Yes, and

Improvising to learn / Learning to improvise (chapter one)

The Frame of an Inquiry

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to explore improvisation, as experienced by myself and others, in its relation to learning. The approach was to look at improvisation in a range of settings in order to discover patterns and common approaches as well as unique manifestations. Attentive to the significance of both its unplanned outcomes and its facilitation of attaining specified objectives, I sought to describe what I have experienced and come to understand as a spirit of improvisation, encompassing its use as a creative last resort and a process with equal validity as a first resort. The process was a heuristic inquiry incorporating phenomenological interviews, recordings of my own musical improvisations and keeping a journal. The study illuminated the fact that inclusivity and continuity are guiding principles in improvisation. It contributes to a discourse which valorizes the improvising process in a range of places, including our hearts, our interpersonal transactions, our approaches to lifestyles and —where the seeds of change are nurtured— our classrooms. Improvisation invites allusion and metaphor, which embrace a life-affirming spiritual dimension. Not only is it a lifelong learning, but also it is lifewide.

Introduction
In all of my interactions with folks, whenever the word improvisation has come up, no one seems to ask what improvisation means. It is a concept with which everyone seems familiar, at least in his or her own frame of reference. The more it is discussed, though, the more carefully the term is drawn. And the more finely it is delineated, the more it can be distinguished from other areas in the field of creativity. It becomes distinct even from the closely related concept of spontaneity.

My particular experience researching improvisation was difficult because discussing improvisation can easily feel like a dissection of a living form. In the process the form dissolves, or I feel as if I am dissolute in claiming to speak of the integral form. The entire project was perhaps a personal dare. While I never felt uninformed about the phenomenon, I also felt that I could learn more. But, from the beginning, I have seriously questioned whether what I already knew or could yet learn had validity in an academic context, or in precise, written language. And one aspect of the challenge, after all my inquiring, was whether I would have the courage, if necessary, to say that I had nothing to say on the subject that was meaningful to me.

Also, from the beginning, I thought there could be something that I considered relevant that could and should be said. There was the possibility that not talking on this subject, or feeling that I could not talk on it, was an attitude rooted in an internal split. My explicit motivation was a belief that an exploration of improvisation could reveal a process which, rather than being irrational or non-rational, involves a sublime level of mental activity that is integral to the most meaningful ways in which we grasp and learn our world. I proceeded in the project with a slight fear coexisting with a small hope. The fear was that this process could somehow distort my path as an improvisor, by tending to instill a too-conscious approach. My hope was that, by being willing to face improvisation with a more conscious perspective, there might turn out to be a greater awareness of the principles that I could bring to it, which in fact would be a resource.

Simply put, I wanted to honor improvisation. Ever since I experienced its inspiration, I have wanted to give voice to the people and the force from which it arises. In this particular project, I sought to become more deeply in touch with how I understand its manifestation in myself and in my life. Starting with a sense of improvisation as a process through which I have learned about music, myself and the world, I explored the relation of learning to improvisation. Looking beyond improvisation as “making something up,” I wanted to see what there is in the process that makes me feel more alive and in touch with the world.

In a multicultural society, individuals arrive with different scripts and must improvise their integration. The stakes vary from play to survival. —Mary Catherine Bateson

Improvisation as a mode of learning has an important role to play in this society. It is an invitation to play: inside new rules or outside old ones; with a script or without one; off the beat or on it. It is an invitation to work: on revealing connections, on discovering patterns, on uncovering feelings. And, underneath it all, improvisation addresses what has been called “the ethical demand to imagine otherwise” (Kearney, 1988, p. 364).

We see actors and musicians on stage often improvising. It may look exciting, hard to do and not for everybody, but lots of other people improvise often, too. Teachers improvise in front of their classes. Chess players improvise. And it is also a way many of us deal with the irrationality, unpredictability and injustice of the society. But, since artistic performance is generally more exciting in itself, improvisation in that context stands out and tends to overshadow other realms. The skill, amount or degree of improvisation, nevertheless, can be as great or greater in instances and activities we do not usually think about as improvisatory and which are not normally spectator events. The capacity to improvise is universal, as is the necessity for it.

Prevailing Attitudes
Defined in any one of a series of catchphrases ranging from ‘making it up as he goes along’ to ‘instant composition,’ improvisation is generally viewed as a musical conjuring trick, a doubtful expedient, or even a vulgar habit. (Bailey, 1992, p. ix)

Although we often marvel at others improvising, many of us do not take our own abilities to heart often enough. One reason for that, I think, is that we feel as if we do not know what we are doing when we improvise, a sense of confusion combined with a negative attitude towards “not knowing.” That is, not only can it be hard to act without guidelines, but it is often even harder to see ourselves, or have others see us, as not in control. Ultimately, it seems hard to honor something (sometimes especially in ourselves) that we can not talk about clearly.

