Contemporary Music Review

Vol. 25, Nos. 5/6, October/December 2006, pp. 491 – 495

On Improvisation
Frederic Rzewski

(Paper read at the University of Louvain-La-Neuve, 4 March 1994)

1. One of the main points of focus in this symposium is the question of the teaching
of improvisation. Can it be taught? Of course it can, and is in many schools, not only
in music but in theatre, dance and other disciplines as well. And yet there is
undeniably an aspect of the craft which is extraordinarily difficult to verbalize. There
are very few things in the music of this century whose importance is so universally
recognized, and about which so little has been coherently written. It may be that the
difficulty of speaking about improvisation is structural, as in the art of magic: The
trick itself is the thing that is interesting. The explanation of the trick, although it may
also be interesting for the insight it offers into the magician’s craft, somehow loses
sight of the essential experience of magic. Similarly, a clever analysis of a Beethoven
symphony, although it may reveal something about the working of the composer’s
mind, is no substitute for the music itself. One can improvise while talking; and one
can talk ‘around’ improvisation; but it seems difficult to talk about it without
somehow distorting the nature of the thing one is trying to talk about. A successful
improvisation leaves you with nothing to say, as the thaumaturge leaves you with
your mouth hanging open. That’s that; the spectator can only gaze dumbly. (Is there
an auditory ‘gaze’?) What is the effect of a good improvisation? One is left speechless.
It just is what it is, that is all.

Excourse A. [Each line ¼ 5’]:

Improvisation
is an art
in which real time
and pre-programmed time
are mixed in unpredictable ways.

Improvisation
is the art

ISSN 0749-4467 (print)/ISSN 1477-2256 (online) ª 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/07494460600990018
492 F. Rzewski
of making connections
between unplanned events
in such a way as to make it seem as if they had to happen.

An unintended action is justified by a deliberate one:

[Inhale 3’ - exhale 2’]

2. The art of the improviser can be compared to that of the magician. The improviser
does in time what the magician does in space. The magician does something with the
right hand which distracts the attention of the spectator from the action of the left
hand. The improviser follows an unintended action (a) with a purposeful action (b),
whose function is to make (a) appear purposeful also. This is a process known to
theologians as the ‘redemption of accident’. St Paul does something analogous in his
interpretation of history. The life and death of Christ is a ‘skandalon’: an obstacle to
the rational understanding of the world. Through skillful orchestration, St Paul shows
that the historical event is prefigured in the sacred writings of the Jews. By placing the
absurd event in the context of the history of salvation, he imbues it with a higher
sense. The improviser tries to save the situation. When the ball is dropped, one picks
it up, in such a way as to make it seem that it was dropped on purpose. But
everyone knows that a real catastrophe did take place. Improvisation is interesting
because it resembles real life, more than a written or carefully rehearsed performance
does.

Excourse B

(00 00’) In 1969 I bought one of the first microcassette recorders made by Phillips. I
fell in love with it. I improvised tunes which later became themes of written pieces. I
used it in performance as an instrument.
(00 15’) The ‘play’ and ‘rewind’ functions were located on a toggle switch, so they
could alternate in rapid sequence. The MEV group was performing ‘Zuppa’ every
night in our studio: a form in which anything could happen. Anyone could show up
and play with us.
(00 30’: silence)
(00 45’) One afternoon I met Steve Lacy on the street, in front of a café in Trastever
where we often met. Without thinking about it, I took my microcassette out of my
pocket, held it up towards Steve, and said:
(10 00’) ‘Steve, can you tell me in fifteen seconds: What is the difference between
composition and improvisation?’
Steve said, without hesitating:
(10 15’) ‘In fifteen seconds, the difference between composition and improvisation
is, that in composition you have all the time you want to think about what you
will say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds to think
about it.’
 Contemporary Music Review 493
0
(1 30’: silence)
(10 45’: 1’ per line)
Later
I timed

his answer.

It took
exactly

fifteen

seconds.

3. The improviser abandons self to the moment; abandons momentarily the world of
necessity and causality for a world of possibility and free will. Things do not happen by
necessity, nor by chance. They simply happen. Listening is the primary act. Performing
is the secondary act. Every sound that one makes is a response to a sound one has heard.
A solo improviser must respond to sounds made by self, as though made by another
person. There is no solo without a group. In improvising we must momentarily suspend
the sense of self, and of our own identity. This is a game which can be dangerous if not
played under controlled conditions. Under uncontrolled conditions, it can lead to
insanity. Identity is learned. It is useful for survival. It is essential to remember who we
are and what we are doing while we are crossing a street. At the same time, it is
important not to think about every movement we make. We must trust the uncon-
scious. When we act, we momentarily free ourselves from reflection. We simply act.

