Improvisation

IMPROVISATION

Mario D’Couto

            While sticking to order and details in performing a particular task, one does not lose in playing with what one has in hand. This in one word is called “Improvisation”.

            Improvisation is a phenomenon that is quite common among musicians, most notably among jazz musicians. However, this can also be applied in other aspect of life. A person giving a speech suddenly goes off track, uses instances, anecdotes or just speaks extemporally (of course within the confines of the topic) is another classic example of improvisation. In a sense, improvisation can also be compared to surfing. Whenever a huge wave comes, it is up to the task and the skill of the surfer to overcome or surf along the wave.

            There are positives to take from this phenomenon,

1.      In improvising, a single performance is much faster and cheaper than scripting or composing one. Miles Davis, the famous jazz trumpeter, who wrote the piece, “Kind of Blue”, never intended it to be what it became. But the irony was that what happened spontaneously became an immediate sensation. Quincy Ones, the revered producer of Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson said, “I play ‘Kind of Blue’ everyday – it’s my orange juice. It still sounds like it was made yesterday.” The beauty of this piece (or album, if you would like to call it that way) was, to put it in the words of the jazz fusion pioneer Chick Correa, “It created a new language in music.” Besides, it took them less than nine hours to record the piece. Compare that with Beatles’ masterpiece “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” which took around seven hundred hours. Being quick and cheap isn’t everything but it isn’t nothing either (we’ll come to that later).

2.      Another great benefit from this is the flexibility that it allows. This means to say that while one has prepared one has the freedom to go back and forth.

            Speed, economy and flexibility: these are the 3 advantages that make the messy process of improvising appealing or even convincing.

            Improvising musicians shut down their inner critics. People who improvise (not only in music but other fields also) stop filtering their ideas and allow the mess of new ideas to flow out. It is no wonder that at its best, improvisation can produce flashes of pure brilliance.

            Charles Limb, a neuroscientist, a surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco and a fanatical jazz saxophonist says that most often we filter too much. He says, “Taken to the extreme, maybe it squashes creativity. So rather than suppressing all these ideas, the improvising brain lets or should let them go.” To improvise is therefore to let go or lose control.

            Of course, there are certain parameters to be maintained. Just because to improvise is to let lose does not imply in the least that we can do anything. For instance, while jazz music may seem like a combination of random notes being played at great length and great speed, they all fit very well within the sequence of chords played. In a speech, even if one may want to improvise, it has to be within the confines of the topic as mentioned earlier. One cannot speak off one’s hat.

            Even in the business world, if the company or an organization wants to experiment with a new product, it has to keep the society, the law and other nitty-gritties in mind. Some of the biggest industries in the world started off with nothing and kept improvising by studying the market.

            Another aspect to note is that one can improvise only if one’s foundation is strong. So, this means that one has to do his/her groundwork in order to improve. Isn’t that obvious? How can we talk about improvisation if the basics and advance skills are not in place?  You cannot build a building without first laying the foundation stone. This is what is meant when we say, “Being quick and cheap isn’t everything but it isn’t nothing either.”

            Last of all, being able to improvise also implies being able to navigate through dark alleys. For as noted earlier, improvisation is closely linked with adaptation. How well you can adapt in life is what will take one forward.


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