle of fifths and other common diatonic sequences, but usually non imitative. Or if it is imitative it is with rather short phrases at the moment. It's like baroque improv is a puzzle. The rest of improv is challenging for a different reason: the possibilities for rhythm, melody and harmony are so freaking immense you can't run out. Improv doesn't have to be a puzzle...so...it can be mostly a right brained challenge but when you introduce rules like baroque has, it becomes ALSO a left brained challenge. and....well...frankly, I've never liked puzzles very much or been very good at them. the supreme irony of my situation is, I am a computer programmer.

Yeah. I have a hard time improvising with common practice harmony when it's not ostinati based stuff like jazz/blues/funk. My problem I think, has to do with me not thinking a few chords ahead as I play. Does that make sense?