Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment")

musical composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...

, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wr ...

s. Sometimes

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

al ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

and many other kinds of music. One definition is a "performance given extempore without planning or preparation". Another definition is to "play or sing (music) extemporaneously, by inventing variations on a melody or creating new melodies, rhythms and harmonies". ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

'' defines it as "the extemporaneous composition or free performance of a musical passage, usually in a manner conforming to certain stylistic norms but unfettered by the prescriptive features of a specific musical text." Improvisation is often done within (or based on) a pre-existing harmonic framework or

chord progression In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practice ...

. Improvisation is a major part of some types of 20th-century music, such as

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States a ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, and

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and ke ...

, in which instrumental performers improvise solos, melody lines and accompaniment parts. Throughout the eras of the

Western art music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

tradition, including the

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

, Classical, and Romantic periods, improvisation was a valued skill. J. S. Bach,

Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

, Chopin,

Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

, 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 Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...

, such as the

Musica enchiriadis ''Musica enchiriadis'' is an anonymous musical treatise of the 9th century. It is the first surviving attempt to set up a system of rules for polyphony in western art music. The treatise was once attributed to Hucbald, but this is no longer accept ...

(ninth century), indicate 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. Some classical music forms contained sections for improvisation, such as the

cadenza In music, a cadenza (from it, cadenza, link=no , meaning cadence; plural, ''cadenze'' ) is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and of ...

in solo

concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typ ...

s, 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 and Bach frequently improvised on the

harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks' ...

. In the Baroque era, performers improvised

ornaments An ornament is something used for decoration. Ornament may also refer to: Decoration * Ornament (art), any purely decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts *Biological ornament, a characteristic of animals that appear to serve o ...

and

basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing the ...

keyboard players improvised chord voicings based on

figured bass Figured bass is musical notation in which numerals and symbols appear above or below (or next to) a bass note. The numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsi ...

notation. However, in the 20th and early 21st century, as

common practice In European art music, the common-practice period is the era of the tonal system. Most of its features persisted from the mid-Baroque period through the Classical and Romantic periods, roughly from 1650 to 1900. There was much stylistic evoluti ...

Western

art music Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, ...

performance became institutionalized in symphony orchestras, opera houses and ballets, improvisation has played a smaller role. At the same time, some contemporary

composers A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

from the 20th and 21st century have increasingly included improvisation in their creative work. In

Indian classical music Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as '' Hindustani'' and the South Indian expression known as '' Carnatic''. These traditions were not ...

, improvisation is a core component and an essential criterion of performances. In

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity **Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pash ...

, Pakistani, and

Bangladeshi Bangladeshis ( bn, বাংলাদেশী ) are the citizens of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centered on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the eponymous bay. Bangladeshi citizenship was formed in 1971, when the ...

classical music, ''

raga A ''raga'' or ''raag'' (; also ''raaga'' or ''ragam''; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a melodic mode. The ''rāga'' is a unique and central feature of the classical Indian music tradition, and as ...

'' is the "tonal framework for composition and improvisation". The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' defines a raga as "a melodic framework for improvisation and composition".

In Western music

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 ''Organum'' () is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line (or '' bourdon'') may be sung on the sam ...

. Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, improvised

counterpoint In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tra ...

over a

cantus firmus In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect tre ...

(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.

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. In addition to improvising counterpoint over a cantus firmus, singers and instrumentalists improvised melodies over

ostinato In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include ...

chord patterns, made elaborate embellishments of melodic lines, and invented music extemporaneously without any predetermined schemata. Keyboard players likewise performed extempore, freely formed pieces.

Baroque period

The kinds of improvisation practised during the Renaissance—principally either the embellishing of an existing part or the creation of an entirely new part or parts—continued into the early Baroque, though important modifications were introduced. Ornamentation began to be brought more under the control of composers, in some cases by writing out embellishments, and more broadly by introducing symbols or abbreviations for certain ornamental patterns. Two of the earliest important sources for vocal ornamentation of this sort are Giovanni Battista Bovicelli's ''Regole, passaggi di musica'' (1594), and the preface to

Giulio Caccini Giulio Romolo Caccini (also Giulio Romano) (8 October 1551 – buried 10 December 1618) was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre o ...

's collection, ''Le nuove musiche'' (1601/2)

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.