What does it mean to talk about improvising? Is there any way it makes sense to say that a jazz musician and a chess player, for instance, both need to improvise? Is there any reason not to improvise while delivering a sermon? Is there more going on beyond dealing with an immediate situation at hand, or any way in which improvising now is a benefit later?

Improvisation as a mode of learning is a process in which the improvisor fully accepts and acts on the reality of his or her own ability to define a given situation in his or her own terms. Hodgson and Richards look at improvisation as both an “opportunity for discovery” and as “drawing upon our imagination in order to try and achieve an objective we have set for ourselves” (Hodgson and Richards, 1974, p. 1). It is “the spontaneous response to the unfolding of an unexpected situation,” and it is a process by which we “draw on our own resources, to think out basic principles” (p. 2). This can come about, in music for instance, when the player realizes that she is in fact the one designated to fill in the blanks, the silent or open movement of a piece, or when one chooses to suggest independently a new line of musical development. In a game of strategy, the opportunity for improvisation may arise when a standard sequence or typical structure of play has been disrupted; or one may even choose to interrupt a traditional line of play. In an educational context, improvisation often is called for when, while the subject matter and the desire to grasp that subject matter have become explicit and ability is evident, learning still is not taking place.

I start with this definition for improvisation: the carrying out of a self-generated plan in the absence of, or in lieu of, a designated course of action. To that I add this trait of an improvisor: an active willingness to discover spontaneously and act on a range of choices, within a given context or overlapping contexts. Improvisation is a subset of creativity. While creativity encompasses action in a range of time periods, from the instantaneous to compositions which are worked on over years, improvisation is about the moment.

Having a plan is distinct from having a goal, in the sense of a destination: Improvising can proceed with or without a specific result in mind. However, in all cases, it proceeds without knowing the route, often even through preferring not to know. The assumptions are that the guiding signs or supportive structure, pattern, to a particular improvisatory action will be revealed. Or, if not, engaging in improvisation—inquiry through action—has its own benefits as a practice of and commitment to the capacity for greater openness, flexibility and understanding.

Improvisation fulfills a practical need to be open to a range of choices. In many situations in which there are a great many possible solutions to a problem, a great many of which have equal validity, some solutions are also solutions for multiple problems. The idea of a unique problem corresponding to a unique solution is too limiting in many contexts. The willingness to accept a multiplicity of problem/solution relationships is, I believe, an important component of higher level problem-solving; this is the spirit of improvisation. The process of embodying such willingness is what I understand to be improvisation itself. An active willingness to discover spontaneously is an attitude or a state of mind that can not be defined, only explored, and that exploration has been a large component of my study.

However, the appreciation of improvisation and its definition(s) are more limited in common discourse. There is a lack of recognition of a possible state of mind which might be conducive to improvisation or which might purposely invite it as an approach. For instance, in Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary (1983), to improvise means, in an artistic or creative context, to act “on the spur of the moment and without any preparation,” or, in general, to act with the “materials at hand, usually to fill an unforeseen and immediate need; as, he improvised a bed out of leaves.” Those bland definitions of the phenomenon contrast interestingly with the following. First, the idea of improvisation as essentially limited to response is called into question by one writer’s observation from his experience: “The heart of improvisation is the free play of consciousness as it draws, writes, paints, and plays the raw material emerging from the unconscious” (Nachmanovitch, 1990, p. 9). Also, Paul Berliner addresses the idea of “without any preparation” in Thinking in Jazz: “There is, in fact, a lifetime of preparation and knowledge behind every idea that an improvisor performs. …[T]his preparation begins long before prospective performers seize upon music as the central focus of their lives” (Berliner, 1994, p. 17, my emphasis). The clear implications are of an amplifying resonance with the process—preparation in a broad sense, prior to opportunities for engaging in improvisation—and that the process need not be thought of as pertaining to only one discipline.

A person’s attitude towards improvisation is an epistemological issue. It is a question of how one can know, which ultimately relates to what one thinks can be known or what one thinks is important to know. Apparently, it is difficult for some people—more so within North American society, less so in other cultures—to believe that things can be learned by “fooling around.” There seems a tendency to believe that the only things we can learn about are the things that we know we are looking for and which we have set about to ascertain in an orderly manner.

Also, a person’s attitude reflects a social context. One’s epistemology is influenced and shaped by the society in which one lives. Improvisation tends not to be valued within North American society as a whole because of the cultural tradition of the dominating class. The process of devaluation is more indirect than direct. Only a few seem to be active denigrators of improvisation, but when criteria antithetical or nonessential to improvisation are held in higher esteem, the effect is definite. The emphasis on the written word—in documents, in musical scores, in concrete—creates the expectation that what is transmitted orally is of tenuous worth. Therefore, context and voice, criteria very much integral to improvisation, are diminished.

