blog 3

My essay is going to be about the necessity of improvisation in classical music. In doing this I want to explore three main issues. I will begin by explaining the importance in a historical context of improvisation for classical music and its subsequent loss. The recent revitalized interest in improvisation for classical musicians noticeably in conservatoires will be my second part. Thirdly, I will discuss the difference in how improvisation is taught for a jazz major in contrast to a classical major and the obvious division for these two types of music at a conservatoire.

As part of my research I have been reading the interesting and thorough book ‘Improvisation’ by Derek Bailey who explores the different kinds of improvisation in all it’s forms. Divided up by individual chapters starting with Indian music, flamenco, baroque, organ music, rock, jazz, contemporary and ending in free music. The main point reaffirmed throughout the book is that every type of music is kept alive and fresh by improvisation. Whether it be in flamenco music where the great flamenco guitarist is quoted “Being creative within flamenco is essential… You cannot play anybody else’s material forever – you’ve got to make your own otherwise you are just very unhappy…”  or when Bailey writes in ‘Baroque music’, “improvisation has been deprived of its usual function of being the sap through which music renews and reinvigorates itself and, if used at all, is retained to serve only as a carefully controlled decorative device”.

 The problem in classical music now is that it has been preserved in a museum like manner. Classical musicians don’t believe that it is part of their job to move music forward and that a way of doing this is by improvising.  When I suggested to a fellow classical musician that only playing music from 250 years ago was living in a museum they answered that what do we expect when playing on a piece of wood with strings. This is the sort of narrow mindedness that other types of music have avoided.

The risk involved in improvisation is contrary to the modern day polished recordings. Audiences want to hear something that they know played note for note perfectly. With improvising there might not always be every note that you want to hear but do not realize that this is a way of discovering new material and moving music forward rather than trying to preserve what has been there for so many years with little exploration. The minute the typical classical audience hears or sees anything that is modern it seems to be a big turn off.  It also is due to composers not wanting improvising to ruin their composition. I would like to look at this in further depths for my next blog.