Basso continuo

The

(accompaniment) was mainly improvised, the composer usually providing no more than a harmonic sketch called the

. The process of improvisation was called ''realization''.

Organ improvisation and church music

: ''see Organ improvisers'' According to ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', the "monodic textures that originated about 1600 ... were ready-made, indeed in large measure intended, for improvisational enhancement, not only of the treble parts but also, almost by definition, of the bass, which was figured to suggest no more than a minimal chordal outline." Improvised accompaniment over a

was a common practice during the Baroque era, and to some extent the following periods. Improvisation remains a feature of organ playing in some church services and are regularly also performed at concerts.

Dieterich Buxtehude Dieterich Buxtehude (; ; born Diderik Hansen Buxtehude; c. 1637 – 9 May 1707) was a Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal a ...

and

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

were regarded in the Baroque period as highly skilled organ improvisers. During the 20th century, some musicians known as great improvisers such as

Marcel Dupré Marcel Jean-Jules Dupré () (3 May 1886 – 30 May 1971) was a French organist, composer, and pedagogue. Biography Born in Rouen into a wealthy musical family, Marcel Dupré was a child prodigy. His father Aimable Albert Dupré was titular o ...

Pierre Cochereau Pierre Eugène Charles Cochereau (9 July 1924 – 6 March 1984) was a French organist, improviser, composer, and pedagogue. Cochereau was titular organist of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris from 1955 to his death in 1984 and was responsibl ...

and

Pierre Pincemaille Pierre-Marie François Pincemaille (8 December 1956 – 12 January 2018) was a French organist, improviser, and pedagogue. He was known for his organ improvisations, both in concert and on CD and for his recordings of Charles-Marie Widor' ...

continued this form of music, in the tradition of the

French organ school The French organ school formed in the first half of the 17th century. It progressed from the strict polyphonic music of Jean Titelouze (c. 1563–1633) to a unique, richly ornamented style with its own characteristic forms that made full use of ...

Maurice Duruflé Maurice Gustave Duruflé (; 11 January 1902 – 16 June 1986) was a French composer, organist, musicologist, and teacher. Life and career Duruflé was born in Louviers, Eure in 1902. He became a chorister at the Rouen Cathedral Choir School fr ...

, a great improviser himself, transcribed improvisations by

Louis Vierne Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French organist and composer. As the organist of Notre-Dame de Paris from 1900 until his death, he focused on organ music, including six organ symphonies and a '' Messe solennelle ...

and

Charles Tournemire Charles Arnould Tournemire (22 January 1870 – 3 or 4 November 1939) was a French composer and organist, notable partly for his improvisations, which were often rooted in the music of Gregorian chant. His compositions include eight symphoni ...

Olivier Latry Olivier Jean-Claude Latry (born 22 February 1962) is a French organist, improviser, and composer. He is professor of organ in the Conservatoire de Paris. He became interested in the organ after listening to recordings by Pierre Cochereau. His ...

later wrote his improvisations as a compositions, for example ''

Salve Regina The "Salve Regina" (, ; meaning 'Hail Queen'), also known as the "Hail Holy Queen", is a Marian hymn and one of four Marian antiphons sung at different seasons within the Christian liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. The Salve Regina ...

''.

Classical period

Keyboard improvisation

Classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

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 The ''Italian Concerto'', BWV 971, originally titled ''Concerto nach Italiænischen Gusto'' (''Concerto in the Italian taste''), is a three-movement concerto for two-manual harpsichord solo composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and published in 173 ...

''. 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. 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 Piano Sonata Hob. XVI/52 and Beethoven's Sonata No. 24, Op. 78. Beethoven and Mozart cultivated 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.

=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 written out cadenzas (which illustrate what their improvisations would have sounded like). As a keyboard player, Mozart competed at least once in improvisation, with

Muzio Clementi Muzio Filippo Vincenzo Francesco Saverio Clementi (23 January 1752 – 10 March 1832) was an Italian composer, virtuoso pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer, who was mostly active in England. Encourag ...

. Beethoven won many tough improvisatory battles over such rivals as

Johann Nepomuk Hummel Johann Nepomuk Hummel (14 November 177817 October 1837) was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era. He was a pupil of Mozart, Salieri and Clementi. He als ...