Ultimately, an improvisation is not falsifiable; it is a qualitative finding that can only be verified in the heart of a given improvisor who had access to the data source at a given moment. The choices that are made can not be written in stone, and the context that evoked the choices can never be exactly duplicated. Then, in turn, those who are not committed to the level of certainty on which precision, and ultimately product creation, depends are deemed immaterial to the greater agenda of a materialist society.

Those who follow a path in the spirit of improvisation are, like jazz musicians, relegated to darker exposure. Even many of us who seem to find joy in musical improvisation, jazz in particular, follow a script which disregards and restricts the spirit of the improvisors themselves. Without being aware probably, Sloboda (1985) glibly perpetuates a stereotype that musicians themselves find their best setting removed from center stage: “For real improvisatory jazz at its best one may have to seek out the late-night backroom informal sessions…” (p. 149). The implication is that improvising is a process that can not stand the light.

Background
My relation to the subject of improvisation is based on over 25 years as a performing musician; teaching experiences with individuals and classes in academic subjects, poetry and music; and being a go player, as well as a former tournament chess player. All three areas have included a high level of improvisation. It has been a key component for performing in and participating in these disciplines more effectively.

As a musician I have played in the jazz idiom, towards the part of its spectrum often referred to as “avant-garde” or “free,” in which the structures of individual compositions and performances have been anywhere from largely to completely improvised. Similarly to the music, the performing units have followed no prescribed format: solo, duet, trio etc.; without drums, without bass, all horns etc.; with Asian percussion, Latin percussion, African percussion etc. And, similarly to the performing units, the performing situations have varied: festivals, concert halls, clubs, libraries, schools, rallies, street corners. I have played with a variety of musicians in a variety of locales creating music spontaneously, improvising, to a variety of audiences in a variety of linguistic and cognitive frames of reference.

As a teacher I have taught math and other subjects in a variety of situations: private lessons, GED programs both for adults and at-risk youth, and as adjunct faculty in graduate and undergraduate schools. I have also been a poetry teacher, mostly sponsored by the California Poets in the Schools (CPITS), from elementary to high school to juvenile hall.

I play chess and go. These are games of strategy, where one might assume that the best strategy is to leave nothing to chance. Yet, I am drawn to both of these games for the creative opportunities that they present, as much for the surprises in both intuitive and counter-intuitive analyses combined with the requirement for lucid reasoning.

Also, I have been presented with many situations in my life for which there were no scripts that I had heard of, or the only scripts being suggested were unacceptable. Becoming aware that I had improvised and that there was a methodology of some sort in that process has been an evolving process for me. The awareness that improvisation has very often been a successful option, as well as the most positive or uplifting one to others involved in the same situations, has been significant in my life. For many, it might suffice to say that I am an African American having lived over a half a century in the United States.

Starting Points
My belief in improvisation as a worthwhile subject of study comes from the transformative effect that improvisation has had in my life, as a performer and active participant, and as audience and active listener. In listening to musicians improvise I feel that I have heard and learned things that could not be communicated in any other way or moment. By improvising, musically and socially, I have learned things about myself, and ultimately about how I learn, for which there could never be a verbal text. And, performing with other improvisors, I have come to experience that the better players do not begin their improvisation on the stage, but rather it flows from how they live.

My lived experience as well as my analysis, of my own and others’ conditioning in our socio-historical context, resonates with how Jones (1986) is paraphrased by Pierce. Jones introduced improvisation as “a concept for understanding behavior among African Americans, defining it as ‘achievement behavior’ created under stressful circumstances. He suggested that improvisation is a cognitive process with expressive, goal-directed, and problem-solving aspects. Jones further suggested that improvisation is a preferred and often necessary style of behavior for African Americans resulting from society’s legacy of racism” (Pierce, 1995, p. 445).

Being an African American means historically having been offered scripts which were unfit for human consumption (“Say, ‘Yes, sir,’ boy, and mean it!”) and full of self-refuting subtexts impossible to deliver with sincerity (“…indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”). In such a situation, an improvisational consciousness allows one to make meaning for oneself with the script as gesture rather than as text, a throughline connected to a struggle for a sense of autonomy. And at the same time as the process serves for physical survival, it nurtures a perspective from which one becomes empowered to review all texts from the standpoint of distinguishing between the perceived and the real actor. An acceptance of the arbitrariness, or constructedness, of reality is a prerequisite for an improvisor.

