Improvisation Quotes

• Songs seem to always spring from improvisation.

  

  Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
  • Spring
  • Songs
  • Improvisation

• Composing is improvisation slowed down.

  

  Wayne Shorter
  • Music
  • Jazz
  • Composing

• The only band I was really over-into was Cream. And the only thing I really liked about them was their live stuff 'cause they played two verses, then go off and jam for 20 minutes, come back and do a chorus and end. And I love the live jam stuff, the improvisation.

  

  Eddie Van Halen Van Halen
  • End
  • Thing
  • Cause

• The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation.

  

  Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Life
  • Habits
  • Terrible Thing

• I love improvisation. It's quite exciting.

  

  Tcheky Karyo
  • Exciting
  • Quite
  • Improvisation

• Even if the script's well written there's something about the life of an improvisation that resonates better than a written word, sometimes.

  

  John Travolta
  • Life
  • Sometimes
  • Written Word

• Even though there is randomness and improvisation in my music, I want to have some concrete idea that I can hold onto.

  

  Miguel Zenon
  • Concrete
  • Though
  • Randomness

• I moved to Chicago in the early 1990s and I studied improvisation there. I learned some rules that I try to apply still today: Listen. Say yes. Live in the moment. Make sure you play with people who have your back. Make big choices early and often. Don't start a scene where two people are talking about jumping out of a plane. Start the scene having already jumped. If you're scared, look into your partner's eyes — you will feel better.

  

  Amy Poehler
  • People
  • Live
  • Today

• It's an improvisation on a theme. You know where you want to go, but you don't know how to get there. It's not linear.

  

  Richard Holbrooke
  • Want
  • Theme
  • Linear

• The score must govern the music. It must have authority, and not merely be an arbitrary jumping-off point for improvisation.

  

  Cornelius Cardew AMM
  • Authority
  • Jumping
  • Arbitrary

• So much of the show [ Too Much Tuna] is improvisation, and I think that Nick [Kroll] and John [Mulaney] kind of catch each other at times, surprise each other. I think that really makes it a fun, sort of live, unique experience.

  

  Alex Timbers
  • Live
  • Experience
  • Fun

• I believe in improvisation. All musicians improvise. Even Bach, Mozart and Beethoven improvised. Improvisation and freedom are synonymous. The goal of every musician is to be free, but freedom is rare.

  

  Ahmad Jamal
  • Freedom
  • Goal
  • Musician

• Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.

  

  Paul Simon Simon & Garfunkel
  • Good
  • Chance
  • Improvisation

• I'm no longer beholden to the sacredness of the recorded song as some kind of ultimate standard by which every performance of the song is measured. I like to diversify, that there are multiple versions of every song. And the songs incorporate a lot of improvisation, and an element of chance, and I think that's exciting. There's no one true formulation of a song, they have various manifestations depending on the space we're in. I like that.

  

  Sufjan Stevens
  • Kind
  • Chance
  • Exciting

• I reckon we'll play the majority of the record and then we'll probably end the set with some of the older stuff that we can include improvisation on. I think the game plan is to play all the new stuff as individual songs, unless something opens up and we recognise it as a spot to fool around with.

  

  Cedric Bixler-Zavala At the Drive-In
  • Songs
  • Improvisation

• Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. We've been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. It's just like stand-up. It's best when it's just left alone. It doesn't translate always on TV. It's best live.

  

  Amy Poehler
  • Up
  • World
  • Live

• You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It's very structured, but it's all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know.

  

  Mike Leigh
  • Film
  • Cameras
  • Periods

• You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!

  

  Art Tatum
  • Practice
  • Kid
  • Improvisation

• Improvisation is just writing in front of an audience.

  

  Carl Reiner
  • Writing
  • Audience
  • Improvisation

• I become exaggerated, and loud, and obnoxious, and full of the spirit of improvisation. That's one of the weird things about performing, I think that any performer will say the same thing when you're on stage in front of a crowd there's a certain moment when you kind of click into a trance-like state and you just kind of go with it. I love getting into that mode. It's transcendental.

  

  Wayne White
  • Spirit
  • Improvisation
  • Obnoxious

• Jazz Improvisation means that practice is not as straightforward as it would be when you simply have a score to play.

  

  Ahmad Jamal
  • Practice
  • Jazz
  • Means

• I allow an area for improvisation because the chemical things actors bring to stories make it not work.

  

  Vincente Minnelli
  • Stories
  • Actors
  • Chemicals

• The problem with improvisation is, of course, that everyone just slips into their comfort zone and does sort of the easy thing to do, the most obvious thing to do with your instrument.

  

  Brian Eno Roxy Music
  • Instrument
  • Comfort Zone
  • Improvisation

• All actors have to make the words fit in their mouths, and make the words the words fit to how you say it and how you make it life-like and make it look like what you're saying is just conversation that you're just thinking off the top of your head. That process is not quite improvisation.

  

  Bruce Willis
  • Words
  • Actors
  • Conversation

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