Improvising
to learn
/
Learning to improvise
(chapter
one)
The
Frame of an Inquiry
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to explore improvisation, as
experienced by myself and others, in its relation to
learning. The approach was to look at improvisation in a
range of settings in order to discover patterns and common
approaches as well as unique manifestations. Attentive to
the significance of both its unplanned outcomes and its
facilitation of attaining specified objectives, I sought to
describe what I have experienced and come to understand as
a spirit of improvisation, encompassing its use as a
creative last resort and a process with equal validity as
a first
resort.
The process was a heuristic inquiry incorporating
phenomenological interviews, recordings of my own musical
improvisations and keeping a journal. The study illuminated
the fact that inclusivity and continuity are guiding
principles in improvisation. It contributes to a discourse
which valorizes the improvising process in a range of
places, including our hearts, our interpersonal
transactions, our approaches to lifestyles and —where the
seeds of change are nurtured— our classrooms. Improvisation
invites allusion and metaphor, which embrace a
life-affirming spiritual dimension. Not only is it a
lifelong learning, but also it is lifewide.
Introduction
In all of my interactions with folks, whenever the
word improvisation
has come
up, no one seems to ask what improvisation
means.
It is a concept with which everyone seems familiar, at
least in his or her own frame of reference. The more it is
discussed, though, the more carefully the term is drawn.
And the more finely it is delineated, the more it can be
distinguished from other areas in the field of creativity.
It becomes distinct even from the closely related concept
of spontaneity.
My particular experience researching improvisation was
difficult because discussing improvisation can easily feel
like a dissection of a living form. In the process the form
dissolves, or I feel as if I am dissolute in claiming to
speak of the integral form. The entire project was perhaps
a personal dare. While I never felt uninformed about the
phenomenon, I also felt that I could learn more. But, from
the beginning, I have seriously questioned whether what I
already knew or could yet learn had validity in an academic
context, or in precise, written language. And one aspect of
the challenge, after all my inquiring, was whether I would
have the courage, if necessary, to say that I had nothing
to say on the subject that was meaningful to me.
Also, from the beginning, I thought there could be
something that I considered relevant that could and should
be said. There was the possibility that not talking on this
subject, or feeling that I could not talk on it, was an
attitude rooted in an internal split. My explicit
motivation was a belief that an exploration of
improvisation could reveal a process which, rather than
being irrational or non-rational, involves a sublime level
of mental activity that is integral to the most meaningful
ways in which we grasp and learn our world. I proceeded in
the project with a slight fear coexisting with a small
hope. The fear was that this process could somehow distort
my path as an improvisor, by tending to instill a
too-conscious approach. My hope was that, by being willing
to face improvisation with a more conscious perspective,
there might turn out to be a greater awareness of the
principles that I could bring to it, which in fact would be
a resource.
Simply put, I wanted to honor improvisation. Ever since I
experienced its inspiration, I have wanted to give voice to
the people and the force from which it arises. In this
particular project, I sought to become more deeply in touch
with how I understand its manifestation in myself and in my
life. Starting with a sense of improvisation as a process
through which I have learned about music, myself and the
world, I explored the relation of learning to
improvisation. Looking beyond improvisation as “making
something up,” I wanted to see what there is in the process
that makes me feel more alive and in touch with the world.
In a
multicultural society, individuals arrive with different
scripts and must improvise their integration. The stakes
vary from play to survival.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Improvisation as a mode of learning has an important role
to play in this society. It is an invitation to play:
inside new rules or outside old ones; with a script or
without one; off the beat or on it. It is an invitation to
work: on revealing connections, on discovering patterns, on
uncovering feelings. And, underneath it all, improvisation
addresses what has been called “the ethical demand to
imagine otherwise” (Kearney, 1988, p. 364).
We see actors and musicians on stage often improvising. It
may look exciting, hard to do and not for everybody, but
lots of other people improvise often, too. Teachers
improvise in front of their classes. Chess players
improvise. And it is also a way many of us deal with the
irrationality, unpredictability and injustice of the
society. But, since artistic performance is generally more
exciting in itself, improvisation in that context stands
out and tends to overshadow other realms. The skill, amount
or degree of improvisation, nevertheless, can be as great
or greater in instances and activities we do not usually
think about as improvisatory and which are not normally
spectator events. The capacity to improvise is universal,
as is the necessity for it.
Prevailing Attitudes
Defined
in any one of a series of catchphrases ranging from ‘making
it up as he goes along’ to ‘instant composition,’
improvisation is generally viewed as a musical conjuring
trick, a doubtful expedient, or even a vulgar habit.
(Bailey, 1992, p. ix)
Although we often marvel at others improvising, many of us
do not take our own abilities to heart often enough. One
reason for that, I think, is that we feel as if we do not
know what we are doing when we improvise, a sense of
confusion combined with a negative attitude towards “not
knowing.” That is, not only can it be hard to act without
guidelines, but it is often even harder to see ourselves,
or have others see us, as not in control. Ultimately, it
seems hard to honor something (sometimes especially in
ourselves) that we can not talk about clearly.