While this society has devalued improvisation, many of us who are also devalued within the society have incorporated improvisation to survive while moving beyond mere survival. The very fact that we and one of our “preferred and often necessary style[s] of behavior” are treated as other motivates me further to support a rightful heritage and practice, which is both practical and spiritual. While improvisation has a direct and clear importance and benefit as a response to racism, it has a cultural value that emerges in many contexts among African Americans. African American artistry and culture are traditionally a holistic experience, serving the mind, body and heart. Improvisation is a process that embodies that perspective. And, while I speak from my experience as an African American, I am aware that there are diverse cultures throughout the world who embrace improvisation more enthusiastically than the dominating European American culture in North America.

Orientation
I approached my inquiry process with the understanding that there are different contexts in my life in which I am most liable to be aware of whether or not I am improvising or have improvised. Aside from those, there are times, ways and means to invite or disinvite improvisation that I believed were yet to enter my consciousness. At the same time I wanted to be fully open (without anticipation) to unanticipated learning, I wanted to nurture the further unfolding of what I have already seen in improvisation—I have wanted to know it more deeply.

There are at least two aspects of limitations that I must refer to in this type of inquiry process. One aspect concerns the very vocabulary that can be used to express the ideas on this subject. For instance, some of the concepts and language that musicians may use to express their sense of improvisation may or may not help elucidate the phenomenon for someone steeped chiefly in an educational jargon. In terms of learning itself, it may or may not be understood unless it is somatic or holistic. The difference in terminologies may tend to obscure some of the overlap that exists in the understandings of people who look at improvisation through different social or technical lenses.

I also refer to Bailey’s (1992, p. ix) statement reflecting the idea that there is something in the nature of “voluntary” improvisation which seems too elusive for, even antithetical to, documentation or an academic context. If I had completely accepted that perspective, entering into this research would have seemed to be somewhat suicidal. So, while I believed Bailey’s comments are very much to the point, I was ambitious enough to take on the challenge of documenting my explorations while still capturing the spirit. The most severe limitation in this context has not been my ability to say something meaningful on the subject, but to say it meaningfully. In other words, the adventure has been to modify the verb, not just the noun. And, in the process, the danger of losing my way in this balancing act has felt threatening to my own sense of self as a performing artist. It is a balancing act because, while I may choose writing as the main method of documenting this study, I in no way intend to privilege the written word as the ultimate arbiter of improvisation’s nature or validity. I prefer to approach the word as simply another means of conveying the shared meaning, but I recognize that the authority the written language holds is so great that often we look for truth in the words rather than looking for the words to point towards the truth. I imagine that only superficial insights at best will be manifest on the subject of improvisation if I am not able to create the sense, or the reader unable to accept, that the written word is describing a process, not defining a structure.

Improvisation as a Mode of Learning
Improvisation as a mode of learning is a paradox; as a process, it is an invitation to know without the known as absolute. In the process, the improvisor wants knowing here and now; in this context the known is past, the present is knowing. The known is the ground, the knowing is figure. Yet, as the happening becomes the just happened, the present instantaneously becomes its own ground, and the new figure emerges; it is a continuous process, the verb that will not become a noun. Improvisation is infinite and has no fixed boundaries, because knowing never becomes known; improvising valorizes the ever-changing nature of truth rather than its fixed nature. As a result, one sets the limits for it only arbitrarily, if and when one chooses to move from knowing to becoming a knower. One sets the limits for it at one’s own risk or safety, when one chooses to define the boundaries of knowledge and to privilege the delimited.

If the process of improvising is, as I believe, a learning, it could be considered a subject-less learning and as such would be what I call metalearning, or a process for learning how to learn.

Learning can sometimes be understood from the perspective of teaching; that is, how one learns depends on what or how one is taught. Quite possibly though, the conceivable role of improvisation in learning runs counter to traditional education, which at its extreme has been characterized as “banking.” In the “banking” mode the teacher’s role is “to ‘fill’ the students by making deposits of information which the teacher considers to constitute true knowledge” (Freire, p. 63, 1971); “students are not called upon to know, but to memorize the contents narrated by the teacher” (p. 68). What knowledge exists is considered quantitative, amassable, the property of the teacher and distinct from process. Towards the other end of the spectrum there is a partnership between teacher and student and an attitude that learning comes out of interaction. “Problem-posing education affirms men as beings in the process of becoming—as unfinished, uncompleted beings” (p. 72). This is a more active and constructivist perspective on how we learn, how we come to know. And this is an approach that is more resonant with improvisation, in which the process is not subordinate to product.

