Musical improvisation

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Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians. ^[1] Thus, musical ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in Western music ^[2]

Because improvisation is a performative act and depends on instrumental technique, improvisation is a skill. There are musicians who never improvised and there are musicians who have devoted their entire lifes to improvisation^[3].

Contents 1 Historical development in Western music 1.1 Medieval period 1.2 Renaissance period 1.3 Baroque period 1.3.1 Melodic instruments 1.3.2 Keyboard, lute, and guitar 1.3.3 Organ improvisation and church music 1.3.4 Polyphony 1.3.5 Fugal improvisation 1.4 The Classical period 1.4.1 Keyboard improvisation 1.4.1.1 Mozart and Beethoven 1.5 Romantic period 1.5.1 Opera 2 Theory of improvisation 2.1 Harmony 2.1.1 Modulation 2.2 Modes 2.3 Form 3 Aesthetics of improvisation 3.1 Alexander Scriabin 3.2 Theodor Adorno 3.3 Glenn Gould 4 Modern improvisation 4.1 Jazz improvisation 4.2 Classical-Jazz-Fusion 4.3 Contemporary classical music 5 Notes 6 References 7 See also 8 External links

Historical development in Western music

Throughout the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, improvisation was a highly valued skill. Francesco Landini, Adrian Willaert, Diego Ortiz, Frescobaldi, J.S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and many other famous composers and musicians were known especially for their improvisational skills. Improvisation might have played an important role in the monophonic period. The earliest treatises on polyphony, such as the Musica enchiriadis (ninth century), make plain that added parts were improvised for centuries before the first notated examples. However, it was only in the fifteenth century that theorists began making a hard distinction between improvised and written music.^[4] Many classical forms contained sections for improvisation, such as the cadenza in concertos, or the preludes to some keyboard suites by Bach and Handel, which consist of elaborations of a progression of chords, which performers are to use as the basis for their improvisation. Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach all belonged to a tradition of solo keyboard improvisation that was not limited to variations, but included the concerto form, typically with moving voices in both hands, occasionally exploring fugue.

Medieval period

Although melodic improvisation was an important factor in European music from the earliest times, the first detailed information on improvisation technique appears in ninth-century treatises instructing singers on how to add another melody to a pre-existent liturgical chant, in a style called organum.^[5] Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, improvised counterpoint over a cantus firmus (a practice found both in church music and in popular dance music) constituted a part of every musician's education, and is regarded as the most important kind of unwritten music before the Baroque period.^[6]

Renaissance period

Following the invention of music printing at the beginning of the sixteenth century, there is more detailed documentation of improvisational practice, in the form of published instruction manuals, mainly in Italy.^[7] In addition to improvising counterpoint over a cantus firmus, singers and instrumentalists improvised melodies over ostinato chord patterns, made elaborate embellishments of melodic lines, and invented music extemporaneously without any predetermined schemata.^[8] Keyboard players likewise performed extempore, freely formed pieces.^[9]

Baroque period

Melodic instruments

Eighteenth-century manuals make it clear that performers on the flute, oboe, violin, and other melodic instruments were expected not only to ornament previously composed pieces, but also spontaneously to improvise preludes.^[10]

Keyboard, lute, and guitar

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The pattern of chords in many baroque preludes, for example, can be played on keyboard and guitar over a pedal tone or repeated bass notes. Such progressions can be used in many other structures and contexts, and are still found in Mozart, but most preludes begin with the treble supported by a simple bass. J.S. Bach, for example, was particularly fond of the sound produced by the dominant seventh harmony played over, i.e., suspended against, the tonic pedal tone.^{[citation needed]} Bach's Cantata BWV 54 uses this suspension as the opening chord in E-flat Major.

There is little or no Alberti bass in baroque keyboard music, and instead the accompanying hand supports the moving lines mostly by contrasting them with longer note values, which themselves have a melodic shape and are mostly placed in consonant harmony. This polarity can be reversed—another useful technique for improvisation—by changing the longer note values to the right hand and playing moving lines in the left at intervals—or with moving lines in both hands, occasionally. This shift of roles between treble and bass is another definitive characteristic.^{[citation needed]} Finally, in keeping with this polarity, the kind of question and answer which appears in baroque music has the appearance of fugue or canon. This method was a favorite in compositions by Scarlatti and Handel especially at the beginning of a piece, even when not forming a fugue.^{[citation needed]}

Organ improvisation and church music

Improvised accompaniment over a figured bass was a common practice during the Baroque era, and to some extent the following periods.