Excourse C

(a) tempo giusto [each line ¼ 5’]:

It is difficult to explain why
the improvisational esthetic attracts so much
attention at the present time.
(b) veloce-ritardando [each line ¼ 1’-2’-3’-4’-5’]:
It may have to do
with the tendency in communication
toward acceleration,
with the consequent reduction
of attention-span.
494 F. Rzewski
(c) parlando-rubato [freely in 15’]:
It may have to do with the newly emerging voices of women, and the
liberation of music from male-dominated logical discourse.
(d) lento-accelerando [each line ¼ 5’-4’-3’-2’-1’]:
It may
also
have
ideological
associations.

4. Improvisation is a controlled experiment with a limited number of unknown

possibilities. It always has rules and a framework. There is no such thing as a ‘free’
improvisation. It is like riding a bicycle, or lovemaking: things that nearly
everybody can do more or less, and which even in their most common form have
no real need for improvement, but which can also, with careful study, become
deeply satisfying experiences. These are also things about which the doer may not
want to know too much. They are forms of creative expression whose purpose is in
their doing. The presence of too much theoretical or analytical knowledge in the
conscious mind may interfere with the essential act, so that the perception of the
thing being studied becomes distorted. Learning to improvise can also be compared
with learning to speak in public. Success in both depends upon being able to
concentrate on the thing to be done, to somehow ensure that it goes on, and not
on all of the things that could possibly go wrong; which, although they have to be
considered at some point, should not be allowed to interfere with the performance
in the moment of doing it. Of course errors must inevitably happen; but part of the
interest in watching or listening to a successful improvisation lies in the fact that
such errors are human and universal, and therefore a part of everyone’s experience.
The skillful recovery of a dropped ball is satisfying to observe, because the spectator
can at once identify with the player in weakness while admiring the same player’s
strength.

Excourse D. [Each line ¼ 15’]:

[a] Improvisation could be defined as the art of interpreting the moment. Every
moment is unique, and can be lived for itself, free of objective or subjective
associations.
[b] An improvised performance is a succession of such moments, at the end of
which, perhaps, some transcendental logic appears.
[c] Or not. The improvisation could also be merely a meaningless sequence of
events, in which no logic is perceptible.
[d] Would the resulting music then be inferior to a music in which everything
happens according to some inflexible rule?
 Contemporary Music Review 495
5. Stupefaction, spellbound awe, dumbstruck: these are the responses of an audience
to a great improvisation. One is enchanted, as one is fascinated by Simon Magus, who
exploits the fantasy of the mere human who, godlike, defies the limits imposed by
nature, flying over the heads of his audience. If composition is about different levels
of memory, improvisation is about refinements in forgetting. It may be in the nature
of improvisation that it cannot be described in words. At the same time, it has
rational aspects which can be conceptualized, just as dreams can be interpreted.
Although it may not be possible to seize the essence of improvisation with words, it is
possible to apply its techniques to writing. The writer can imagine that one is a player
in a many-sided game played in one’s head. The ball is an impulse, as yet
unexpressed, which must be transferred from perception to memory, and from one
memory to another, retained long enough so that it can be expressed in symbolic
form. The censoring part of the brain must be distracted long enough so that the
passage may take place, much like the movement of the quarterback in American
football. Improvisation is a form of music in which we don’t know what we are going
to do from one moment to the next. The improviser tries to retain an idea long
enough so that, when it is expressed, the duration it took before it was expressed will
be the right one. If writing is about multiple layers of memory, improvisation is about
multiple layers of forgetting. The writer tries to seize ideas, to remember them long
enough to write them down. The improviser must remember them only long enough
to express them in some immediate form. Logical connections are abandoned. Or
rather, a playful, metaphorical ‘logic’ is introduced. A might normally lead to B; but
A is something like P, so might also lead to Q. Ideally, improvisation is an epiphany
of the moment. But even in a good improvisation, there are dead moments. The
coexistence of life and death within the performance itself is a part of the realistic
message which improvisation conveys. The main appeal of improvisation as an art
form lies in its resemblance to real life. It is somewhere between art and life. As Oscar
Wilde says: ‘One can realize a thing in a single moment, but one loses it in the long
hours that follow with leaden feet.’

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