The realm of improvisation centers on unanticipated learning. Without an attitude of welcoming the unanticipated, I am not improvising. At the moment I strive for a particular outcome, even while I may consider that I am improvising, I have injected insincerity into the process and have attempted to frame my knowing as a knower. The improvisation is negated. The insincerity is best understood as a false openness towards inquiry; when I am not truly open, I hold onto my previous frame of understanding. “Only when your actions seem without consequence can you realize what it is you actually know” (Rothenberg, 1996). In this sense “knowing” is a process of “unfolding.” If I focus to narrowly on a particular endpoint, I restrict myself from a fuller potential unfolding.

Without a commitment to the spirit of improvisation there is no improvisation in the sense which I understand it at this point. One can improvise, or one can not improvise. When one is not improvising, one has made a conscious or unconscious choice not to entertain, welcome, or even invite in perspectives that one considers new or different.

Improvisation in all its manifestations and idioms is inquiry; even so-called fooling around can generate discovery. And the exploration inherent in the inquiry is intimately connected to self-exploration. At the very least, self-knowing (as in a self-learning) emerges in one’s choice of a specific moment in time to fool around; there is in that choice an opportunity for a deeper understanding of one’s own context. How, when and why we choose to hold our opinions in abeyance, or to allow ourselves not to feel restricted to acting exclusively on what we “know,” are options affected by who we understand ourselves to be and by what we feel we must do or be in a specific context to maintain our identity. I think it is important to recognize that to declare improvisation out of bounds is not merely to exclude an act: Defining a task so specifically as to render improvisation inappropriate ultimately defines what improvisation can not mean in a given context, and, therefore which meaning in itself is not allowed.

Improvisation as a paradigm is an invitational process towards expansion. The improvisor embraces the unforeseen. Because it is not a rigid approach, it allows those improvising to conceptualize a given situation, problem or context, in a frame with enough breadth and flexibility for reframing possibilities: in other words, to propose an orientation while being inclusive. Improvisation is a methodology, and, at its root, to improvise is to inquire. What we set out to learn and how we go about that learning are connected. Often, as we define (perhaps unnecessarily narrowly) a situation (problem or area of inquiry), we restrict our approaches to developing an understanding of that situation only. In contrast, by committing ourselves to the broadest possible set of answers, improvisation becomes a desirable approach to a given situation. By envisioning “problems” as opportunities or even adventures, which I consider to be an improvisational perspective, it is possible to realize outcomes beyond mere “answers.” Improvisation is an approach that accepts the limits of one’s knowledge without making assumptions about exactly what and where those limits are. In the course of improvising, we need not as quickly discount ideas or directions that only seem not to fit; we allow for a greater resource pool of choices and more comprehensive pattern recognition.

Higher Level of Consciousness
In an everyday mode of consciousness, we tend to approach obstacles as they appear —that is, one by one. Under the best of circumstances we presume each obstacle will be overcome, each problem solved. But often our approach is limited to only that obstacle or problem at hand. Often we neglect an invitation to uncover the underlying pattern of which a particular instance is only one manifestation. The underlying pattern may only be revealed when all the contextual factors are considered.

In developing ability in a particular problem area, intuition of the whole or “holistic similarity recognition” (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986, p. 28) is the capacity of mind which seems to represent the highest level. In Mind Over Machine, Dreyfus & Dreyfus distinguish between know-how and a capacity to know that. Although one can talk of certain principles involved in riding a bicycle one does not “really know, until it happens, just what [one] would do in response to a certain unbalanced feeling” (p. 16). They consider bike riding’s similarity to most of life’s problem areas (from carrying on conversations in a wide variety of contexts to walking on unfamiliar terrain), in that it is essentially unstructured, and it cannot be reduced to “knowing that.” Acquiring a skill proceeds through stages, the earlier stages involving conscious abstract rules and the later involving intuition. In the beginning there is the analytic behavior of a detached subject, calculative rationality, and later there is an involvement, an engaged participation, which is not irrational but “arational”—“experts act arationally.” “The word rational…has come to be equivalent to calculative thought and so carries with it the connotation of ‘combining parts to obtain a whole’; arational behavior, then, refers to action without conscious analytic decomposition and recombination” (p. 36). Although we generally regard the irrational as contrary to logic or reason and to be avoided, it does not follow that the rational subsumes all intelligence or the highest activity of the mind. Embracing the arational as part of our consciousness is part of the process of expanding our consciousness. Improvisation is indeed arational behavior.

Another aspect in approaching a problem situation is that what we perceive as an obstacle and why we perceive it as such are questions not necessarily consciously addressed together, but both are components of the context. However, when I consider myself to be task-oriented, I may think it is counterproductive to examine or question the significance of the task itself. There is a polarity between what is perceived as practical, what and how, and what is perceived as theoretical or philosophical, why. The drive to be “efficient” generally invokes a rigid frame in which to conceptualize the problem/solution. Often such rigidity works against the learning in the doing of the task as well as the learning about oneself in relation to the context of the task. Improvisation is a modality that allows a more free-floating consciousness between the poles of the practical and the theoretical.