What does it mean to talk about improvising? Is there any
way it makes sense to say that a jazz musician and a chess
player, for instance, both need to improvise? Is there any
reason not to improvise while delivering a sermon? Is there
more going on beyond dealing with an immediate situation at
hand, or any way in which improvising now
is a
benefit later?
Improvisation as a mode of learning is a process in which
the improvisor fully accepts and acts on the reality of his
or her own ability to define a given situation in his or
her own terms. Hodgson and Richards look at improvisation
as both an “opportunity for discovery” and as “drawing upon
our imagination in order to try and achieve an objective we
have set for ourselves” (Hodgson and Richards, 1974, p. 1).
It is “the spontaneous response to the unfolding of an
unexpected situation,” and it is a process by which we
“draw on our own resources, to think out basic principles”
(p. 2). This can come about, in music for instance, when
the player realizes that she is in fact the one designated
to fill in the blanks, the silent or open movement of a
piece, or when one chooses to suggest independently a new
line of musical development. In a game of strategy, the
opportunity for improvisation may arise when a standard
sequence or typical structure of play has been disrupted;
or one may even choose to interrupt a traditional line of
play. In an educational context, improvisation often is
called for when, while the subject matter and the desire to
grasp that subject matter have become explicit and ability
is evident, learning still is not taking place.
I start with this definition for improvisation: the
carrying out of a self-generated plan in the absence of, or
in lieu of, a designated course of action. To that I add
this trait of an improvisor: an active willingness to
discover spontaneously and act on a range of choices,
within a given context or overlapping contexts.
Improvisation is a subset of creativity. While creativity
encompasses action in a range of time periods, from the
instantaneous to compositions which are worked on over
years, improvisation is about the moment.
Having a plan is distinct from having a goal, in the sense
of a destination: Improvising can proceed with or without a
specific result in mind. However, in all cases, it proceeds
without knowing the route, often even through preferring
not to know. The assumptions are that the guiding signs or
supportive structure, pattern, to a particular
improvisatory action will be revealed. Or, if not, engaging
in improvisation—inquiry through action—has its own
benefits as a practice of and commitment to the capacity
for greater openness, flexibility and understanding.
Improvisation fulfills a practical need to be open to a
range of choices. In many situations in which there are a
great many possible solutions to a problem, a great many of
which have equal validity, some solutions are also
solutions for multiple problems. The idea of a unique
problem corresponding to a unique solution is too limiting
in many contexts. The willingness to accept a multiplicity
of problem/solution relationships is, I believe, an
important component of higher level problem-solving; this
is the spirit of improvisation. The process of embodying
such willingness is what I understand to be improvisation
itself. An active willingness to discover spontaneously is
an attitude or a state of mind that can not be defined,
only explored, and that exploration has been a large
component of my study.
However, the appreciation of improvisation and its
definition(s) are more limited in common discourse. There
is a lack of recognition of a possible state of mind which
might be conducive to improvisation or which might
purposely invite it as an approach. For instance, in
Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary (1983), to
improvise means, in an artistic or creative context, to act
“on the spur of the moment and without any preparation,”
or, in general, to act with the “materials at hand, usually
to fill an unforeseen and immediate need; as, he improvised
a bed out of leaves.” Those bland definitions of the
phenomenon contrast interestingly with the following.
First, the idea of improvisation as essentially limited to
response is called into question by one writer’s
observation from his experience: “The heart of
improvisation is the free play of consciousness as it
draws, writes, paints, and plays the raw material emerging
from the unconscious” (Nachmanovitch, 1990, p. 9). Also,
Paul Berliner addresses the idea of “without any
preparation” in Thinking in Jazz: “There is, in fact, a
lifetime of preparation and knowledge behind every idea
that an improvisor performs. …[T]his preparation begins
long before prospective performers seize upon music as the
central focus of their lives” (Berliner, 1994, p. 17, my
emphasis). The clear implications are of an amplifying
resonance with the process—preparation in a broad sense,
prior to opportunities for engaging in improvisation—and
that the process need not be thought of as pertaining to
only one discipline.
A person’s attitude towards improvisation is an
epistemological issue. It is a question of how one can
know, which ultimately relates to what one thinks can be
known or what one thinks is important to know. Apparently,
it is difficult for some people—more so within North
American society, less so in other cultures—to believe that
things can be learned by “fooling around.” There seems a
tendency to believe that the only things we can learn about
are the things that we know we are looking for and which we
have set about to ascertain in an orderly manner.
Also, a person’s attitude reflects a social context. One’s
epistemology is influenced and shaped by the society in
which one lives. Improvisation tends not to be valued
within North American society as a whole because of the
cultural tradition of the dominating class. The process of
devaluation is more indirect than direct. Only a few seem
to be active denigrators of improvisation, but when
criteria antithetical or nonessential to improvisation are
held in higher esteem, the effect is definite. The emphasis
on the written word—in documents, in musical scores, in
concrete—creates the expectation that what is transmitted
orally is of tenuous worth. Therefore, context and voice,
criteria very much integral to improvisation, are
diminished.