There is a tradition of improvised organ competition, because of the more solid foundation of organ improvisation.^{[citation needed]}

Polyphony

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The polyphony in late baroque music also lends itself to improvisation. One ought to avoid parallel fifths and parallel octaves in this style of classical playing,^{[citation needed]} except perhaps when playing chords in parallel, such as in Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. In later music such exceptions apply more often.^{[citation needed]} Practicing polyphonic improvisation, one will mostly encounter the problem of parallel octaves. Contrary motion, and parallel thirds, sixths, and tenths are the basic methods of avoidance. Parallel fifths and octaves are noticeable to the ear, if not the more difficult to discern hidden fifths and hidden octaves, which are hard to find even in a written score.^{[citation needed]}

Baroque melodic lines, in any case, are similar to the later homophonic styles, except that more passing tones are added. In Volume II of The World as Will and Representation,^[11] Schopenhauer discussed at some length the frequent shifts in baroque melodic passages between tonic and dominant.

Fugal improvisation

Adorno levelled two different arguments against fugue writing. On the one hand, he claimed that classicist fugue composition is so overshadowed by Bach, that it is unlikely to produce genuine art.^[12] Second, however, several pages later he elaborated his argument against a return to fugue, by criticizing atonal fugue writing as "functionless and technically false."^[13]

To begin learning to improvise short fugues, it is helpful merely to play a fugue subject and attempt to add an answer in another voice, i.e., to play an exposition. Or one may begin by playing a one voice improvisation with occasional statements of the subject. If the two voice fugues are practiced consistently, the next step is to add a third voice.^{[citation needed]}

The Classical period

Keyboard improvisation

Classical music departs from baroque style in that sometimes several voices may move together as chords involving both hands, to form brief phrases without any passing tones. Though such motifs were used sparingly by Mozart, they were taken up much more liberally by Beethoven and Schubert. Such chords also appeared to some extent in baroque keyboard music, such as the 3rd movement theme in Bach's Italian Concerto. But at that time such a chord often appeared only in one clef at a time, (or one hand on the keyboard) and did not form the independent phrases found more in later music. Adorno mentions this movement of the Italian Concerto as a more flexible, improvisatory form, in comparison to Mozart, suggesting the gradual diminishment of improvisation well before its decline became obvious.^[14]

The introductory gesture of "tonic, subdominant, dominant, tonic," however, much like its baroque form, continues to appear at the beginning of high-classical and romantic piano pieces (and much other music) as in Haydn's sonata Hob.16/No. 52 and Beethoven's sonata opus 78.^{[citation needed]}

Beethoven and Mozart cultivated slightly new musical moods.^{[citation needed]} These are often indicated by mood markings such as con amore, appassionato, cantabile, and expressivo. In fact, it is perhaps because improvisation is spontaneous that it is akin to the communication of love.^[15]

Mozart and Beethoven

Beethoven and Mozart left excellent examples of what their improvisations were like, in the sets of variations and the sonatas which they published, and in their cadenzas. As a keyboard player, Mozart competed at least once with Muzio Clementi.^{[citation needed]} Beethoven, on the other hand, had many more such contests with pianists of his time in Vienna, that are documented in several letters by witnesses.^{[citation needed]}

In trading bars in jazz, where musicians share a chorus of a tune, there is really only a vestige of the cutting contest of the earlier years of jazz and stride.^{[citation needed]}

During Beethoven's time, however, when improvisation was practically a fad, there was a kind of trading which can be compared to jazz. Competitors would improvise, taking turns with the entire form of a tune (or, though it is not known for certain, parts of it as in the case of jazz). This process continued usually until one player appeared to vanquish the other by his creativity.^{[citation needed]}

Mozart left an unfinished Fantasia in D minor, and a harmonic prelude, and sets of variations including Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman". Beethoven also published an even larger collection of variation sets, though he regretted not finishing his planned "piano method" which may have included material on improvisation.^{[citation needed]} Beethoven won many tough improvisatory battles over such rivals as Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Joseph Woelfl,^{[citation needed]} but little is known about many of these events, besides published themes with variations.