I feel that the better solution in a “problem,” or better choice in a “situation,” is the one which resolves the apparent conflict of possibilities while at the same time illuminating patterns and revealing greater levels of organization or complexity which can be responded to in similar ways. I think that what I am describing as the better solution relates to what Frank Barron, reviewing the characteristics of creativity (1995), terms elegance. He sees “growth as marked by increasing and often unpredictable differentiation. Simplicity leads to complexity before a new and more elegant simplicity can be achieved” (p. 314). Improvisation involves a synergy between simplicity and complexity. It is a mode in which better solutions are possible because multiple solutions are welcome, among which are solutions to an even greater multiplicity of problems.

I consider that improvisation manifests a higher “level” of consciousness, analogous to Kegan’s sense of higher “order,” not as a sequential reference but a reference to degree of encompassment. On the subject of consciousness and its development over a lifetime in In Over Our Heads, Kegan writes that “the different principles of mental organization are intimately related to each other. They are not just different ways of knowing, each with its preferred season. One does not simply replace the other, nor is the relation merely additive or cumulative, an accretion of skills. Rather, the relation is transformative, qualitative, and incorporative. Each successive principle subsumes or encompasses the prior principle. That which was subject becomes object to the next principle. The new principle is a higher order principle (more complex, more inclusive) that makes the prior principle into an element or tool of its system” (Kegan, p. 33, 1994).

An Improvisor is not without Honor...
As I participate in and observe human action and interaction in the world I note that improvisation is much loved while it is also denigrated. Sometimes it is loved and denigrated within the same person. Sometimes it is loved in the Self but devalued in the Other, who may be considered not to know its “appropriate” use. Also, there are those of us who try to achieve a level of preparation in which there is never a need “to make something up”—as improvisation is often dismissively considered; there are those who see it as something done only as a last resort.

Many people seem to have a tendency to hold at least one of two attitudes: either that improvisation has its place, but its place is never in the context of “serious” things; or that, in general, some people can improvise and some people can’t. My perspective, on the other hand, is that improvisation can be of service even in the most serious of human endeavors and that everyone can—and does—improvise. It is a significant human experience as an exercise, a tool, and a method of learning. Even though its intellectual aspect is not recognized, “Improvisation is a means of training people to think” (Hodgson and Richards, p. 22). I understand “training to think” as learning better how to approach problem areas, structured and unstructured, more generatively.

I feel that there are social and national issues specific to this society that have perpetuated a devaluing of improvisation. In other words, growing up in this society, the epistemology of the non-improvisors has been in the ascendance—a fundamental aspect of what some call the Western paradigm. Improvisation in its many forms, on the other hand, is a continuation of the oral tradition, the metanarrative that I believe is more universal; within diverse cultural milieux, improvisation is a tradition that is itself nurtured. In the oral tradition a story exists, is alive, in the telling, and every telling is inflected uniquely in collaboration with the teller, the listener and place—in relation. Alternately, the Western construction of order relies heavily on the composed and fixed, which are said to exist immutably and outside of human nature.

However, this society is uniquely at odds with improvisatory approaches probably specifically because the foremost model for it continues to be “jazz” and the “jazz musician” —largely the realm of African American artistry and culture. As long as Eurocentricity, in the form of white privilege and its privileged thought forms of rationality, prevails in this society, the gifts of the African sensibility will continue to be underappreciated, denigrated, and underutilized, to the detriment of all.

Also, the general attitude in this society towards improvisation is related to that towards Art. Art is often underappreciated because it, too, is considered “not serious,” meaning “not functional.” Art (the process of doing it, in contrast to its commodification) seems not to have a role in the real world; it seems to have no clear value for survival because it seems not to help solve anything. Typically, budgets to support Art will be cut before all others. It seems not to be something people need, and, therefore not something people need to learn—let alone something people need in order to learn. Improvisors are viewed like artists in general, people with a special talent that they often express in an esoteric realm.