, Daniel Steibelt, and

Joseph Woelfl Joseph Johann Baptist Woelfl (surname sometimes written in the German form Wölfl) (24 December 1773 - 21 May 1812) was an Austrian pianist and composer. Life Woelfl was born in Salzburg, where he studied music under Leopold Mozart and Michae ...

Romantic period

Instrumental

Extemporization, both in the form of introductions to pieces, and links between pieces, continued to be a feature of keyboard concertising until the early 20th-century. Amongst those who practised such improvisation were

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sym ...

Anton Rubinstein Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein ( rus, Антон Григорьевич Рубинштейн, r=Anton Grigor'evič Rubinštejn; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Sa ...

Paderewski Ignacy Jan Paderewski (; – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composer who became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation's Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versail ...

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

and Pachmann. Improvisation in the area of art music seems to have declined with the growth of recording.

Opera

After studying over 1,200 early

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the ...

recordings, Will Crutchfield concludes that "The solo

cavatina Cavatina is a musical term, originally meaning a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air. It is now frequently applied to any simple, melodious air, as distinguished from brilliant arias or recitatives ...

was the most obvious and enduring locus of soloistic discretion in nineteenth-century opera." He goes on to identify seven main types of vocal improvisation used by opera singers in this repertory: # The Verdian "full-stop"

Aria In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...

s without "full-stop": ''ballate'', ''canzoni'', and '' romanze'' # Ornamentation of internal cadences # Melodic variants (interpolated high notes, '' acciaccature'', rising two-note "slide") #

Strophic Strophic form – also called verse-repeating form, chorus form, AAA song form, or one-part song form – is a song structure in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music. Contrasting song forms include through-composed, ...

variation and the problem of the cabaletta # Facilitations (''puntature'', simplification of ''fioratura'', etc.) #

Recitative Recitative (, also known by its Italian name "''recitativo''" ()) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat ...

Modern opinions

Theodor Adorno

Toward the end of the section of ''Aesthetic Theory'' entitled "Art Beauty" (in the English edition), Theodor W. 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. It may be assumed Adorno meant classical improvisation, not jazz, which he mostly excoriated. He held jazz, for example, to be antithetical to Beethoven. There is more extensive treatment, essentially about traditional jazz, in ''Prisms'' and ''The Jargon of Authenticity''.

Contemporary

Jazz

Improvisation is one of the basic elements that sets jazz apart from other types of music. The unifying moments in improvisation that take place in live performance are understood to encompass the performer, the listener, and the physical space that the performance takes place in. Even if improvisation is also found outside of jazz, it may be that no other music relies so much on the art of "composing in the moment", demanding that every musician rise to a certain level of creativity that may put the performer in touch with his or her unconscious as well as conscious states. The educational use of improvised jazz recordings is widely acknowledged. They offer a clear value as documentation of performances despite their perceived limitations. With these available, generations of jazz musicians are able to implicate styles and influences in their performed new improvisations. Many varied scales and their

modes Mode ( la, modus meaning "manner, tune, measure, due measure, rhythm, melody") may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' MO''D''E (magazine)'', a defunct U.S. women's fashion magazine * ''Mode'' magazine, a fictional fashion magazine which is ...

can be used in improvisation. They are often not written down in the process, but they help musicians practice the jazz idiom.

A common view of what a jazz soloist does could be expressed thus: as the
harmonies In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howev ...
go by, he selects
note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened version ...
s from each chord, out of which he fashions a
melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combina ...
. He is free to embellish by means of passing and neighbor tones, and he may add
extensions Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * Ex ...
to the chords, but at all times a good improviser must follow the
changes Changes may refer to: Books * ''Changes'', the 12th novel in Jim Butcher's ''The Dresden Files'' Series * ''Changes'', a novel by Danielle Steel * ''Changes'', a trilogy of novels on which the BBC TV series was based, written by Peter Dickinson ...
. ... owever a jazz musician really has several options: he may reflect the chord progression exactly, he may "skim over" the progression and simply elaborate the background harmony, or he may fashion his own
voice-leading Voice leading (or part writing) is the linear progression of individual melodic lines (Part (music), voices or parts) and their interaction with one another to create Harmony, harmonies, typically in accordance with the principles of Common practi ...
which may clash at some points with the chords the
rhythm section A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band. The rhyth ...
is playing.