Adorno described Mozart's musical texture as an unshakable formal rigor always pushed to the brink of apparent chaos.^[16] Beethoven's, on the other hand, he described with somewhat more reverence as a "continuum of nothing" indicating again its extemporaneous quality.^[17]

Romantic period

The decline of improvisation was simultaneous with the rise of expressionism. Modernism too appears in response to romantic banality, but at the same time modernism retained something of the kind of expressionism achieved by Beethoven, which is said to involve a truth content in addition to mere sensuality.^{[citation needed]}

Though there were exceptions, some such new views^{[weasel words]} were opposed to improvisation as belonging to a casual, non-intellectual creative process, or were too pre-occupied to take it up. At the same time, the romantic period still produced composers who were very much interested in improvisation, such as Brahms.^{[citation needed]}

Finally, improvisation was a diversion of the aristocracy, whose self-identity changed dramatically after the early 19th century.^{[citation needed]}

These trends appear to have had their beginnings in the period just after Beethoven, but only finally reached completion in the last quarter of the 19th century, which also coincides closely with the emergence of atonality.^{[citation needed]} The process also suggests a correlation between improvisation and the popularity and familiarity of music, linking it to the greatly varied melodies of opera and folk music.^{[citation needed]}

Opera

After studying something more than 1,200 early Verdi recordings, Will Crutchfield concludes that "the solo Cavatina was the most obvious and enduring locus of soloistic discretion in nineteenth-century opera" (Crutchfield 1983, 7). He goes on to identify seven main types of vocal improvisation used by opera singers in this repertory (Crutchfield 1983, 5–13): 1. The Verdian “full-stop” cadenza 2. Arias without “full-stop”: ballate, canzoni, and romanze 3. Ornamentation of internal cadences 4. Melodic variants (interpolated hight notes, acciaccature, rising two-note "slide") 5. Strophic variation and the problem of the cabaletta 6. Facilitations (puntature, simplification of fioratura, etc.) 7. Recitative

Theory of improvisation

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Harmony

It is very helpful in classical improvisation, as it is in jazz playing, to break down the major and minor scales by assigning alternative harmonies for each note of the scale.^{[citation needed]} To make this task even simpler, on any instrument, one may begin by playing single notes and experimenting with possible accompaniment harmonies for them as played by a pianist.^{[citation needed]} This may seem to lead to a habitual and oversimplified chordal left hand for the solo pianist, but there are many ways to avoid such constraints. The left hand harmonization can be reversed, for example, by harmonizing bass notes with two or more notes in the right hand.^{[citation needed]} If bass notes are played a few octaves below a chord, for example, this does not imply that the bass notes become melodic, rather, more of the harmonization has merely been shifted to the right hand.^{[citation needed]}

The first four notes of the major scale, for example, can be harmonized as I, V, I, V7, or I, v (minor), I, IV, or I, V, I, IV, or I, V, vi, ii. Homophonic structure such as this is one of the first steps to improvisation, and it is also the basis of some of the idioms common in mid-18th century homophony.^{[citation needed]}

Another useful technique is the harmonization or adding of tones directly within melodic lines.^{[citation needed]} This may involve the use of extra passing tones in a repeating pattern, or a series of arpeggios.^{[citation needed]}

Typically, the phrase leading to an authentic cadence in Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, and to some extent in Beethoven, is preceded by a deceptive cadence on the submediant, which is also minor (Aeolian mode) to be answered by the authentic cadence.^{[citation needed]} In this case question and answer taken together can be thought of as one phrase.^{[citation needed]}

Improvisers might also reverse the method of harmonization by creating melodies over existing harmonic progressions, such as in many of Bach's Preludes from the Well-tempered Clavier, and many other ground basses or passacaglias such as the Spanish Folia.^{[citation needed]} An improvisor who wishes to become more serious about playing variations might then try some of Mozart's arias, which at one time were prime territory.^{[citation needed]} More freedom and inspiration might be derived from applying alternative sections or endings to various sonatas, sonatinas and other works of the 18th or 19th century.^{[citation needed]}

