# The lost art of improv



## ObliqueFury (Dec 29, 2014)

Why don't classical musicians improvise any more? Just because it's not jazz doesn't mean it can't be improvised. It's a shame, in my opinion. Just because it's difficult to express the same depth of expression doesn't mean the skill can't be cultivated...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

They do, improvisation is live and well amongst keyboard players who are interested in early music. Check, for example, William Porter and Jaraoslav Tuma.


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## ObliqueFury (Dec 29, 2014)

Thanks. It was more of a generalization about how there aren't improvisers any longer who perform for the sake of improve alone. And that it isn't taught in schools.


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## Guest (Jan 9, 2015)

ObliqueFury said:


> Thanks. It was more of a generalization about how there aren't improvisers any longer who perform for the sake of improve alone. *And that it isn't taught in schools*.


It is at London's Royal College of Music
http://www.rcm.ac.uk/keyboard/professors/


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## Guest (Jan 9, 2015)

There are many musicians, non-pop, who improvise. It's been a huge thing since the sixties, at least.

I say "non-pop" instead of "classical" for many reasons which I don't have the energy to go into again. My apologies.

But yeah, improv is alive and well. Why, I've even had some opportunities to do it myself, and my performing days--performing notated music--are long over.

I spent one very happy hour with an Irish composer and a flautist--the composer and I with iPads. What fun!!

I recommend this book highly: http://www.amazon.es/Improvisation-Its-Nature-Practice-Music/dp/0306805286

I have learned more from it about music, music not just improv, than from any other book.

Anyway, a couple of recent examples:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I don't know what you are on about re: "Depth of Expression." Players often enough have some, for sure, and some have a more pronounced ability with their instrument -- all having nothing to do with either 'back then' or 'now.' It is part of the biz to play expressively.

Apart from early music specialists, which comfirms something I will point to shortly, every organist, still, by the time they graduate their master's training, usually are given a subject (usually tonal) and as part of their final exam are expected to improvise a passable fugue. They are also trained and ready to improvise freely in the old church modes.

Pianists, not so much in the classical realm - other than today those performing works from the earlier eras of the baroque and classical eras. This began when Beethoven began fully writing out the cadenzas of his concerti, no longer leaving room for improvisation. Part of that was those who improvised tended to do improvs which were more about flash display, often not really in keeping with the piece, or they went so long it ruined the overall proportion of the movement.

That other part: as musical vocabulary moved away from common practice into late romanticism, for many a performer, that vocabulary was more and more unfamiliar, not part of a general practice in place for even a decade, and composers also wanted that full control over 'what was played.' by then, most of the famed pianist-improvisers were composers in their own right, the replicating performing pianists (those who played only what was written) improvising less and less.

Those specialists mentioned earlier are in what is pretty much in one period style, and earlier common practice at that. This is that point I mentioned, here addressed:
Some pianists write or improvise their own cadenzas in either baroque works, or up through, say, Mozart's concerti. After that, some still improvise on their own, single solo pieces. They are concentrated and specialize within music of one style, generally one period, and that period harmony is more the common practice period, which is not 'easy' but certainly easier than improvising something like, Brahms, etc.

Jazz can be and is often harmonically very sophisticated and complex: a list of great improvisers of jazz would be many pages long.

Other contemporary classical performers still can and do improvise, sometimes in a very contemporary style.

To repeat though, in later romantic repertoire and beyond, there is less and less room in a given score for improvisation.

In later modern and contemporary music, players are sometimes asked to improvise in certain parts of the piece.
Lutoslawski's symphony No. 3 calls for some improv on the part of the players in designated parts of that score, as does his later Piano Concerto.

Gyorg Kurtag has composed a number of books of duets for young beginners, piano and other instruments. called _Games_: in the piano series, many of those are piano 4-hands, the teacher taking one part, the student another. The student is taught a minimum of things about harmony, then also allowed to improvise. They sound great, and are also widely respected as great teaching books -- ergo, young students are once again learning to improvise, in a more contemporary style.

For a contemporary performer to improvise other than in a piece from an earlier era which called for an improvised cadenza, if they could, would probably be considered more a matter of academic interest or regarded a bit like a clever circus trick, that being the older styles have so much solid repertoire written already, the finest of improvs in an older style would generally be thought of as 'clever,' a bit of a showy display and a kind of skill, but the music, no matter how good, at least somewhat of a pastiche. I doubt if there would be more than a few 'period music geeks' who would pay to hear someone improvise whole pieces that sounded like, say, Liszt.

About any composer, in any style, who works at a keyboard is sure to be doing some improvising, in order to work out ideas in the medium of sound, and I bet many a contemporary classical piece, again from the tamest tonality to the wildest musical vocabulary, comes from some 'improvising at the piano.'


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

You want classical improvisation:

Listen to Igor Kipnis, András Schiff and Craig Sheppard perform the Bach Keyboard Partitas.

Listen to Ophélie Gaillard perform the Bach Cello Suites.

Listen to Blandine Rannou perform the Bach Goldberg Variations, French Suites and English Suites.

Listen to Kristian Bezuidenhout perform Mozart keyboard Sonatas.

Listen to Malcolm Bilson perform Mozart Keyboard Concertos.

Nothing "lost" about it!


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## ObliqueFury (Dec 29, 2014)

I agree there are exceptions. I wish people composers improvised, musicians improvised...not to sound like others, but to sound like what they sounded like.


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## Guest (Jan 9, 2015)

But they do. 

It's just that the "they" who do, persistently and habitually, are not the ones covered in Gramophone or BBC Music Magazine.

(Are those two still going. You know, I don't even know!)


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> There are many musicians, non-pop, who improvise. It's been a huge thing since the sixties, at least.
> 
> I say "non-pop" instead of "classical" for many reasons which I don't have the energy to go into again. My apologies.
> 
> ...


That's easy, I can do it too.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ObliqueFury said:


> Just because it's difficult to express the same depth of expression doesn't mean the skill can't be cultivated...


I have no idea what you _intended_ to mean, or imply, by the above. Some clarification would be useful.


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