Improv Blog 2

2008-02-11T17:03:00.000-08:00

In reaction to my previous blog post, I have found some answers to my questions about Bebop improvisation. After researching jazz improvisation and its roots, I have discovered the background behind Bebop music.
Bebop came after the swing era, an era that was all about entertainment, drinking, dancing, i.e. the roaring 20's. Bebop was an evolution of this type of music; one could say it was a more complex type of music than swing. It's fast tempos, waves of eighth and sixteenth notes, and focus on improvisation as an ensemble all contributed to its meaning or statement in jazz history. Contrary to the idea of music being a secondary but important aspect of entertainment, Bebop was known for its artistic impressions and highly complex, and in some cases, foreign musical concepts. In a video I saw on you tube featuring Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the two were given awards in recognition of their great musicianship. After given the awards, the two were asked what they had to say....To proove my point, Charlie Parker went on to say something like 'well lets just let the music do the talkin' (not a direct quote). So to sum things up Bebop was the beginning of a more involved communication between the musicians and the listeners.
I also found this quote to be interesting, and from a different perspective of a French philosopher Derrida: "It's not easy to improvise, it's the most difficult thing to do. Even when one improvises in front of a camera or microphone, one ventriloquizes or leaves another to speak in one's place the schemas and languages that are already there. There are already a great number of prescriptions that are prescribed in our memory and in our culture. All the names are already preprogrammed. It's already the names that inhibit our ability to ever really improvise. One can't say what ever one wants, one is obliged more or less to reproduce the stereotypical discourse. And so I believe in improvisation and I fight for improvisation. But always with the belief that it's impossible. And there where there is improvisation I am not able to see myself. I am blind to myself. And it's what I will see, no, I won't see it. It's for others to see. The one who is improvised here, no I won't ever see him."

Blog 1

2008-02-04T13:37:00.001-08:00

It is May 2008 and I have just finished my improvisation course at UMF. I went into improvisation class with a sense and working knowledge of how to theoretically improv on an instrument. What I was lacking was an understanding of the psychiological aspects of improvisation. Now I know more about improvisation in each of its forms, and I have aquired a list of new influential music. When improv class first started I wanted to give improv more philosophical concentration, and feel that I have achieved this, acquiring new understandings throughout the semester. I have come out of improv class with a new way of looking at improvisation.
I have always wanted to be able to look at improv like a Bebop jazz musician. I admire their speed and their melodic style. I understand that practicing must be a large part towards getting chops like a Bebop player and being able to play all around people's heads. What made musicians want to play so fast? Was it drugs? Was Bebop the milestone in the evolution of lightning fast improvisation?