Actors need bricks to play with, and in fact we rejected all the improvised fragments we had made without a plan. Improvisation without a plan is like tennis without tennis balls.
If anybody is a master at improvisation, it would be Ken Jeong. He is hilarious.
I like to think that we’ve got a plan, so let’s stick to it. That said, once we’ve stuck to it, we’re allowed as much improvisation as anyone cares to indulge themselves in.
Songs seem to always spring from improvisation.
I stopped being interested in improvisation, and I continue to not be that interested in it. Comedians can do it on a different level because they have a goal, but if you’re improvising something that’s dramatic, there’s not that much to be good at.
They were looking for actors – real actors – who could play instruments. There was a lot of improvisation and scene work involved in addition to the music. The auditions went on for a long time.
I hated improvisation because in my early days as an actor, improvisation meant somebody had just come down from Oxford and they were doing a play above a pub in Kentish Town, and the biggest ego would win.
The thing about improvisation is that it’s not about what you say. It’s listening to what other people say. It’s about what you hear.
The main three components are the blues, improvisation – which is some kind of element that people are trying to make it up – and swing, which means even though they’re making up music, they’re trying to make it up together. It feels great, like you’re having a great conversation with somebody.
There are definitely some set topics I go onstage with and want to talk about, but there’s also an element of improvisation and spontaneity that I like to bring to each performance and talk about uniquely in that room.
I’ve always been into improvisation.
Improvisation is terribly haphazard.
The music of the Gypsies belongs in the sphere of improvisation rather than in any other, without which it would have no power to exist.
There’s a relationship between music and spirituality and inspiration and to a certain extent improvisation that draws me in, because I don’t totally understand it. I know that those relationships have been telling me, since I started making records, where to go. What to write down.
I think improvisation is a skill, that if you learn it at a really young age then you can use it for the rest of your life, whether that’s acting or singing.
I find Indian music very funky. I mean it’s very soulful, with their own kind of blues. But it’s the only other school on the planet that develops improvisation to the high degree that you find in jazz music. So we have a lot of common ground.
There isn’t much improvisation in film – there’s virtually none. The people that theoretically could be good at this in a theater situation don’t necessarily do this in a film in a way that will work, because it’s much broader on a stage.
I can’t speak American dog very well. There was a lot of improvisation with Uggie – like when I put the dog on the table or sometimes I follow him, sometimes he follows me. I had a lot of treats in my pocket. We worked with Omar Von Muller, the dog trainer. It was very easy because it was a big movie.
My life and career have been a big improvisation.
I continued studying by myself in the field of jazz with my own technique of improvisation, walking bass lines, rhythms, all kinds of stuff, which I created for myself.
I consider myself a jazz singer. I think I stick to the roots of improvisation, singing in front of the beat, behind the beat, playing with notes and harmonies.
First responders are a resilient lot. They deal with many types of situations and are very good at improvisation in their work.
The rule of improvisation I took to heart was, ‘Don’t think.’ I tend to over-think things, so that was a big lesson for me.
The nature of improvisation is you don’t know what’s going to happen.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, but that’s what we face when we’re dealing with improvisation.
John Brown was the abolitionist to end all abolitionists. People thought he was crazy. He was like John Coltrane playing free jazz, exhausting all possibilities in his approach to harmony and improvisation.
I can put together a pretty decent meal from whatever happens to be in the refrigerator and the pantry. I like the challenge of this sort of improvisation, the rigor of limitation and sometimes having to take a risk.
A major component of jazz is improvisation, which forces you to stay in the moment because you never know what will be coming up. There’s a lot of freedom and space available as you improvise around the chord changes.
I allow a lot of room for improvisation and funny stuff. I always feel planned.
Not with the Rochester Philharmonic, but I formed my own orchestra, made up of musicians from the Eastman School, where I’m on the faculty now, direct the Jazz Ensemble and teach improvisation classes.
I never left jazz. The relationship between structure and improvisation – that constant conversation and tension – I’ve always wanted in every genre and song that I perform.
But one of the things I learned from improvising is that all of life is an improvisation, whether you like it or not. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century came out of people dropping things.
There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation.
One interesting thing about jazz, or art in general, but jazz especially is such an individual art form in the sense that improvisation is such a big part of it, so it feels like it should be less soldiers in an army and more like free spirits melding. And yet, big band jazz has a real military side to it.
It took me forever, learning improvisation, because I had studied with Lee Strasberg – I dropped out of Chicago and went to his classes in New York for a couple of years, once or twice a week. What I didn’t realize was I was learning directing because he wasn’t all that good about acting, not for me.
My gigs are built on improvisation: I go out there and I’m like the Energizer bunny.
I used to go to the Improvisation Comedy Club every night in Times Square. How I didn’t get killed in that area either means that 1) God is watching over me or 2) I am so insignificant to God that he didn’t bother having me killed.
In essence, I feel I’m more jazz guitar player because I write vehicles geared for improvisation.
The immediacy of improvisation is intoxicating, but there’s an intimacy that you get that’s very different when you’re doing drama.
When improvisation is properly applied, it is compositional thinking, sped way up.
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