Ultimately, an improvisation is not falsifiable; it is a
qualitative finding that can only be verified in the heart
of a given improvisor who had access to the data source at
a given moment. The choices that are made can not be
written in stone, and the context that evoked the choices
can never be exactly duplicated. Then, in turn, those who
are not committed to the level of certainty on which
precision, and ultimately product creation, depends are
deemed immaterial to the greater agenda of a materialist
society.
Those who follow a path in the spirit of improvisation are,
like jazz musicians, relegated to darker exposure. Even
many of us who seem to find joy in musical improvisation,
jazz in particular, follow a script which disregards and
restricts the spirit of the improvisors themselves. Without
being aware probably, Sloboda (1985) glibly perpetuates a
stereotype that musicians themselves find their best
setting removed from center stage: “For real improvisatory
jazz at its best one may have to seek out the late-night
backroom informal sessions…” (p. 149). The implication is
that improvising is a process that can not stand the light.
Background
My relation to the subject of improvisation is based on
over 25 years as a performing musician; teaching
experiences with individuals and classes in academic
subjects, poetry and music; and being a go
player,
as well as a former tournament chess player. All three
areas have included a high level of improvisation. It has
been a key component for performing in and participating in
these disciplines more effectively.
As a musician I have played in the jazz idiom, towards the
part of its spectrum often referred to as “avant-garde” or
“free,” in which the structures of individual compositions
and performances have been anywhere from largely to
completely improvised. Similarly to the music, the
performing units have followed no prescribed format: solo,
duet, trio etc.; without drums, without bass, all horns
etc.; with Asian percussion, Latin percussion, African
percussion etc. And, similarly to the performing units, the
performing situations have varied: festivals, concert
halls, clubs, libraries, schools, rallies, street corners.
I have played with a variety of musicians in a variety of
locales creating music spontaneously, improvising, to a
variety of audiences in a variety of linguistic and
cognitive frames of reference.
As a teacher I have taught math and other subjects in a
variety of situations: private lessons, GED programs both
for adults and at-risk youth, and as adjunct faculty in
graduate and undergraduate schools. I have also been a
poetry teacher, mostly sponsored by the California Poets in
the Schools (CPITS), from elementary to high school to
juvenile hall.
I play chess and go.
These are games of strategy, where one might assume that
the best strategy is to leave nothing to chance. Yet, I am
drawn to both of these games for the creative opportunities
that they present, as much for the surprises in both
intuitive and counter-intuitive analyses combined with the
requirement for lucid reasoning.
Also, I have been presented with many situations in my life
for which there were no scripts that I had heard of, or the
only scripts being suggested were unacceptable. Becoming
aware that I had improvised and that there was a
methodology of some sort in that process has been an
evolving process for me. The awareness that improvisation
has very often been a successful option, as well as the
most positive or uplifting one to others involved in the
same situations, has been significant in my life. For many,
it might suffice to say that I am an African American
having lived over a half a century in the United States.
Starting Points
My belief in improvisation as a worthwhile subject of study
comes from the transformative effect that improvisation has
had in my life, as a performer and active participant, and
as audience and active listener. In listening to musicians
improvise I feel that I have heard and learned things that
could not be communicated in any other way or moment. By
improvising, musically and socially, I have learned things
about myself, and ultimately about how I learn, for which
there could never be a verbal text. And, performing with
other improvisors, I have come to experience that the
better players do not begin their improvisation on the
stage, but rather it flows from how they live.
My lived experience as well as my analysis, of my own and
others’ conditioning in our socio-historical context,
resonates with how Jones (1986) is paraphrased by Pierce.
Jones introduced improvisation as “a concept for
understanding behavior among African Americans, defining it
as ‘achievement behavior’ created under stressful
circumstances. He suggested that improvisation is a
cognitive process with expressive, goal-directed, and
problem-solving aspects. Jones further suggested that
improvisation is a preferred and often necessary style of
behavior for African Americans resulting from society’s
legacy of racism” (Pierce, 1995, p. 445).
Being an African American means historically having been
offered scripts which were unfit for human consumption
(“Say, ‘Yes, sir,’ boy, and
mean
it!”) and full of self-refuting subtexts impossible to
deliver with sincerity (“…indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all”). In such a situation, an improvisational
consciousness allows one to make meaning for oneself with
the script as gesture rather than as text, a throughline
connected to a struggle for a sense of autonomy. And at the
same time as the process serves for physical survival, it
nurtures a perspective from which one becomes empowered to
review all texts from the standpoint of distinguishing
between the perceived and the real actor. An acceptance of
the arbitrariness, or constructedness, of reality is a
prerequisite for an improvisor.
