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Contemporary Music Review

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Never improvise improvisation
Giancarlo Schiaffini

Online Publication Date: 01 October 2006

To cite this Article: Schiaffini, Giancarlo (2006) 'Never improvise improvisation',
Contemporary Music Review, 25:5, 575 - 576
To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/07494460600990711
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494460600990711

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Contemporary Music Review

Vol. 25, Nos. 5/6, October/December 2006, pp. 575 – 576

Never Improvise Improvisation

Giancarlo Schiaffini

Improvisation in music does not mean simply inventiveness, as improvisation is not

a synonym for creativity. The definition of ‘improvised’ in this context should
actually be considered as an attempt to label a musical act concerned with
interpretation and performance, while taking into consideration the different cultural
areas to which they belong. It is part of, and often the essence of, jazz, popular,
aleatory, rock, and the so-called ethnic music, be it based on a popular or learned
tradition; improvisation plays a role in the performance of Renaissance and baroque
music.
Often, the performing techniques in all these traditions have no common ground:
but not all musical performances free from the musical score should simply be
labelled ‘improvised’.
During the past two centuries, for historical and social reasons, written music has
come to define what we know of as our music: an orchestral score is based on written
music, a treatise or a handbook needs written examples, publishers improve their
income by means of written music—musical education and training have become
more and more . . . bookish! Composition itself feels the effects of writing problems,
and is often a formal expression of peculiarities and limits belonging to writing.
In fact, we have been developing a musical stenography, and any musical behaviour
that cannot be included in this written language is doomed to atrophy, just as what
happens to any physical attribute that is not indispensable to survival in a Darwinian
world. By developing a written language we have not only achieved a great goal, but
we have also created an environment that conditions our musical behaviour.
Our romantic tradition and culture, still alive and well, shapes our ideas on
creativity, and we still think of the artist as a pure genius, enlightened by the Holy
Ghost of inspiration. But the creative input essential to improvisation is something
really more complex and should be considered as a highly articulated mechanism.
Creativity and expression are forged by memory, and are rooted in memory.
Memory is continuously processing what we consider our cultural heritage. Sound
and music materials keep on being heaped, combined, and filtered according to the same
standards that have shaped them. Memory plays a substantial role in evolution,
assisting the development of expressive techniques that are also (why not?)
techniques of survival. Experienced improvising musicians develop an original

ISSN 0749-4467 (print)/ISSN 1477-2256 (online) ª 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/07494460600990711
Downloaded By: [Alerta - Chile 2005/2006 Consortium] At: 05:17 26 September 2007

576 G. Schiaffini
language, made of personality, style, study and memory, and it is this language that
stands out, in a pure improvisational context.
The lonely composer-improviser follows a path that is more or less consciously
defined, and he is absolutely free to change his way whenever he wants. But, even in
its more radical strayings, the improviser follows an inner logic, as in a Joycean
stream, that is based on an ideal structure but is continuously and actively changing
it. This involves a great freedom and many hidden traps.
When he has to invent, a musician is often conditioned by his instrument.
A performer who wants to create often selects his materials according to unconscious
standards of familiarity and easiness linked to his instrumental technique and
learning. This is the reason why limitations between improvisation and memory are
not always very clear. Creativity can always be revitalized by a great variety of stimuli,
as in a group improvisation. In fact, this is a situation that involves fun, playing a
role, inventiveness, memory, the sudden processing or elimination of materials, and
immediate decision making. Music can be improvised on complex or simple patterns
and structures, or on given sound materials (i.e. pre-recorded tracks), and also with
the help of real-time elaboration.
The composer-improviser is alone and, at the same time, interacting with the
sound environment, be it other musicians, machines, the audience, or what has just
been played.
We should consider improvisation not only as a synonym of creation, but also as a
technique. In improvisation, skill, learning, practice and alertness are all necessary.
Never improvise improvisation.

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