In addition to the low esteem in which improvisation sometimes is held in academic circles, there is the low esteem in which improvisors hold academic circles. There is a sense perhaps in which the lines have been drawn too narrowly from both perspectives. This statement from an improvisor perhaps best captures the dilemma of “serious” inquiry into the area of improvisation: Improvisation is always changing and adjusting, never fixed, too elusive for analysis and precise description, essentially non-academic. And, more than that, any attempt to describe improvisation must be, in some respects, a misrepresentation, for there is something central to the spirit of voluntary improvisation which is opposed to the aims and contradicts the idea of documentation. (Bailey, 1992, p. ix)

Summary
In this chapter I have presented a preliminary definition of improvisation, what it is, and my sense of the depth of the phenomenon itself. I have also described what I see as the prevailing attitudes that tend to be dismissive: Those who improvise are a select group and/or the process itself has no relation to consciousness and learning worth appreciating. In the process of talking about this subject, my own background and relationship to the inquiry are central. I have described aspects of my own connection, which refer to why and on what basis I choose to engage this topic. I have presented my starting points, beliefs that I feel I have a right to through experience, which at the same time orient me in specific ways to the inquiry. These beliefs are developed in my initial perspectives on improvisation: as a mode of learning; as a process involving a higher level of thinking; and as a cultural expression—the appreciation, or diminution, of which is connected with much of our shared North American history.

Improvisation as a mode of learning is an invitation to know without there being the known as absolute. It is a continuous process that chooses not to define the boundaries of knowledge. It is a subjectless learning that continuously nurtures itself, a metalearning that is the process of learning how to learn.

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(excerpted interview from chapter four)

There is a phrase that Bill used a few times that connected well with me and made me smile: “when it was just straight out of heaven.” He was talking about the source the musicians he listened to had drawn from when it was not “stuff they had practiced…their showpiece.” There were times when, he said, “I could tell that was about right there, ‘cause that was inspired by the environment, what the drummer was playin or what the other guy played.” There was context for the music to come from the heart. In other words, "you couldn’t play that unless the thing got, the environment produced that, ‘cause that wouldn’t work, you couldn’t pull it up. It was like you had to get to a certain level of tension and heat in the performance before it started to generate this total spontaneity."

I explored the difference between improvisation and spontaneity with him. Did he think there was a distinction?

Bill: "No, I don’t actually. Even though there are times when somebody is playing and I would generally call it improvisation when it’s not really spontaneous. There’s a level at which you can be playing when you’re sort of coasting along, if you want to really be specific, not really improvising, you’re sort of reorganizing your old meatloaf. That’s not the same—as a totally spontaneous improvisation, where you know from note one that this is straight from heaven."

There were times when Charlie Parker, “as great as he was,” would be less than spontaneous. Bill creatively expanded that idea in this exchange:

Bill: Sometimes he might come out and say [he sings a riff], that’s his old stuff, maybe he didn’t feel like playing, didn’t have any idea, down or whatever—on one level we call that improvisation, but that’s not his spontaneous stuff. That’s Charlie Parker comin out givin you his, you know, truck driver meal—mashed potatoes, green beans and a hamburger steak, and a glass of ice tea.

LJ: Which he prepares better than most.

Bill: Yeh, right. It’s good those mashed potatoes, but, when he’s totally spontaneous, that one idea gives him what it takes to—the nerve, the courage, the will to stay out there and not worry about playing one of those things that he knows you goin to like. That’s like somebody said, Well, I know you’ll like my mashed potatoes and green beans, you’ll leave me a good tip and come back again. Well, I’m not worried about that this time, I’m bringin you now sushi, something, I don’t know whether you’ll like that or not, but you going to have to try it.

For Bill (and for me too), “when I say somebody’s playing is spontaneous, that means they always play something freshly about the immediate environment.” In another part of the interview, when he says that improvisation “has to have some extension beyond just an act,” spontaneity seems to be the element that extends it. It is an interesting reversal in the, say, hierarchy of meaningfulness that I might assign to improvisation and spontaneity. He pictured the example of our playing some music together after we had delved into improvisation in such a heartfelt way, and we had this exchange:

Bill: It’s like if you and I decided to get our horns out here now, let’s just play something…. But, as soon as we pick our horns up, let’s play something, and you play [sings a familiar Parkeresque riff]. [You say,] “I’m playing that in a kind of spontaneous way, aren’t I?” No, no, no, you already started off with a meatloaf there, it already takes me down. ‘Cause what we been talking about here for the longest, how could we talk like we been talking and you play that? You know what I mean? LJ: I hear you. I hear you. Bill: So, you and I been talking at a level here now, we haven’t been talking about Ebony magazine, you know what I mean?

LJ: I know exactly what you mean.

Bill: Then you get your horn out and you play [something too familiar]—What the hell’s that got to do with, that’s like if we had a duo thing and we were going to play, and I said we’re going to do this, and the bass player said [sings a few abstract notes], then you and I go [sings an easily accessible riff]. What?

LJ: That happens all over the place, what you’re describing.