While this society has devalued improvisation, many of us
who are also devalued within the society have incorporated
improvisation to survive while moving beyond mere survival.
The very fact that we and one of our “preferred and often
necessary style[s] of behavior” are treated as other
motivates me further to support a rightful heritage and
practice, which is both practical and spiritual. While
improvisation has a direct and clear importance and benefit
as a response to racism, it has a cultural value that
emerges in many contexts among African Americans. African
American artistry and culture are traditionally a holistic
experience, serving the mind, body and heart. Improvisation
is a process that embodies that perspective. And, while I
speak from my experience as an African American, I am aware
that there are diverse cultures throughout the world who
embrace improvisation more enthusiastically than the
dominating European American culture in North America.
Orientation
I approached my inquiry process with the understanding that
there are different contexts in my life in which I am most
liable to be aware of whether or not I am improvising or
have improvised. Aside from those, there are times, ways
and means to invite or disinvite improvisation that I
believed were yet to enter my consciousness. At the same
time I wanted to be fully open (without anticipation) to
unanticipated learning, I wanted to nurture the further
unfolding of what I have already seen in improvisation—I
have wanted to know it more deeply.
There are at least two aspects of limitations that I must
refer to in this type of inquiry process. One aspect
concerns the very vocabulary that can be used to express
the ideas on this subject. For instance, some of the
concepts and language that musicians may use to express
their sense of improvisation may or may not help elucidate
the phenomenon for someone steeped chiefly in an
educational jargon. In terms of learning itself, it may or
may not be understood unless it is somatic or holistic. The
difference in terminologies may tend to obscure some of the
overlap that exists in the understandings of people who
look at improvisation through different social or technical
lenses.
I also refer to Bailey’s (1992, p. ix) statement reflecting
the idea that there is something in the nature of
“voluntary” improvisation which seems too elusive for, even
antithetical to, documentation or an academic context. If I
had completely accepted that perspective, entering into
this research would have seemed to be somewhat suicidal.
So, while I believed Bailey’s comments are very much to the
point, I was ambitious enough to take on the challenge of
documenting my explorations while still capturing the
spirit. The most severe limitation in this context has not
been my ability to say something meaningful on the subject,
but to say it meaningfully. In other words, the adventure
has been to modify the verb, not just the noun. And, in the
process, the danger of losing my way in this balancing act
has felt threatening to my own sense of self as a
performing artist. It is a balancing act because, while I
may choose writing as the main method of documenting this
study, I in no way intend to privilege the written word as
the ultimate arbiter of improvisation’s nature or validity.
I prefer to approach the word as simply another means of
conveying the shared meaning, but I recognize that the
authority the written language holds is so great that often
we look for truth in the words rather than looking for the
words to point towards the truth. I imagine that only
superficial insights at best will be manifest on the
subject of improvisation if I am not able to create the
sense, or the reader unable to accept, that the written
word is describing a process, not defining a structure.
Improvisation as a Mode of Learning
Improvisation as a mode of learning is a paradox; as a
process, it is an invitation to know without the known as
absolute. In the process, the improvisor wants knowing here
and now; in this context the known is past, the present is
knowing. The known is the ground, the knowing is figure.
Yet, as the happening becomes the just happened, the
present instantaneously becomes its own ground, and the new
figure emerges; it is a continuous process, the verb that
will not become a noun. Improvisation is infinite and has
no fixed boundaries, because knowing never becomes known;
improvising valorizes the ever-changing nature of truth
rather than its fixed nature. As a result, one sets the
limits for it only arbitrarily, if and when one chooses to
move from knowing to becoming a knower. One sets the limits
for it at one’s own risk or safety, when one chooses to
define the boundaries of knowledge and to privilege the
delimited.
If the process of improvising is, as I believe, a learning,
it could be considered a subject-less learning and as such
would be what I call metalearning, or a process for
learning how to learn.
Learning can sometimes be understood from the perspective
of teaching; that is, how one learns depends on what or how
one is taught. Quite possibly though, the conceivable role
of improvisation in learning runs counter to traditional
education, which at its extreme has been characterized as
“banking.” In the “banking” mode the teacher’s role is “to
‘fill’ the students by making deposits of information which
the teacher considers to constitute true knowledge”
(Freire, p. 63, 1971); “students are not called upon to
know, but to memorize the contents narrated by the teacher”
(p. 68). What knowledge exists is considered quantitative,
amassable, the property of the teacher and distinct from
process. Towards the other end of the spectrum there is a
partnership between teacher and student and an attitude
that learning comes out of interaction. “Problem-posing
education affirms men as beings in the process of
becoming—as unfinished, uncompleted beings” (p. 72). This
is a more active and constructivist perspective on how we
learn, how we come to know. And this is an approach that is
more resonant with improvisation, in which the process is
not subordinate to product.
The realm of improvisation centers on unanticipated
learning. Without an attitude of welcoming the
unanticipated, I am not improvising. At the moment I strive
for a particular outcome, even while I may consider that I
am improvising, I have injected insincerity into the
process and have attempted to frame my knowing as a knower.
