Thoughts About the Challenge of Improvising

 For quite a few years I stopped trying to improvise, because I realized that the music written by composers such as Bach, Telemann, and Mozart was much better than anything I might come up with. Recently, however, I joined a gradually growing big band that rehearses not far from my house, and I've been improvising again on the baritone saxophone. The director of the band encourages us to give it a try and it's an enjoyable challenge. But it doesn't come easily to me.

There are many types of improvisation. In the baroque period musicians were expected to be able to add ornamentation to pieces, and keyboard players were expected to improvise accompaniments to a melody from a figured bass line. Jazz keyboard players are supposed to be able to do improvise on a jazz standard based on a lead sheet, giving the melody, with chord symbols written above the staff. It's also possible to improvise without specific reference to a given melody.

Improvisation on a jazz standard for a melody instrument (a "horn") or for the right hand on a keyboard, requires a lot of skills that never came naturally to me. First, the improvisor has to bear in mind the form of the tune, usually a 32 measure piece consisting of an eight measure presentation of the tune (the A part), which is repeated, followed by an eight measure bridge (the B part), and completed by a restatement of the initial melody. In short: AABA. Gershwin's "I've Got Rhythm" is the archetypical tune with that form. Sometimes, though, the form can be ABAB or ABAC. And sometimes songwriters depart from the typical 32 bar form.

Second, of course, the improvisor has to know the melody.

Third, the improvisor has to know which chords that the composer placed beneath his or her melody (the "changes").

Fourth, the improvisor has to know how the melody can be reharmonized by substituting chords for the ones the composer provided, which one musician I once knew called "movie chords," because they're often less sophisticated than the ones that jazz musicians came up with as they played the tune over the years.

Finally, with all the foregoing in mind, the improvisor has to play an interesting, exciting melody while the rhythm section of the band - the drums, bass, guitar, and piano - play the form of the tune. A good improvisation is in dialogue with the other musicians in the ensemble, and it's also in dialogue with the song the ensemble started off with. 

Different Kinds of Musicians

 My wife and I just spent a week in Malta to attend a baroque music festival. The music was sublime. The musicians were international professionals. The venues where the concerts were held were all picturesque. The appeal of baroque music has stood the test of time. It's less sentimental and bombastic than romantic music, clearer and more abstract. I admire the skill of the performers as well as the erudition of musicologists who edit the scores and study the performance styles of the time, as well as the waves of influence between Italy, Germany, Spain, France, and England.

One performance we saw was of English song from Purcell on, performed by Kate Semmens, a soprano, and the English harpsichordist Steven Devine. Halfway through the concert Devine "confessed" (as he put it) that the accompaniment he had been playing wasn't written out, and he was improvising over a figured bass. That's a skill I admire, one that classical pianists d on't necessarily acquire.

Last night we heard an unusual jazz trio: the singer Julia Feldman, the guitarist Steve Peskoff, and the keyboardist Richard Samuels. They improvised, of course, over the chords of the songs, and the result was fascinating. I admire the skill of jazz musicians, which I mostly lack, more than I admire the skill of musicians who sit in an orchestra and read notes, which I can more or less do.