• Classical Improvisation as a life art.....

    From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to William Harris on Sat Jul 31 22:29:17 2021
    On Sunday, May 7, 2006 at 12:43:01 AM UTC-7, William Harris wrote:
    Improvisation is becoming a core concept now in dance, in film since
    Altman, in drama experimentally, and it was always central to the art
    of painting. In fact it can hardly be separated from art and the
    creative impulse. Every composer from Ockgehem to modern times was able
    to play one or more instruments well enough to test out new ideas in a continuous flow of musical thought. This was always the musician's
    personal way of thinking about music, not unlike talking or thinking
    words to yourself. The flow of ideas is natural to our nature, most of
    us do it fluently with words in conversation as a matter of course.
    Piano study since the early l9th century was a largely un-musical
    system, since it started with learning to play scales and figures
    two-handed as exercises for the hand muscles, while directing the
    student's eyes to the score on the stand which told which keys to press
    in what order and time sequence. Learning to "play the piano" was
    learning to read notes on a page of standard score, the "music" being
    someone else's music which you were going to learn to play. There was
    little real Play in all this, a lot of rigidity in getting the right
    note while counting out one-and-two-and...... No wonder most kids hated lessons and few continued past a few years when parents gave up.
    Learning to reproduce on the piano a few pieces written a century ago
    and do it badly, is not fun, it is not "play" and it is in the end not
    music.
    On the other hand those of us who stayed with it even unwillingly, did
    learn a lot of technique, both reading score, using the hands in some
    pretty complicated ways, and if we listened carefully, we heard some
    real musical ideas within the weekly lessons. For that we can be glad, because we can now years later come back to the piano and start to
    learn to make our own music, which means Improvising. Without those
    hard years of hand training you cannot do this; these may be rusty
    tools but they are usable.
    I have been sincerely into improvising my own music on the piano for
    years, and have several essays on various aspects of improvisation and related problems on my website <http://www.middlebury.edu/~harris/music.html>, along with recent improv-compositions which you can hear on the internet. In my piano
    pieces I have atonal passages but I use harmonics as well, and I have
    no hesitation in adapting a figure or a feeling from a
    master-improviser like J.S.Bach. I avoid the idea of "playing in the
    style of..." which is good for parlor tricks, but not personal enough
    for a musical ear. I work cold right-off at the piano without
    preconceptions but find that my mind has a lot of inner-order which
    comes out as developments and contrasts in each five minute piece. Organization should come from the mind, not from a schematic layout.
    I recently put a long article on this website <http://middlebury.edu/~harris/MusicPapers/baroque.html> which is a
    loosely constructed course as an "Introduction to Baroque Improv. " It
    is not a series of "lessons and exercises" which I don't believe it,
    but a discussion of how to go about it on your own, in an experimental
    way. Give this a try as a starter, see what you can do when you get
    free of directions, orders, corrections and sticking to the notes on
    the score. Improvising at the piano is no different and no more
    threatening than talking out some ideas, or humming a made-up tune or whistling while out on a walk.
    Best wishes,
    Bill Harris
    har...@middlebury.edu

    (Recent Y. Upload):

    Why is Improvisation SO DIFFICULT for Classical Musicians?

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  • From Peter T. Daniels@21:1/5 to gggg gggg on Sun Aug 1 05:29:25 2021
    On Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 1:29:18 AM UTC-4, gggg gggg wrote:

    Why is Improvisation SO DIFFICULT for Classical Musicians?

    ?? Where did you get the idea that it is?

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  • From gggg gggg@21:1/5 to William Harris on Sat Sep 3 18:20:03 2022
    On Sunday, May 7, 2006 at 12:43:01 AM UTC-7, William Harris wrote:
    Improvisation is becoming a core concept now in dance, in film since
    Altman, in drama experimentally, and it was always central to the art
    of painting. In fact it can hardly be separated from art and the
    creative impulse. Every composer from Ockgehem to modern times was able
    to play one or more instruments well enough to test out new ideas in a continuous flow of musical thought. This was always the musician's
    personal way of thinking about music, not unlike talking or thinking
    words to yourself. The flow of ideas is natural to our nature, most of
    us do it fluently with words in conversation as a matter of course.
    Piano study since the early l9th century was a largely un-musical
    system, since it started with learning to play scales and figures
    two-handed as exercises for the hand muscles, while directing the
    student's eyes to the score on the stand which told which keys to press
    in what order and time sequence. Learning to "play the piano" was
    learning to read notes on a page of standard score, the "music" being
    someone else's music which you were going to learn to play. There was
    little real Play in all this, a lot of rigidity in getting the right
    note while counting out one-and-two-and...... No wonder most kids hated lessons and few continued past a few years when parents gave up.
    Learning to reproduce on the piano a few pieces written a century ago
    and do it badly, is not fun, it is not "play" and it is in the end not
    music.
    On the other hand those of us who stayed with it even unwillingly, did
    learn a lot of technique, both reading score, using the hands in some
    pretty complicated ways, and if we listened carefully, we heard some
    real musical ideas within the weekly lessons. For that we can be glad, because we can now years later come back to the piano and start to
    learn to make our own music, which means Improvising. Without those
    hard years of hand training you cannot do this; these may be rusty
    tools but they are usable.
    I have been sincerely into improvising my own music on the piano for
    years, and have several essays on various aspects of improvisation and related problems on my website <http://www.middlebury.edu/~harris/music.html>, along with recent improv-compositions which you can hear on the internet. In my piano
    pieces I have atonal passages but I use harmonics as well, and I have
    no hesitation in adapting a figure or a feeling from a
    master-improviser like J.S.Bach. I avoid the idea of "playing in the
    style of..." which is good for parlor tricks, but not personal enough
    for a musical ear. I work cold right-off at the piano without
    preconceptions but find that my mind has a lot of inner-order which
    comes out as developments and contrasts in each five minute piece. Organization should come from the mind, not from a schematic layout.
    I recently put a long article on this website <http://middlebury.edu/~harris/MusicPapers/baroque.html> which is a
    loosely constructed course as an "Introduction to Baroque Improv. " It
    is not a series of "lessons and exercises" which I don't believe it,
    but a discussion of how to go about it on your own, in an experimental
    way. Give this a try as a starter, see what you can do when you get
    free of directions, orders, corrections and sticking to the notes on
    the score. Improvising at the piano is no different and no more
    threatening than talking out some ideas, or humming a made-up tune or whistling while out on a walk.
    Best wishes,
    Bill Harris
    har...@middlebury.edu

    According to this:

    - There was a spirit of improvisation, a horror of sameness. Baroque composers pushed to the limit the idea of spontaneity.

    https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/rec.music.classical.recordings/c/mHB8w2HE6mw/m/7iCQnLn_oMQJ

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