The improvisation is negated. The insincerity is best
understood as a false openness towards inquiry; when I am
not truly open, I hold onto my previous frame of
understanding. “Only when your actions seem without
consequence can you realize what it is you actually know”
(Rothenberg, 1996). In this sense “knowing” is a process of
“unfolding.” If I focus to narrowly on a particular
endpoint, I restrict myself from a fuller potential
unfolding.
Without a commitment to the spirit of improvisation there
is no improvisation in the sense which I understand it at
this point. One can improvise, or one can not improvise.
When one is not improvising, one has made a conscious or
unconscious choice not to entertain, welcome, or even
invite in perspectives that one considers new or different.
Improvisation in all its manifestations and idioms is
inquiry; even so-called fooling around can generate
discovery. And the exploration inherent in the inquiry is
intimately connected to self-exploration. At the very
least, self-knowing (as in a self-learning) emerges in
one’s choice of a specific moment in time to fool around;
there is in that choice an opportunity for a deeper
understanding of one’s own context. How, when and why we
choose to hold our opinions in abeyance, or to allow
ourselves not to feel restricted to acting exclusively on
what we “know,” are options affected by who we understand
ourselves to be and by what we feel we must do or be in a
specific context to maintain our identity. I think it is
important to recognize that to declare improvisation out of
bounds is not merely to exclude an act: Defining a task so
specifically as to render improvisation inappropriate
ultimately defines what improvisation can not mean in a
given context, and, therefore which meaning in itself is
not allowed.
Improvisation as a paradigm is an invitational process
towards expansion. The improvisor embraces the unforeseen.
Because it is not a rigid approach, it allows those
improvising to conceptualize a given situation, problem or
context, in a frame with enough breadth and flexibility for
reframing possibilities: in other words, to propose an
orientation while being inclusive. Improvisation is a
methodology, and, at its root, to improvise is to inquire.
What we set out to learn and how we go about that learning
are connected. Often, as we define (perhaps unnecessarily
narrowly) a situation (problem or area of inquiry), we
restrict our approaches to developing an understanding of
that situation only. In contrast, by committing ourselves
to the broadest possible set of answers, improvisation
becomes a desirable approach to a given situation. By
envisioning “problems” as opportunities or even adventures,
which I consider to be an improvisational perspective, it
is possible to realize outcomes beyond mere “answers.”
Improvisation is an approach that accepts the limits of
one’s knowledge without making assumptions about exactly
what and where those limits are. In the course of
improvising, we need not as quickly discount ideas or
directions that only seem not to fit; we allow for a
greater resource pool of choices and more comprehensive
pattern recognition.
Higher Level of Consciousness
In an everyday mode of consciousness, we tend to approach
obstacles as they appear —that is, one by one. Under the
best of circumstances we presume each obstacle will be
overcome, each problem solved. But often our approach is
limited to only that obstacle or problem at hand. Often we
neglect an invitation to uncover the underlying pattern of
which a particular instance is only one manifestation. The
underlying pattern may only be revealed when all the
contextual factors are considered.
In developing ability in a particular problem area,
intuition of the whole or “holistic similarity recognition”
(Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986, p. 28) is the capacity of
mind which seems to represent the highest level. In Mind
Over Machine, Dreyfus & Dreyfus distinguish between
know-how and a capacity to know that. Although one can talk
of certain principles involved in riding a bicycle one does
not “really know, until it happens, just what [one] would
do in response to a certain unbalanced feeling” (p. 16).
They consider bike riding’s similarity to most of life’s
problem areas (from carrying on conversations in a wide
variety of contexts to walking on unfamiliar terrain), in
that it is essentially unstructured, and it cannot be
reduced to “knowing that.” Acquiring a skill proceeds
through stages, the earlier stages involving conscious
abstract rules and the later involving intuition. In the
beginning there is the analytic behavior of a detached
subject, calculative rationality, and later there is an
involvement, an engaged participation, which is not
irrational but “arational”—“experts act arationally.” “The
word rational…has come to be equivalent to calculative
thought and so carries with it the connotation of
‘combining parts to obtain a whole’; arational behavior,
then, refers to action without conscious analytic
decomposition and recombination” (p. 36). Although we
generally regard the irrational as contrary to logic or
reason and to be avoided, it does not follow that the
rational subsumes all intelligence or the highest activity
of the mind. Embracing the arational as part of our
consciousness is part of the process of expanding our
consciousness. Improvisation is indeed arational behavior.
Another aspect in approaching a problem situation is that
what we perceive as an obstacle and why we perceive it as
such are questions not necessarily consciously addressed
together, but both are components of the context. However,
when I consider myself to be task-oriented, I may think it
is counterproductive to examine or question the
significance of the task itself. There is a polarity
between what is perceived as practical, what and how, and
what is perceived as theoretical or philosophical, why. The
drive to be “efficient” generally invokes a rigid frame in
which to conceptualize the problem/solution. Often such
rigidity works against the learning in the doing of the
task as well as the learning about oneself in relation to
the context of the task. Improvisation is a modality that
allows a more free-floating consciousness between the poles
of the practical and the theoretical.