Modulation

Modulation involves the distance of certain harmonies from the tonic triad, and how one might arrive at and depart from harmonies, via cadences and phrases.^{[citation needed]} It treats music like a harmonic map in which harmonies are destinations or residences. This is important for understanding classical idioms but it does not mean that one must imitate exactly any particular composer.^{[citation needed]} Modulation is greatly aided by the Circle of Fifths, but in two different senses. The true circle of fifths is simply the entire array of possible tonic destinations, in order. A diatonic circle, on the other hand, is used mostly for intermittent sequences, forming phrases that follow the circle in a pleasing pattern.^{[citation needed]} The circle of fifths itself may be used for this. But in this case it is usually found in a broad sequence that has more tension in its transitions (Mozart's 24th Piano Concerto, K. 491, first movement, mm. 338-350).^[18]

Modes

Though classical music makes use of modes in several ways, it generally differs from jazz, however, in the following way. In both classical and jazz there are frequent accidentals, but in jazz, many of the transitions that give rise to these are more streamlined. Jazz, therefore, is more modal.^{[citation needed]}

Classical improvisors tend to impose minor scales within major key phrases. For example, the supertonic and submediant are outlined by melodic lines using the melodic minor—not the modes that correspond to the tonic key signature.^{[citation needed]}

Jazz is more free in the alteration of scales.^{[citation needed]} This is yet more the case in later jazz.^{[citation needed]} (Many late romantic and early modern composers, however, such as Rachmaninov, make harmonic use of modes that are of linear use in jazz such as the fifth mode of the melodic minor, or Mixolydian flat-6).^{[citation needed]}

Mozart, on the other hand, experimented with modes a great deal, in particular toward the end of the first movement of the Piano Concerto in C minor, K. 491.^{[citation needed]}

Form

Besides theme and variation, there are many kinds of musical score or blueprint that apply to improvisation, as well as different times in which the score might actually be prepared.^{[citation needed]} An improviser could start from no overall structure, and merely explore familiar and unfamiliar patterns and shapes.^{[citation needed]} Or he could prepare an outline ahead of time, one which might not restrict him to a harmonic or melodic progression, or on the other hand, create or prepare the outline on the spot.^{[citation needed]} Finally it is at least possible to imagine composing the entire piece on the spot before playing it.^{[citation needed]}

Aesthetics of improvisation

Alexander Scriabin

In his autobiography Safe Conduct Boris Pasternak recalls how Alexander Scriabin spoke against improvisation as a distraction from productive composition.^{[citation needed]}

Theodor Adorno

Toward the end of the section of Aesthetic Theory entitled "Art Beauty" (in the English edition), Theodor Adorno included a brief argument on improvisation's aesthetic value. Claiming that artworks must have a "thing-character" through which their spiritual content breaks, Adorno pointed out that the thing-character is in question in the improvised, yet present.^[19] It may be assumed Adorno meant classical improvisation, not jazz, which he mostly excoriated. He held jazz, for example, to be antithetical to Beethoven.^[20] There is more extensive treatment, essentially about traditional jazz, in Prisms and The Jargon of Authenticity.^[21]

Glenn Gould

Improvisation may be pressed to derive something novel from past material, which becomes outmoded through its limited concepts of tonality, form, and variation. Though his understanding of modern music was itself unorthodox, Glenn Gould appears to have such a view as he clearly thought musical history was a finite exploration of forms and tonal concepts, and exhaustible.^[22]

Despite these beliefs improvisation formed part of Gould's practicing and even recording, in the music of Richard Strauss. The crisis of music theory, however, was one of the primary reasons Gould focused on interpretation as an art in studio recording. In post-baroque music he often found traditional interpretation stale and boring. Gould's technique, which convinced many listeners, became conspicuous in some areas other than Bach and Beethoven. For example, he felt that Mozart could be hackneyed enough, even to cast doubt on the composer's own authority for form and development.^{[citation needed]}

