Improvisation Quotes

• When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.

  

  Paul McCartney Paul McCartney and Wings
  • Up
  • Writing
  • Song

• Everything we design and make is an improvisation, a lash-up, something inept and provisional.

  

  David Pye
  • Design
  • Improvisation
  • Provisional

• 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

• 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.

  

  George Shearing
  • Improvisation
  • Disciplined
  • Retention

• In improvisation, there are no mistakes.

  

  Miles Davis
  • Mistake
  • Improvisation

• Even though the music I make gathers influences from all over the place, I feel that the core of what I do comes from the jazz tradition. In terms of improvisation, interaction, feel and overall concept, Jazz is my main source of information and inspiration.

  

  Miguel Zenon
  • Inspiration
  • Concept
  • Influences

• There's always some room for improvisation.

  

  Satyajit Ray
  • Improvisation

• I look for something universal in songs rather than something personal. I look for something that will give us a platform for live improvisation.

  

  Will Kimbrough
  • Song
  • Giving
  • Improvisation

• I like messing up the song, doing some improvisation. And I like running around the room with the mic.

  

  EMA
  • Song
  • Improvisation
  • Messing

• When I create I don't think in technical or mathematical terms until the idea is formulated Musical composition is formulated in improvisation. Once a pianist like myself sits down and begins to play and start thinking about what I am writing all of a sudden a little tune will emerge, a little spot light and I'll go, "That's interesting."

  

  Aaron Zigman
  • Idea
  • Composition
  • Improvisation

• I think of myself as a jazz player, and my music as a natural extension of the jazz tradition. What I'm doing is completely free improvisation ('composing in real time') with nothing predetermined. I've had a lot of experience playing many different kinds of music and several different instruments, and since I tend not to waste anything, it all shows up somewhere in the music I'm playing now.

  

  Richard Grossman
  • Different
  • Thinking
  • Natural

• He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life,where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.

  

  William Golding
  • Life
  • Understanding
  • Path

• There are a lot of visual marks that have to be hit, and lines that need to be said in a right way - so there wasn't really any improvisation on the set when it came to the bulk of the script.

  

  Simon Pegg
  • Script
  • Improvisation
  • Marks

• 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
  • Walking
  • Stuff
  • Lines

• The minute you make a mistake - that's improvisation!

  

  Barry Harris
  • Mistake
  • Improvisation

• I'm a big fan of improvisation but I can't say that I'm great at it.

  

  Michelle Monaghan
  • Improvisation

• Most of the parts are really gone over and over and over again with Tool. It's a very composed situation. We spend weeks if not months working on all those songs. There's not much room for improvisation.

  

  Danny Carey
  • Working
  • Songs
  • Improvisation

• Normal adults can doodle, amble, and drift with no need to assess risk, since there is normally no risk at all. Jazz improvisation seems less subject to standards of risk than surgery, and less than much formal athletic performance, as in a tennis match.

  

  Ernest Sosa
  • Risk
  • Tennis
  • Jazz

• 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?

  

  Peter Wright
  • Painting
  • Outcome
  • Improvisation

• Everyone's encouraged to put things in their own words, to discover new things. So there's definitely an element of dynamic improvisation, for sure, which I think gives those scenes some of their energy, some of their electricity.

  

  Steve Zissis
  • Words
  • Energy
  • Improvisation

• 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.

  

  Mike Figgis
  • Actors
  • Certain
  • Clear

• I believe that improvisation is really just a directorial tool. It's a writing tool. It's not so much that the actors get to say whatever they want, whatever pops into their head. It's an opportunity to write the last draft of the screenplay as you're working on it.

  

  Ivan Reitman
  • Opportunity
  • Director
  • Improvisation

• To create characters, one must build background. And one of the tools we use is improvisation.

  

  Harvey Keitel
  • Characters
  • Improvisation

• I started improvisation at age nine, and I loved it so much I stuck with it. As a by-product, acting was just something I was lucky enough to fall into.

  

  Cassie Steele
  • Love
  • Age
  • Fall

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