I feel that the better solution in a “problem,” or better
choice in a “situation,” is the one which resolves the
apparent conflict of possibilities while at the same time
illuminating patterns and revealing greater levels of
organization or complexity which can be responded to in
similar ways. I think that what I am describing as the
better solution relates to what Frank Barron, reviewing the
characteristics of creativity (1995), terms elegance. He
sees “growth as marked by increasing and often
unpredictable differentiation. Simplicity leads to
complexity before a new and more elegant simplicity can be
achieved” (p. 314). Improvisation involves a synergy
between simplicity and complexity. It is a mode in which
better solutions are possible because multiple solutions
are welcome, among which are solutions to an even greater
multiplicity of problems.
I consider that improvisation manifests a higher “level” of
consciousness, analogous to Kegan’s sense of higher
“order,” not as a sequential reference but a reference to
degree of encompassment. On the subject of consciousness
and its development over a lifetime in In Over Our Heads,
Kegan writes that “the different principles of mental
organization are intimately related to each other. They are
not just different ways of knowing, each with its preferred
season. One does not simply replace the other, nor is the
relation merely additive or cumulative, an accretion of
skills. Rather, the relation is transformative,
qualitative, and incorporative. Each successive principle
subsumes or encompasses the prior principle. That which was
subject becomes object to the next principle. The new
principle is a higher order principle (more complex, more
inclusive) that makes the prior principle into an element
or tool of its system” (Kegan, p. 33, 1994).
An Improvisor is not without Honor...
As I participate in and observe human action and
interaction in the world I note that improvisation is much
loved while it is also denigrated. Sometimes it is loved
and denigrated within the same person. Sometimes it is
loved in the Self but devalued in the Other, who may be
considered not to know its “appropriate” use. Also, there
are those of us who try to achieve a level of preparation
in which there is never a need “to make something up”—as
improvisation is often dismissively considered; there are
those who see it as something done only as a last resort.
Many people seem to have a tendency to hold at least one of
two attitudes: either that improvisation has its place, but
its place is never in the context of “serious” things; or
that, in general, some people can improvise and some people
can’t. My perspective, on the other hand, is that
improvisation can be of service even in the most serious of
human endeavors and that everyone can—and does—improvise.
It is a significant human experience as an exercise, a
tool, and a method of learning. Even though its
intellectual aspect is not recognized, “Improvisation is a
means of training people to think” (Hodgson and Richards,
p. 22). I understand “training to think” as learning better
how to approach problem areas, structured and unstructured,
more generatively.
I feel that there are social and national issues specific
to this society that have perpetuated a devaluing of
improvisation. In other words, growing up in this society,
the epistemology of the non-improvisors has been in the
ascendance—a fundamental aspect of what some call the
Western paradigm. Improvisation in its many forms, on the
other hand, is a continuation of the oral tradition, the
metanarrative that I believe is more universal; within
diverse cultural milieux, improvisation is a tradition that
is itself nurtured. In the oral tradition a story exists,
is alive, in the telling, and every telling is inflected
uniquely in collaboration with the teller, the listener and
place—in relation. Alternately, the Western construction of
order relies heavily on the composed and fixed, which are
said to exist immutably and outside of human nature.
However, this society is uniquely at odds with
improvisatory approaches probably specifically because the
foremost model for it continues to be “jazz” and the “jazz
musician” —largely the realm of African American artistry
and culture. As long as Eurocentricity, in the form of
white privilege and its privileged thought forms of
rationality, prevails in this society, the gifts of the
African sensibility will continue to be underappreciated,
denigrated, and underutilized, to the detriment of all.
Also, the general attitude in this society towards
improvisation is related to that towards Art. Art is often
underappreciated because it, too, is considered “not
serious,” meaning “not functional.” Art (the process of
doing it, in contrast to its commodification) seems not to
have a role in the real world; it seems to have no clear
value for survival because it seems not to help solve
anything. Typically, budgets to support Art will be cut
before all others. It seems not to be something people
need, and, therefore not something people need to learn—let
alone something people need in order to learn. Improvisors
are viewed like artists in general, people with a special
talent that they often express in an esoteric realm.