Modern improvisation

Jazz improvisation

Improvisation is one of the basic tenets of jazz. Typically in a jazz piece, the "head" (the song's melody along with any backing harmony) is played once by the musicians and often repeated. Improvisation by any of the musicians follows, and this is typically the longest section of a song as each musician improvises their own melody over the harmonic and rhythmic foundation of the head. When the end of the head is reached it is repeated and a solo's length is specified by the number of repetitions of the head necessary. After one musician has finished improvising, another will begin, and no instrument is forbidden from improvising. A repetition of the head will usually end a jazz piece. There are many variations to this pattern; new sections can be added before and after the head, two musicians can alternatively improvise for short amounts of time (known as "trading"), or several musicians can improvise in a group (collective improvisation is common in Dixieland jazz).^{[citation needed]}

Many varied scales and their modes can be used in improvisation. These mainly depend on the nature of the harmonic framework. Against a C Minor seventh chord, for example, an improvisor would usually have a choice of using C Dorian, C Aeolian, C blues, and others, depending on the situation and personal taste. Chord changes are very important in jazz improvisation as well. Whole solos can be built around chord tones.^{[citation needed]}

In the bebop era of jazz in the early 1950s there was a common theme of urgency and technical proficiency. The modal era of jazz moved the harmonic framework for a piece from the fast, dynamic chord progressions of bebop to more static, relaxed chords with longer durations. Free jazz performers eschew the explicit harmonic framework for improvisation; the harmony in free jazz is less rigid and less traditional.^{[citation needed]}

Illinois Jacquet, for example, is best known for a single solo on the tune Flying Home, and such solos are often transcribed. They are often not written down in the process, but they help musicians practice the jazz idiom. Charlie Parker's improvisations were distinctive, helping to shape the bebop period. Though it is helpful to transcribe on one's own, Parker's solos are often studied in a published collection known as the Omni Book, and groups such as Supersax arrange his solos with their own harmonic backing.^{[citation needed]}

Classical-Jazz-Fusion

Improvisors like Say and Montero gravitate towards jazz and a fusion with classical music.^{[citation needed]}

Contemporary classical music

While the first half of the twentieth century is marked by an almost total absence of actual improvisation in art music,^[23] since the 1950s, contemporary composers^{[weasel words]} have placed fewer restrictions on the improvising performer, using techniques such as vague notation (for example, indicating only that a certain number of notes must sound within a defined period of time). New Music ensembles formed around improvisation were founded, such as the Scratch Orchestra in England; Musica Elettronica Viva in Italy; Lukas Foss's Improvisation Chamber Ensemble at the University of California, Los Angeles; Larry Austin's New Music Ensemble at the University of California, Davis; the ONCE Group at Ann Arbor; the Sonic Arts Group; and Sonics, the latter three funding themselves through concerts, tours, and grants. Significant pieces include Foss's Time Cycles (1960) and Echoi (1963).^[24]

Other composers working with improvisation include Pierre Boulez, Cornelius Cardew, Alvin Curran, Stuart Dempster, Hugh Davies, Karlheinz Essl, Vinko Globokar, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Richard Teitelbaum, Christian Wolff, Vangelis, La Monte Young, John Zorn and Yitzhak Yedid.

Several pianists also teach classical improvisation and perform, such as David Dolan,^[25] William Goldstein,^[26] Yitzhak Yedid and Eric Barnhill.^[27]