Contemporary classical music

With the notable exception of liturgical improvisation on the organ, the first half of the twentieth century is marked by an almost total absence of actual improvisation in contemporary classical music. Since the 1950s, some contemporary composers 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 Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor. Career Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with J ...

Improvisation Chamber Ensemble at the University of California, Los Angeles;

Larry Austin Larry Don Austin (September 12, 1930 – December 30, 2018) was an American composer noted for his electronic and computer music works. He was a co-founder and editor of the avant-garde music periodical '' Source: Music of the Avant Garde''. Austi ...

's New Music Ensemble at the University of California, Davis; the ONCE Group at Ann Arbor; the Sonic Arts Group; and

Sonics Sonic or Sonics may refer to: Companies *Sonic Drive-In, an American drive-in fast-food restaurant chain * Sonic (ISP), an Internet provider and CLEC, serving more than 100 California communities * Sonic Foundry, a computer software company wh ...

, the latter three funding themselves through concerts, tours, and grants. Significant pieces include Foss ''Time Cycles'' (1960) and ''Echoi'' (1963). Other composers working with improvisation include Richard Barrett,

Benjamin Boretz Benjamin Aaron Boretz (born October 3, 1934) is an American composer and music theorist. Life and work Benjamin Boretz was born in Brooklyn, New York to Abraham Jacob Boretz and Leah (Yullis) Boretz. He graduated with a degree in music from Bro ...

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mo ...

Joseph Brent Joseph Frederick Brent (born April 6, 1976) is an American composer, mandolinist, multi-instrumentalist, and teacher. He is known for his performances and arrangements of rock and indie songs, as well as his original compositions with the ense ...

Sylvano Bussotti Sylvano Bussotti (1 October 1931 – 19 September 2021) was an Italian composer of contemporary classical music, also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and manager, writer and academic teacher. His compositions employ graphic n ...

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...

Jani Christou Jani Christou ( el, Γιάννης Χρήστου, Giánnīs Chrī́stou; 8 or 9 January 1926 – 8 January 1970) was a Greek composer. There is some disagreement about Christou's birth, the date of which is given by some authorities as 8 Januar ...

Douglas J. Cuomo Douglas J. Cuomo (born February 13, 1958) is an American television composer. Biography Born in Tucson, Arizona, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and Amherst, Massachusetts, Douglas J. Cuomo began playing the trumpet in grade school and swit ...

Alvin Curran Alvin Curran (born December 13, 1938) is an American composer, performer, improviser, sound artist, and writer. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and lives and works in Rome, Italy. He is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard ...

Stuart Dempster Stuart Dempster (born July 7, 1936 in Berkeley, California) is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improviser, and composer. Biography After Dempster completed his studies at San Francisco State College, he was appointed assistant professor at th ...

, Hugh Davies,

Karlheinz Essl Karlheinz Essl (born 15 August 1960) is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser, and composition teacher. Biography Essl was born in Vienna. His studies at the University of Music in Vienna included: composition (under Friedr ...

Mohammed Fairouz Mohammed Fairouz (born November 1, 1985) is an American composer. He is one of the most frequently performed composers of his generation and has been described by Daniel J. Wakin of ''The New York Times'' as an "important new artistic voice". Fa ...

Rolf Gehlhaar Rolf Rainer Gehlhaar (30 December 1943 – 7 July 2019), was an American composer, Professor in Experimental Music at Coventry University and researcher in assistive technology for music. Life Born in Breslau, Gehlhaar was the son of a German roc ...

Vinko Globokar Vinko Globokar (born 7 July 1934) is a French-Slovenian avant-garde composer and trombonist. Globokar's music uses unconventional and extended techniques, places great emphasis on spontaneity and creativity, and often relies on improvisation. Hi ...

, Richard Grayson, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Barton McLean, Priscilla McLean,

Stephen Nachmanovitch Stephen Nachmanovitch is a musician, author, computer artist, and educator. He is an improvisational violinist, and writes and teaches about improvisation, creativity, and systems approaches in many fields of activity. Biography Born in 1950, Na ...

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...

Henri Pousseur Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian classical composer, teacher, and music theorist. Biography Pousseur was born in Malmedy and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 ...

, Todd Reynolds,

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for ...