In addition to the low esteem in which improvisation
sometimes is held in academic circles, there is the low
esteem in which improvisors hold academic circles. There is
a sense perhaps in which the lines have been drawn too
narrowly from both perspectives. This statement from an
improvisor perhaps best captures the dilemma of “serious”
inquiry into the area of improvisation:
Improvisation
is always changing and adjusting, never fixed, too elusive
for analysis and precise description, essentially
non-academic. And, more than that, any attempt to describe
improvisation must be, in some respects, a
misrepresentation, for there is something central to the
spirit of voluntary improvisation which is opposed to the
aims and contradicts the idea of documentation. (Bailey,
1992, p. ix)
Summary
In this chapter I have presented a preliminary definition
of improvisation, what it is, and my sense of the depth of
the phenomenon itself. I have also described what I see as
the prevailing attitudes that tend to be dismissive: Those
who improvise are a select group and/or the process itself
has no relation to consciousness and learning worth
appreciating. In the process of talking about this subject,
my own background and relationship to the inquiry are
central. I have described aspects of my own connection,
which refer to why and on what basis I choose to engage
this topic. I have presented my starting points, beliefs
that I feel I have a right to through experience, which at
the same time orient me in specific ways to the inquiry.
These beliefs are developed in my initial perspectives on
improvisation: as a mode of learning; as a process
involving a higher level of thinking; and as a cultural
expression—the appreciation, or diminution, of which is
connected with much of our shared North American history.
Improvisation as a mode of learning is an invitation to
know without there being the known as absolute. It is a
continuous process that chooses not to define the
boundaries of knowledge. It is a subjectless learning that
continuously nurtures itself, a metalearning that is the
process of learning how to learn.
• • • • • • • • • • • • •
(excerpted interview from chapter four)
Bill
There is
a phrase that Bill used a few times that connected well
with me and made me smile: “when it was just straight out
of heaven.” He was talking about the source the musicians
he listened to had drawn from when it was not “stuff they
had practiced…their showpiece.” There were times when, he
said, “I could tell that was about right there, ‘cause that
was inspired by the environment, what the drummer was
playin or what the other guy played.” There was context for
the music to come from the heart. In other words, "you
couldn’t play that unless the thing got, the environment
produced that, ‘cause that wouldn’t work, you couldn’t pull
it up. It was like you had to get to a certain level of
tension and heat in the performance before it started to
generate this total spontaneity."
I explored the difference between improvisation and
spontaneity with him. Did he think there was a distinction?
"No, I
don’t actually. Even though there are times when somebody
is playing and I would generally call it improvisation when
it’s not really spontaneous. There’s a level at which you
can be playing when you’re sort of coasting along, if you
want to really be specific, not really improvising, you’re
sort of reorganizing your old meatloaf. That’s not the
same—as a totally spontaneous improvisation, where you know
from note one that this is straight from heaven."
There
were times when Charlie Parker, “as great as he was,” would
be less than spontaneous. Bill creatively expanded that
idea in this exchange:
Bill:
Sometimes he might come out and say [he sings a riff],
that’s his old stuff, maybe he didn’t feel like playing,
didn’t have any idea, down or whatever—on one level we call
that improvisation, but that’s not his spontaneous stuff.
That’s Charlie Parker comin out givin you his, you know,
truck driver meal—mashed potatoes, green beans and a
hamburger steak, and a glass of ice tea.
LJ: Which he prepares better than most.
Bill: Yeh, right. It’s good those mashed potatoes, but,
when he’s totally spontaneous, that one idea gives him what
it takes to—the nerve, the courage, the will to stay out
there and not worry about playing one of those things that
he knows you goin to like. That’s like somebody said, Well,
I know you’ll like my mashed potatoes and green beans,
you’ll leave me a good tip and come back again. Well, I’m
not worried about that this time, I’m bringin you now
sushi, something, I don’t know whether you’ll like that or
not, but you going to have to try it.
For Bill (and for me too), “when I say somebody’s playing
is spontaneous, that means they always play something
freshly about the immediate environment.” In another part
of the interview, when he says that improvisation “has to
have some extension beyond just an act,” spontaneity seems
to be the element that extends it. It is an interesting
reversal in the, say, hierarchy of meaningfulness that I
might assign to improvisation and spontaneity. He pictured
the example of our playing some music together after we had
delved into improvisation in such a heartfelt way, and we
had this exchange:
Bill:
It’s like if you and I decided to get our horns out here
now, let’s just play something…. But, as soon as we pick
our horns up, let’s play something, and you play [sings a
familiar Parkeresque riff]. [You say,] “I’m playing that in
a kind of spontaneous way, aren’t I?” No, no, no, you
already started off with a meatloaf there, it already takes
me down. ‘Cause what we been talking about here for the
longest, how could we talk like we been talking and you
play that? You know what I mean?
LJ: I hear you. I hear you.
Bill: So, you and I been talking at a level here now, we
haven’t been talking about Ebony magazine, you know what I
mean?
LJ: I know exactly what you mean.
Bill: Then you get your horn out and you play [something
too familiar]—What the hell’s that got to do with, that’s
like if we had a duo thing and we were going to play, and I
said we’re going to do this, and the bass player said
[sings a few abstract notes], then you and I go [sings an
easily accessible riff]. What?
LJ: That happens all over the place, what you’re
describing.