Bill: That doesn’t have anything to do—what you’re doing there, you’re trying to sell yourself. You’re not willing to surrender, to the environment. You’re always looking out for yourself, you want to make sure everybody out there likes what you played. Can’t you yield to that now, and just be a part of what we’re doing here now? Or do you have to be the leader, or the star, or you have to win. You know what I mean? Can’t you just sort of, subordinate yourself to the group thing here? We got a trio here now, and the bass player just set the stage for us to do something, and you let him down. In other words, there was possibility:

LJ: An opportunity to look for something, to hear something you had not heard. Bill: You had an opportunity to make some music, to improvise, and you didn’t take it.

In terms of learning to improvise, starting off on his horn as a teenager, Bill listened to people like “Sonny Stitt and Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker and Dizzy and all.” “As I listened to them play repeatedly, I could see the organization in what they were doing. And I could see the part of it now that you could not explain either, by scales or by how hard you practiced. I could see there was a level of it now that was intuitive and might have been just a pure talent that would give you kinds of ideas that there’s no way to explain how they would come out of any book.” His awareness of improvisation as a musical methodology was connected with his realization of an underlying form in the song structures that musicians were improvising on.

Bill: "There was this thing unspoken, that you’re born to do this, even amongst black players. You know, we separate, the guys in my community, they would separate you into groups. They’d say, Aw, so-and-so, aw, man, he ain’t got no soul, all he plays is scales and stuff you learn at the music teacher. And so the myth is already out there, you can play this if you’re born with a lot of soul, or if you drink a lot, or you smoke a lot of weed, or some of that other hocus-pocus, that you can play, and you’ll get this down. I didn’t buy into that. … I could tell right away there’s more to it than that. But what it represented was something, if you could study and you could get this stuff together, you might not be Charlie Parker, but you could definitely learn, you could learn this language."

Looking at his evolving understanding of improvisation, which came first through music, Bill said about the prime exemplar, Charlie Parker, “his stuff was so cohesive and so full of continuity that there was no confusion about anything he played.” In performances, after other soloists had played there “comes this guy in the wake of all this whoopin and hollerin that’s playin this line that you could hear one idea led to the next one, he just kept developin it.”

Bill: "So there I realized, of course, there was a level of, a facet of improvisation that went beyond just your instrument now. It’s a thought process. Where you have to understand that you can approach this improvisation from the idea of development, you know, where you take a thematic idea, try to get through melodic system, expanding this idea or making it smaller, or just playing variations of the theme."

And, echoing my own hard-fought clarity on the subject, Bill said, “There’s a level of intellectual…skill up there that’s at work. It’s disarming how you look at a guy up there playing, you think he’s just up there blowing on a horn, and you don’t realize the level of sophistication of the process. Especially when it’s done with that kind of skill, and you don’t hear a lot of mistakes.”

But are mistakes possible during improvisation? “Oh, sure, you make lots of ‘em. And there’s different kinds. You could hear Charlie Parker making finger mistakes.” But, Bill added, “I don’t hear Charlie Parker makin a lot of thematic mistakes, like, if he did, he’d correct it right away. If he started out off an idea that didn’t seem like it was going to bear fruit, he abandoned it right quickly.” And he expanded the idea in this exchange:

Bill: But a guy like Thelonious Monk, he does some things that a lot of us, when I was a kid, thought were mistakes, but what they were is Thelonious Monk trying to force himself now to be creative, not to play the clichés. He’d do something sometimes that you’d, that was so awkward in the very first couple of bars that you got to do something now—

LJ: —to resolve it.

Bill: Yeh. Because you can’t play [sings a Monk-type riff] and then play some really corny little nursery rhyme after that. He knew he couldn’t. So, after giving himself a problem of unbelievable dimension, then that forced him to really dig into his resources, Now, what can I do with that?

He went on to say that “the beauty of that was he could fail—he didn’t like failure any more than the rest of us, but he wasn’t afraid of just a total disaster. He didn’t want it to happen. But it’s not like he said, You won’t buy my records any more, or you won’t like me if I make this mistake. I don’t think he let his ego get in the way, ever.”

Because I, Bill and many people talk about improvisors and improvisation seemingly easily, I often find it helpful to create what I consider a slightly disorienting experience on the subject. I asked, “Do you always know when you’re improvising?” Bill’s response was interesting, especially because he took it into a classroom context.

Bill: I’m thinking about sometimes now in a classroom lecture, when students ask me at the end of class, I came in late, can I have notes from today’s lecture? And so I say to kids, You actually think that I had notes today? … You were sitting there, and you thought that—I’m up there talking about blue notes or something, and I’m drawing references out of all different kinds of music, and I’m singin, drawin all these analogies, you thought that I got that some place?

He added that sometimes you may not know, but “once you get rolling…you begin to use improvisation to solve a problem.”

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