Notes

References

• Adorno, Theodor W. 1973. The Jargon of Authenticity, translated by Knut Tarnowski and Frederic Will. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0810104075
• Adorno, Theodor W. 1981. Prisms, translated from the German by Samuel and Shierry Weber. Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0262510251 ISBN 026201064X
• Adorno, Theodor W. 1997. Aesthetic Theory, translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816617996
• Bailey, Derek. 1992. Improvisation: It's Nature and Practice in Music, revised edition. London: British Library National Sound Archive. ISBN 0712305068
• Berliner, Paul. 1994. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226043800 (cloth); ISBN 0226043819 (pbk.)
• Brown, Howard Mayer. 1976. Embellishing Sixteenth-Century Music. Early Music Series 1. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0193231751
• Crutchfield, Will. 1983. "Vocal Ornamentation in Verdi: the Phonographic Evidence". Nineteenth-Century Music 7, no. 1 (Summer): 3–54.
• Crutchfield, Will. 2001. "Improvisation: II. Western Art Music: 5. The Nineteenth Century: (ii) Vocal music". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
• Czerny, Carl. 1833. L’art de préluder: mis en pratique pour le piano par 120 examples de préludes, modulations, cadenses et fantaisien de tous genres. Paris: M. Schlesinger.
• Dalla Casa, Girolamo. 1584. Il vero modo di diminuir, con tutte le sorti di stromenti di fiato, & corda, & di voce humana. 2 vols. Venice: Angelo Gardano. Facsimile reprint, in one volume, Bibliotheca musica Bononiensis, sezione 2, no. 23 (Bologna: Arnoldi Forni Editore).
• Duckles, Vincent. 1957. "Florid Embellishment in English Song of the Late 16th and Early 17th Centuries". Annales musicologiques 5:329–45.
• Ferand, Ernest T. 1938. Die Improvisation in der Musik; eine Entwicklungsgeschichtliche und Psychologische Untersuchung. Zürich: Rhein-Verlag.
• Ferand, Ernest T. 1956. "Improvised Vocal Counterpoint in the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque". Annales Musicologiques 4 (1956), 129–74.
• Friedrich, Otto. 1989. Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations. New York: Random House. ISBN 039457771X
• Ganassi, Silvestro. 1535. Opera Intitulata Fontegara: Laquale insegna a sonare di flauto ch'o tutta l'arte opportuna a esso instrumento massime il diminuire ilquale sara utile ad ogni istrumeno di fiato et chorde: et anchora a chi si dileta di canto. Venice: per Syluestro di Ganassi dal Fontego, Sonator dalla illustrissima signoria di Venetia hautor pprio. Facsimile reprints, Collezione di trattati e musiche antiche edite in fac-simile (Milan: Bollettino bibliografico musicale, 1934) and Bibliotheca musica Bononiensis, Sezione II, no. 18 (Bologna: Forni, 1969). German edition, edited by Hildemarie Peter (Berlin-Lichterfeld: Robert Lienau, 1956). English edition with translation by Dorothy Swainson of Peter's German text (Berlin-Lichterfeld: Robert Lienau, 1959).
• Gorow, Ron. 2002. Hearing and Writing Music: Professional Training for Today's Musician, 2nd ed. Gardena, CA: September Publishing. ISBN 0962949671
• Griffiths, Paul. 2001. "Improvisation §II: Western Art Music 6: The 20th Century". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
• Guido d'Arezzo. 1978. "Micrologus" [ca. 1027], translated by Warren Babb. In Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises, edited, with introductions, by Claude V. Palisca; index of chants by Alejandro Enrique Planchart, 57–83. Music Theory Translation Series 3. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300020406
• Hall, Lucy. 2002. "They're Just Making It Up—Whatever Happened to Improvisation in Classical Music?" The Guardian 22 February^{[citation needed]}
• Heartz, Daniel. 1958–63. "The Basse Dance, Its Evolution Circa 1450 to 1550". Annales Musicologiques 6:287–340.
• Horsley, Imogene. 2001. "Improvisation II: Western Art Music 2: History to 1600". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
• Hotteterre, Jacques-Martin. 1719. L’art de préluder: sur la flûte traversière, sur la flûte à bec, sur le hautbois et autres instrumens de dessus, op. 7. Paris: Boivin. Facsimile reprints: recueillie par Michel Sanvoisin (Paris: A. Zurfluh, 1966), (Geneva: Minkoff, 1978) ISBN 2826606727, and Archivum musicum: L’art de la flûte traversière 55 (Florence: SPES, 1999). ISBN 8872427797 Musical pieces edited by Erich Doflein and Nikolaus Delius as 48 Préludes in 24 Tonarten aus op. VII, 1719, für Altblockflöte (Querflöte, Oboe). Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne; New York: Schott Music Corp., 1972.
• Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra. 2004. "Piano Improvisation Develops Musicianship." Orff-Echo 37, no. 1:11–14.
• Koenig, Wolf, and Roman Kroitor (prod./dir.). 1959a. Glenn Gould: Off the Record. Film, 30 mins. [Canada]: National Film Board of Canada.
• Koenig, Wolf, and Roman Kroitor (prod./dir.). 1959b. Glenn Gould: On the Record. Film, 30 mins. [Canada]: National Film Board of Canada.
• Kutschke, Beate. 1999. "Improvisation: An Always-Accessible Instrument of Innovation". Perspectives of New Music 37, no. 2. (Summer): 147–62.
• Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. 1953. Concerto No. 24 In C Minor for Piano, edited by Franz Kullak. New York: G. Schirmer.
• Nachmanovitch, Stephen. 1990. Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, Inc.; New York: Distributed by St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0874775787 (cloth); ISBN 0874776317 (pbk)
• Ortiz, Diego. 1553. Trattado de glosas sobre clausulas y otros generos depuntos en la musica de violones. Nuevamente puestos en Luz (also in Italian, as El primo libro nel quale si tratta delle glose sopra le cadenze et altre sorte de punti in la musica del violone). 2 vols. Rome: Dorico. Facsimile reprint of the Italian edition, Archivum musicum 57 (Florence: Studio per edizioni scelte, 1984). Transcription, edition, and German translation by Max Schneider (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1936).
• Polk, Keith. 1966. "Flemish Wind Bands in the Late Middle Ages: A Study of Improvisatory Instrumental Practices". Ph.D. dissertation. Berkeley: University of California.
• Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1958. The World as Will and Representation. Translated from the German by E. F. J. Payne, 2 vols. [Indian Hills, Colorado]: Falcon's Wing Press.
• Thomas de Sancta Maria, fray. 1565. Libro llamado Arte de tañer fantasia: assi para tecla como para vihuela, y todo instrumento, en que se pudiere tañer a tres, y a quatro vozes, y a mas ... Elqual por mandado del muy alto Consejo real fue examinado, y aprouado por el eminente musico de Su Magestad Antonio de Cabeçon, y por Iuan de Cabeçon, su hermano. Valladolid: F. Fernandez de Cordova. Facsimile editions: with an introduction in English by Denis Stevens (Farnborough, UK: Gregg International Publishers, 1972) ISBN 0576282294; Monumentos de la música española 75, edited by Luis Antonio González Marín, with the collaboration of Antonio Ezquerro Estaban, et al. (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Institución "Milà i Fontanals," Departamento de Musicología, 2007). ISBN 9788400085414 ISBN 8400085418 English translation by Warren E. Hultberg and Almonte C. Howell, Jr, as The Art of Playing the Fantasia (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1991) ISBN 0935480528
• Von Gunden, Heidi. 1983. The Music of Pauline Oliveros. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-1600-8.