, Frederic Rzewski, Saman Samadi, William O. Smith,

Manfred Stahnke Manfred Stahnke (born 30 October 1951) is a German composer and musicologist from Hamburg. He writes chamber music, orchestral music and stage music. His music makes extensive use of microtonality. He plays piano and viola. Life Manfred Stahnke w ...

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundb ...

, Tōru Takemitsu, Richard Teitelbaum,

Vangelis Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( el, Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; el, Βαγγέλης, links=no ), was a Greek composer and arranger of ...

Michael Vetter Michael Vetter (18 September 1943 – 7 December 2013) was a German composer, novelist, poet, performer, calligrapher, artist, and teacher. Biography Vetter was born in Oberstdorf in the Allgäu region of Germany, and received a conventional scho ...

, Christian Wolff,

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde c ...

, Yitzhak Yedid,

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity and satire of ...

, Hans Zender, and

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of j ...

Contemporary popular music

Psychedelic- and progressive-rock music

British and American

psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound effects and recording te ...

acts of the 1960s and 1970s used improvisations to express themselves in a musical language. The

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. I ...

genre also began exploring improvisation as a musical expression, e.g.

Henry Cow Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, b ...

Silent-film music

In the realm of

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

-music performance, there were musicians (

theatre organ A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ, or, especially in the United Kingdom, a cinema organ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films, from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements ...

players and

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

players) whose improvised performances accompanying these film has been recognized as exceptional by critics, scholars, and audiences alike.

Neil Brand Neil Brand (born 18 March 1958) is an English dramatist, composer and author. In addition to being a regular silent film accompanist at London's National Film Theatre, Brand has composed new scores for two restored films from the 1920s, '' Th ...

was a composer who also performed improvisationally. Brand, along with Guenter A. Buchwald, Philip Carli, Stephen Horne, Donald Sosin, John Sweeney, and Gabriel Thibaudeau, all performed at the annual conference on silent film in Pordenone, Italy, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto. In improvising for silent film, performers have to play music that matches the mood, style and pacing of the films they accompany. In some cases, musicians had to accompany films at first sight, without preparation. Improvisers needed to know a wide range of musical styles and have the stamina to play for sequences of films which occasionally ran over three hours. In addition to the performances, some pianists also taught master classes for those who wanted to develop their skill in improvising for films. When

talkies A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

–

motion picture A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

s with sound–were introduced, these talented improvising musicians had to find other jobs. In the 2010s, there are a small number of film societies which present vintage silent films, using live improvising musicians to accompany the film.

Venues

Worldwide there are many venues dedicated to supporting live improvisation. In

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

since 1998, the Make It Up Club (held every Tuesday evening at Bar Open on

Brunswick Street, Melbourne Brunswick Street is a street in inner northern Melbourne, known for cafés, live music venues and alternative fashion shops. Route Brunswick Street runs north–south through the inner northern Melbourne suburbs of Fitzroy and Fitzroy North, ...

) has been presenting a weekly concert series dedicated to promoting avant-garde improvised music and sound performance of the highest conceptual and performative standards (regardless of idiom, genre, or instrumentation). The Make It Up Club has become an institution in Australian improvised music and consistently features artists from all over the world.

Music education

A number of approaches to teaching improvisation have emerged in

pedagogy,

popular music pedagogy Popular music pedagogy — alternatively called popular music education, rock music pedagogy, or rock music education — is a development in music education consisting of the systematic teaching and learning of popular music both inside and outsi ...

, the Dalcroze method,

Orff-Schulwerk The Orff Schulwerk, or simply the Orff Approach, is a developmental approach used in music education. It combines music, movement, drama, and speech into lessons that are similar to a child's world of play. It was developed by the German com ...

, and Satis Coleman's creative music. Current research in music education includes investigating how often improvisation is taught, how confident music majors and teachers are at teaching improvisation, neuroscience and psychological aspects of improvisation, and free-improvisation as a pedagogical approach.

In Indian classical music

is one of the melodic modes used in

. Joep Bor of the Rotterdam Conservatory of Music has defined ''Raga'' as "tonal framework for composition and improvisation". Nazir Jairazbhoy, chairman of UCLA's department of

ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...

