Improvisation Quotes

There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book. (Carson McCullers)
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. View quote
Chuck Mangione
Improvisation is a compositional method. View quote
Evan Parker
Certain kinds of speed, flow, intensity, density of attacks, density of interaction... Music that concentrates on those qualities is, I think, easier achieved by free improvisation between people sharing a common attitude, a common language. View quote
Evan Parker
The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts. View quote
Ken Burns
The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consonant and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese. View quote
Frank Zappa
Legislation is a matter of more or less intelligent improvisation aiming at palliating conditions by means of patchwork policies. View quote
John Dewey
Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way. View quote
Paul Theroux
Acting is really scary, but it's also challenging, fun, hard work. There's always an element of improvisation with every actor, even when something is really scripted. View quote
Michael Pitt
As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality. View quote
Mose Allison
I allow a lot of room for improvisation and funny stuff. I always feel planned. (Michael Bay)
Much of what happens in Love Always is really from overheard conversations in the Russian Tea Room. It's an improvisation of the way certain Hollywood agents think and talk to each other. View quote
Ann Beattie
If anybody is a master at improvisation, it would be Ken Jeong. He is hilarious. View quote
Anneliese van der Pol
There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation. View quote
David Antin
When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It's an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It's a unit. View quote
Eberhard Weber
Perfect retention. I dont think I could do that-Ive never disciplined myself to do it.I suppose a lot of it is a question of discipline. Which improvisation is not. View quote
George Shearing
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, but that's what we face when we're dealing with improvisation. View quote
Jan Garbarek
Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance. View quote
John Zorn
Improvisation is terribly haphazard. View quote
Leo Ornstein
In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material. View quote
Mike Figgis
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. (Miroslav Vitous)
I love improvisation. View quote
Nora Dunn
I never know what it's going to look like. Wouldn't be much point in painting if I already knew the outcome. I have a subject in front of me and I start flooding colour and making marks, I don't know, it's improvisation isn't it? View quote
Peter Wright
I like films that are well-written and concise and with not a lot of room for improvisation. View quote
Patrice Leconte
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. View quote
Paul Merton