Improv

Personally, I've never considered comedy improv to be the highest-level of skill within it's art. I have never enjoyed any true improv. It all comes across as rather haphazard and unfunny.

There needs to be structure and form and preparation and rehearsals to make it seem spontaneous.

The same is true in music. I don't believe there is any real improv going on, even in jazz. There is a song structure, rehearsals, and planning so it appears like improv. Otherwise it would all sound like noise as each musician just does his own thing.

I think most writing you see began as improv, as did dance, acting, painting, it was through honing of the skills that it became good improv so to speak.

I mean when you just sit down and write and it flows, that is improv. So why not?

Shadow_Ferret said:

The same is true in music. I don't believe there is any real improv going on, even in jazz. There is a song structure, rehearsals, and planning so it appears like improv. Otherwise it would all sound like noise as each musician just does his own thing.

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As a jazz musician, I beg to differ.

Certainly there is a structure, a template if you will, in most jazz tunes. Within the confines of that structure, jazz musicians try to explore the almost endless variations that are possible. One can play the same tune a hundred times, and each time one constructs a solo, it will be different. If you’re a strong player, your solo will vary in part depending on what the other musicians are doing. Their playing will simultaneously be affected by what you are doing. This interaction, to me, is the essence of jazz. It is a fluid creative act. If that’s not improvisation, I don’t know what is. There’s no contradiction involved in talking about improvisation within the confines of a structure.

Many jazz tunes have a very basic structure which enables the players to range far afield.. There’s also free jazz, where the players indeed do their own thing without regard to any structure - but they still listen to each other. Usually, those attempts are less than completely successful, with long stretches of random noise. But occasionally, everything comes together to provide moments of inspired brilliance very different than traditional form based music.

Writing is different. Writing is, by its very nature, composition. The analogy in music might be like composing a string quartet or concerto. And whether composition or improvisation is a “higher” creative endeavor is a different question. Personally, I think we’re talking apples and oranges there.

I don't believe you said anything to dispute what I had said.

As a musician you don't sit down and just start wailing away with other musicians. You have a starting point. Maybe "Harlem Nocturne" and from there everyone has a point where they go off and solo.

As a musician you don't sit down and just start wailing away with other musicians. You have a starting point.

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And the same is true for improv theater.

Your starting point might be a couple of characters ("bag lady," "gay optometrist," "streetwise nine-year-old"), a setting ("florist's shop, day before Mother's Day") or whatever, but you don't just show up and start spouting dialogue.

And one of the true pleasures of jazz is watching musicians who may have never even met before coming together and recreating a piece in their own likeness. One or more of the players may never have even heard the "starting point" tune before, but they can jump in and go.

Not sure if there's a real writing equivalent, though, or at least not one that anyone would actually want to read... since the author is a less immediate part of the experience and the words must do the job on their own, there's not that sense of personal connection you get from watching the expressions and interplay of actors or musicians.

Blogging, perhaps?

Shadow_Ferret said:

I don't believe there is any real improv going on, even in jazz.

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This is where we part company. Your idea seems to be that if there is a stucture, or even an agreed upon starting point, it's not really improv. I don't see it that way.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Personally, I've never considered comedy improv to be the highest-level of skill within it's art. I have never enjoyed any true improv. It all comes across as rather haphazard and unfunny.

There needs to be structure and form and preparation and rehearsals to make it seem spontaneous.

The same is true in music. I don't believe there is any real improv going on, even in jazz. There is a song structure, rehearsals, and planning so it appears like improv. Otherwise it would all sound like noise as each musician just does his own thing.

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I will partially agree. Structure is important. Planning, or in a writer's case:notecards, storyboards, outlining, etc.

But I imagine hip-hop originated with a litte improv. Another thread discussed making movies as good as the original books, and I think I'll stretch this thought along this line. Studios, like publishers, are in the business to make money. They know through market research and ticket/book sales what people want. You see it all the time in both the movie business and publishing.

While I somewhat agree with seeing what I'll call more consistency within a controlled, practiced, planned environment, I still think the idea of improvisation (even in writing) can lead to a new outlet of creativity, and possible a whole new idea/genre.

I think I tend to put writing more in the class of sculpture, or even architecture, then music, dance or comedy.

I tip my hat to those actors who can walk into a room, be given just the characters' names and the situation, and then act out an entertaining scene right from the get-go. Likewise for any writer who can write a novel or short story with just the premise to start. Sadly, I'm not nearly talented to do either.