, characterized ragas as separated by scale, line of ascent and descent, transilience, emphasized notes and register, and intonation and ornaments. A raga uses a series of five or more

musical note In music, a note is the representation of a musical sound. Notes can represent the pitch and duration of a sound in musical notation. A note can also represent a pitch class. Notes are the building blocks of much written music: discretizatio ...

s upon which a

melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combina ...

is constructed. However, the way the notes are approached and rendered in musical phrases and the mood they convey are more important in defining a raga than the notes themselves. In the Indian musical tradition, rāgas are associated with different times of the day, or with seasons. Indian classical music is always set in a rāga. Non-classical music such as popular Indian film songs and

ghazal The ''ghazal'' ( ar, غَزَل, bn, গজল, Hindi-Urdu: /, fa, غزل, az, qəzəl, tr, gazel, tm, gazal, uz, gʻazal, gu, ગઝલ) is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. A ghazal may be understood as a ...

s sometimes use rāgas in their compositions. According to ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', a raga, also spelled rag (in northern India) or ragam (in southern India), (from Sanskrit, meaning "colour" or "passion"), in the classical music of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, is "a melodic framework for improvisation and composition. A raga is based on a scale with a given set of notes, a typical order in which they appear in melodies, and characteristic musical motifs. The basic components of a raga can be written down in the form of a scale (in some cases differing in ascent and descent). By using only these notes, by emphasizing certain degrees of the scale, and by going from note to note in ways characteristic to the raga, the performer sets out to create a mood or atmosphere (rasa) that is unique to the raga in question. There are several hundred ragas in present use, and thousands are possible in theory."

Alapa The Alap (; ) is the opening section of a typical North Indian classical performance. It is a form of melodic improvisation that introduces and develops a raga. In dhrupad singing the alap is unmetered, improvised (within the raga) and unaccompani ...

(Sanskrit: "conversation") are "improvised melody structures that reveal the musical characteristics of a raga". "Alapa ordinarily constitutes the first section of the performance of a raga. Vocal or instrumental, it is accompanied by a drone (sustained-tone) instrument and often also by a melodic instrument that repeats the soloist's phrases after a lag of a few seconds. The principal portion of alapa is not metric but rhythmically free; in Hindustani music it moves gradually to a section known as jor, which uses a rhythmic pulse though no tala (metric cycle). The performer of the alapa gradually introduces the essential notes and melodic turns of the raga to be performed. Only when the soloist is satisfied that he has set forth the full range of melodic possibilities of the raga and has established its unique mood and personality will he proceed, without interruption, to the metrically organized section of the piece. If a drummer is present, as is usual in formal concert, his first beats serve as a signal to the listener that the alapa is concluded."

Artificial intelligence

Machine improvisation uses computer algorithms to create

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

on existing music materials. This is usually done by sophisticated recombination of musical phrases extracted from existing music, either live or pre-recorded. In order to achieve credible improvisation in particular style, machine improvisation uses

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

and

pattern matching In computer science, pattern matching is the act of checking a given sequence of tokens for the presence of the constituents of some pattern. In contrast to pattern recognition, the match usually has to be exact: "either it will or will not be ...

algorithms to analyze existing musical examples. The resulting patterns are then used to create new variations "in the style" of the original music, developing a notion of stylistic reinjection. This is different from other improvisation methods with computers that use

algorithmic composition Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music. Algorithms (or, at the very least, formal sets of rules) have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterpo ...

to generate new music without performing analysis of existing music examples.Mauricio Toro, Carlos Agon, Camilo Rueda, Gerard Assayag.
GELISP: A Framework to Represent Musical Constraint Satisfaction Problems and Search Strategies
, ''Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology'' 86, no. 2 (2016): 327–331.

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * English translation by Warren E. Hultberg and Almonte C. Howell Jr, as ''The Art of Playing the Fantasia'' (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1991) * * * * *

External links

Robert Levin on Improvisation in Classical Music

Losing Control: Indeterminacy and Improvisation in Music Since 1950
by Sabine Feisst

Karlheinz Essl and Jack Hauser talking about musical improvisation with computers
How to Improvise Jazz Melodies, by Bob Keller

A Jazz Improvisation Primer by Marc Sabatella
Information about jazz improvisation

A column about improvisation by Art Lange

Tutorial on music improvisation techniques {{DEFAULTSORT:Musical Improvisation Musical performance techniques Jazz techniques