See also

• Free improvisation
• Improvisation in music therapy
• Impro-Visor (software)
• Indian Classical Music
• Comparative View of Jazz and Indian Classical Music
• List of free improvising musicians and groups
• Musical collectives
• Musics (magazine)
• Prepared Piano
• Prepared guitar

External links

• guitar:improvising improvising for guitar in wikibooks
• harmonica/improvising improvising for harmonica in wikibooks
• International Society for Improvised Music
• Music for People catalyst in gathering people together to play and sing by creating safe environments in which they can explore music improvisation
• Robert Levin on Improvisation in Classical Music
• How to Improvise Jazz Melodies, by Bob Keller
• iwasdoingallright:Learning to Improvise Several articles discussing the challenges most people face with jazz improvisation. Includes free online ear training tools with jazz improvisation exercises.
• Improvisation and the Classical Musician Blog and book-in-progress by cellist Eric Edberg
• The Daily Improvisation Blog of improvised music and articles by pianist and Dalcroze teacher Eric Barnhill
• Jazz improvisation theories Harmony, theories and techniques on jazz improvisation by Italian pianist and songwriter Musilosophy.
• Feza Neverd Original improvised music recordings.
• Improvisation on Improvisation: Karlheinz Essl and Jack Hauser talking about musical improvisation
• Losing Control: Indeterminacy and Improvisation in Music Since 1950: by Sabine Feisst
• A Jazz Improvisation Primer by Marc Sabatella Information about jazz improvisation.

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