I think if you start solely with your premise and start writing without any outline, without knowing the ending, without really knowing any of the characters, you will definitely free-form, but unless you're a seasoned writer, or a bloody genius (for which I will resent you), you will probably end up with a descent story with lots of holes needing lots of revision at best; or a nonsensical mess at worst.

If however, you have all that "pre-writing" done and you start about the actual manuscript, only you don't follow your blueprint at all, I believe you are improvising. But it's a bit more controlled improvisation than in the first example, and I'd like to think--though I could be very wrong--that you'd have a better chance at creating something worth keeping or something that really works with this form of improv.

I think it's a pretty close comparison to actors rehearsing a scene for a movie, and on Take-8, they throw the script aside and improvise their own lines. If you watch "Inside the Actor's Studio" on Bravo, you'll find a lot of actors who enjoy improvving like this, but more often than not, that first improvved moment might not be the one they go with. It might be the fifth time they improv, or, they may go with the actual script lines because the improv didn't work. Or they'll edit together bits of the improv and bits of the script's lines.

To me, that's akin to our revision in manuscripts. You write the lines you feel get you through your preconceived outline, and you write those lines that burst into your head out of nowhere, that had no right being in your story initially. Then you pick and choose what works.

Amiton said:

the way improvisation flows from other creative artists?

Did that make any sense at all?

Amiton.

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Also, many artists in music and acting may prefer improvisation, but it doesn't mean their first cracks at it are any good. Once actors improvise a scene, they may use that as their blueprint instead of a script; likewise once a musician improvises a verse or melody he may use that as his starting point, and go from there. Or they will start over with something else. I have no surveys or data to back this up, but I'm willing to bet that most artists who improvise do not get what they want on the first couple tries. I'm willing to bet that even with improv they revise as much as a writer does.

As for your dialogue comparison, I think it's valid. Most of us, I think, might know the story ahead of time but not the dialogue, not all of it, so we improvise that part--and yes, how fun it is. But most of it will also be revised or tweaked in some way by the time you finish.

signed--

former college actor who hated acting, rescent musician tackling production. Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment.

oops... double-post

There is an equivalent of sorts in writing, and it's closely related to the surrealist movement. I think they called it "automatic writing" or something similar, but I don't like that term because then it conjures up images of bogus new age channelers and whatnot.

I'm trying to think of examples, but they seem to have slipped my mind at the moment.

Who was it who said of Kerouac's free, improvisational style "That's not writing, it's typing"? I'm thinking Hemingway, but I could be wrong...

Creatively, music has always been my first love

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So jealous. I swear, I would trade any and all writing ability for musical talent. In a nanosecond.

How sad it is to be an aspiring singer at whose vocal stylings even one's own small children cringe...

RedMolly said:

Who was it who said of Kerouac's free, improvisational style "That's not writing, it's typing"? I'm thinking Hemingway, but I could be wrong...

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Truman Capote.

Thanks, Sass. That's definitely more of a Capotesque snark, isn't it?

Well, I haven't had a chance to go through this entire thread, so I may way off. But I think a lot of my writing is improv, mainly because I have a general idea, and then just go with it. I put some music on, close my eyes, and type describing the picture playing in my head on whatever scene I'm creating. Is that improv? I don't know. I have a begining, and an ending, and the middle just creates itself.

Trying to understand the original post ( and really not getting jazz at all,I think the closest to improv as I see it, is flashing off a trigger in a set time.

I do this on another site. Trigger goes up. You log in and must return the piece within a set time. Ater doing this a few times and having the crap kicked out of your story, you learn to "flash" and structure at the same time. Generates heaps of story ideas and has the added thrill of being very exciting.
Is that improv? Don't know. Story is not complete of course. It has to be gone back to, but the first one is a major buzz.

RedMolly said:

So jealous. I swear, I would trade any and all writing ability for musical talent. In a nanosecond.

How sad it is to be an aspiring singer at whose vocal stylings even one's own small children cringe...

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It's not that great. I've been "shredding" for many more years than I've been writing. It relies too much on other people, and finding the right people to play with can be excruciating. I finally gave up on the band thing and started writing, because my writing is less prone to suffer from external circumstances. It depends on nobody but me. Very few musicians can say that, I think.

We have improv, call it chat rooms.