Improvisation Technique Quotes

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.

Sometimes I just hit the keyboard in a way I'd like the rhythm of the tracks to sound.

I start from one point and go as far as possible. But, unfortunately, I never lose my way. I 'localize,' which is to say that I think always in a given space. I rarely think of the whole of a solo, and only very briefly. I always return to the small part of the solo that I was in the process of playing.

My solos are more tastefully conceived now. But I still get going in places. It's just that I build up to it now. I don't race off on a solo. I take my time.

Well, I tell you... the first chorus, I plays the melody. The second chorus, I plays the melody round the melody, and the third chorus, I routines.

I watch a lot of different films. A lot of different performances and I find a lot of little things from the films or things that actors do or people in real life who have behaviors or idiosyncrasies that I like or find interesting and I try to remember that. And then I'll do a prayer. I'll do a prayer to ask the character or the spirit of the character to come and visit me. And let's work together.

If you just want to be a writer, I don't care, for pitching, for writing dialogue, you should take an improvisation class. It's super important.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

I've always done a bass and drum solo that lasts about 10 minutes. The main thing is to use it only when you need to.

I've always done theater. I've never thought of myself as a comedic actress in any way. 'Anchorman' kind of cracked that open. When I got a small part in 'Anchorman,' I didn't know it was possible on camera to improvise. So I was like, 'What's happening?'

Playing pentatonic scales over orchestral music is not something I want to do or listen to.

I came up with a 'forecasting cell,' which is basically a mixed intention cell or chord that is a complete hybrid of a consonance and a dissonance, and what that does when you are improvising is lead you to where you are supposed to go.

Somebody, my daughter or my wife, gave me a music box for Christmas. It plays "My Funny Valentine" on celeste, you know? So I had Bobby [Irving] just play "Jean Pierre" with the changes on celeste.

Every day, you have to make three hours of music, just randomly improvising, and that's a great way to weed stuff out.

I have this habit of asking 'why do you want to do it?' and then interrupting them to say, 'here's why you want to do it.' Because it's in the 'yes...and' spirit [rule of improvisation].

The improv technique does one of two things. It either makes you raise your game, or retreat into a corner and decide to find a new career. But you do feel like you want to match and develop things.

If they think they are doing something new, they ought to do what I do every day - spend at least two hours every day listening to Johann Sebastian Bach and, man, it's all there. If they want to improvise around a theme,which is the essence of jazz, they should learn from the master. He never wastes a note, and he knows where every note is going and when to bring it back. Some of these cats go way out and forget where they began or what they started to do. Bach will clear it up for them.

I kept on buying records and listening to them. Finally, I was able to hear the relationship between the jazz improvisers' solos and the underlying structure that it's based on, the chord progression. That was pretty easy to do in the swing era, y'know, when jazz was, like, pop music, you know. It had made the charts and everything like that.

As the chord changes go by, I don't so much think about a static chord voicing changing. I just see the notes on the neck change.

I think improvisation is a technique and a tool. I think that even the best of them fail most of the time, and in the end, the audience is not interested in how you got there but in what you're saying. The more clearly and concisely and artistically you say it, the more effective it is.

I can play songs that I hear from a movie and just play it a few times on the keyboard. I will hit all the notes on the keyboard until I find the right key, and then I will play the rest of the song.