Improvisation – to tickle your mind

What is improvisational music?
Or, as Derek Bailey once put it in his book about the topic - What is non-idiomatic improvisation?
Music for curious people who are open to new things, to experimental, creative, exciting things that emerge on stage, interacting between musicians and between musicians and audience, the unpredictable... an unusual listening pleasure - music for open ears!

It's not that easy. Many people want and need a conceptual "pigeonhole". Not only employees of newspapers and magazines are often at a loss when it comes to the classification of our concerts in the calendar of events. So which category does improvisational music fall into: jazz, classical or even pop - or what now?

Anyone who has attended some Offene Ohren e.V. - concerts (or other improvisation events) knows that there are no such pigeonholes. Each concert is individual and, depending on the musical background of the artists, sometimes more classical, experimental, jazzy or any combination of that, and more. The boundaries to jazz, new music, world music, ambient noise, natural sounds, industrial noise, silence (which actually doesn't really exist) are blurred. Influence comes from all directions.

In our opinion, there can't and doesn't have to be a fixed definition of improvisational music. Nevertheless, we want to try to cast a spotlight on the term. To get you started, here are a few colorful quotes on the subject. This website will be further expanded in the future according to time and desire. Additions and suggestions are therefore always welcome!

• Improvisation (v. ital.: improvviso unerwartet, aus lat.: im (kehrt den Sinn des angeschlossenen Wortes um); proviso vorhersehen) bedeutet, etwas ohne Vorbereitung, aus dem Stegreif oder ad hoc dar- oder herzustellen. Improvisation im allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch meint den spontanen praktischen Gebrauch von Kreativität zur Lösung von auftretenden Problemen.
  --Wikipedia (2006)
  
  
• Improvisation: The art of thinking and performing music simultaneously.
  --Grove Dictionary of Music (1954)
  
  
• ....And as regards method, the improviser employs the oldest in music-making… Mankind's first musical performance couldn't have been anything other than a free improvisation.
  --Derek Bailey, improvising guitarist, 1930 - 2005
  
  
• Learn everything, then forget it all, and play!
  -- Charlie Parker, jazz saxophonist, 1920 - 1955
  
  
• Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
  -- Miles Davis, jazz trumpeter, 1926 - 1991
  
  
• There is no such thing as a wrong note.
  --Art Tatum, jazz pianist, 1909 - 1956
  
  
• I would sit down and begin to improvise, whether my spirits were sad or happy, serious or playful. Once I had captured an idea, I strove with all my might to develop and sustain it in conformity with the rules of art.
  --Joseph Haydn, composer, 1732 - 1809
  
  
• Composing is a slowed-down improvisation; often one cannot write fast enough to keep up with the stream of ideas.
  -- Arnold Schoenberg, composer, 1874 - 1951
  
  
• Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
  -- Edward de Bono, psychologist and writer, 1933 -
  
  
• Accidents are essential. Hazard is part of the process.
  Group improvisation develops a language of trust at a number of levels.
  -- Dr. Rod Paton, Music research supervisor, Univ. of Chichester, UK
  
  
• Improvisation: a liminal state in which 'flow', "a psychic state where incidences follow each other in a united organic way without our conscious participation," and 'void', where old meaning is emptied out "in order to create a new space to be filled with new meanings," are equally vital constituents.
  -- Even Ruud (1995), prof. at the Dpt. of musicology at the University of Oslo and Professor II in music therapy at the Norwegian Academy of Music
  
  
• Improvisation has no need of argument and justification. It exists because it meets the creative appetite that is a natural part of being a performing musician and because it invites complete involvement, to a degree otherwise unobtainable, in the act of music-making.
  --Derek Bailey, improvising guitarist, 1930 - 2005
  
  
• To work from nature is to improvise.
  --Georges Braque, painter, 1882 - 1963
  
  
• I think I'm painting a picture of two women but it may turn out to be a landscape.
  --Willem de Kooning, painter, 1904 - 1995
  
  
• Improvisation is the expression of the accumulated yearnings, dreams, and wisdom of the soul.
  --Yehudi Menuhin, classical violinist, 1916 - 1999
  
  
• Being asked: "Can you explain in ten seconds the difference between composition and improvisation?", Steve Lacy gave this answer - lasting ten seconds: In composition, you have all the time you want to decide what to say in ten seconds, while in improvisation, you have exactly these ten seconds.
  --Steve Lacy, jazz saxophonist, 1934 - 2004