Bill: That doesn’t have anything to do—what you’re doing
there, you’re trying to sell yourself. You’re not willing
to surrender, to the environment. You’re always looking out
for yourself, you want to make sure everybody out there
likes what you played. Can’t you yield to that now, and
just be a part of what we’re doing here now? Or do you have
to be the leader, or the star, or you have to win. You know
what I mean? Can’t you just sort of, subordinate yourself
to the group thing here? We got a trio here now, and the
bass player just set the stage for us to do something, and
you let him down.
In other words, there was possibility:
LJ: An
opportunity to look for something, to hear something you
had not heard.
Bill: You had an opportunity to make some music, to
improvise, and you didn’t take it.
In terms of learning to improvise, starting off on his horn
as a teenager, Bill listened to people like “Sonny Stitt
and Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker and Dizzy and all.” “As I
listened to them play repeatedly, I could see the
organization in what they were doing. And I could see the
part of it now that you could not explain either, by scales
or by how hard you practiced. I could see there was a level
of it now that was intuitive and might have been just a
pure talent that would give you kinds of ideas that there’s
no way to explain how they would come out of any book.” His
awareness of improvisation as a musical methodology was
connected with his realization of an underlying form in the
song structures that musicians were improvising on.
"There
was this thing unspoken, that you’re born to do this, even
amongst black players. You know, we separate, the guys in
my community, they would separate you into groups. They’d
say, Aw, so-and-so, aw, man, he ain’t got no soul, all he
plays is scales and stuff you learn at the music teacher.
And so the myth is already out there, you can play this if
you’re born with a lot of soul, or if you drink a lot, or
you smoke a lot of weed, or some of that other hocus-pocus,
that you can play, and you’ll get this down. I didn’t buy
into that. … I could tell right away there’s more to it
than that. But what it represented was something, if you
could study and you could get this stuff together, you
might not be Charlie Parker, but you could definitely
learn, you could learn this language. "
Looking at his evolving understanding of improvisation,
which came first through music, Bill said about the prime
exemplar, Charlie Parker, “his stuff was so cohesive and so
full of continuity that there was no confusion about
anything he played.” In performances, after other soloists
had played there “comes this guy in the wake of all this
whoopin and hollerin that’s playin this line that you could
hear one idea led to the next one, he just kept developin
it.”
"So
there I realized, of course, there was a level of, a facet
of improvisation that went beyond just your instrument now.
It’s a thought process. Where you have to understand that
you can approach this improvisation from the idea of
development, you know, where you take a thematic idea, try
to get through melodic system, expanding this idea or
making it smaller, or just playing variations of the theme.
"
And,
echoing my own hard-fought clarity on the subject, Bill
said, “There’s a level of intellectual…skill up there
that’s at work. It’s disarming how you look at a guy up
there playing, you think he’s just up there blowing on a
horn, and you don’t realize the level of sophistication of
the process. Especially when it’s done with that kind of
skill, and you don’t hear a lot of mistakes.”
But are mistakes possible during improvisation? “Oh, sure,
you make lots of ‘em. And there’s different kinds. You
could hear Charlie Parker making finger mistakes.” But,
Bill added, “I don’t hear Charlie Parker makin a lot of
thematic mistakes, like, if he did, he’d correct it right
away. If he started out off an idea that didn’t seem like
it was going to bear fruit, he abandoned it right quickly.”
And he expanded the idea in this exchange:
Bill:
But a guy like Thelonious Monk, he does some things that a
lot of us, when I was a kid, thought were mistakes, but
what they were is Thelonious Monk trying to force himself
now to be creative, not to play the clichés. He’d do
something sometimes that you’d, that was so awkward in the
very first couple of bars that you got to do something now—
LJ: —to resolve it.
Bill: Yeh. Because you can’t play [sings a Monk-type riff]
and then play some really corny little nursery rhyme after
that. He knew he couldn’t. So, after giving himself a
problem of unbelievable dimension, then that forced him to
really dig into his resources, Now, what can I do with
that?
He went
on to say that “the beauty of that was he could fail—he
didn’t like failure any more than the rest of us, but he
wasn’t afraid of just a total disaster. He didn’t want it
to happen. But it’s not like he said, You won’t buy my
records any more, or you won’t like me if I make this
mistake. I don’t think he let his ego get in the way,
ever.”
Because I, Bill and many people talk about improvisors and
improvisation seemingly easily, I often find it helpful to
create what I consider a slightly disorienting experience
on the subject. I asked, “Do you always know when you’re
improvising?” Bill’s response was interesting, especially
because he took it into a classroom context.
I’m
thinking about sometimes now in a classroom lecture, when
students ask me at the end of class, I came in late, can I
have notes from today’s lecture? And so I say to kids, You
actually think that I had notes today? … You were sitting
there, and you thought that—I’m up there talking about blue
notes or something, and I’m drawing references out of all
different kinds of music, and I’m singin, drawin all these
analogies, you thought that I got that some place?
He added
that sometimes you may not know, but “once you get
rolling…you begin to use improvisation to solve a problem.”
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