Improvisation As A Means Of Integration

Here's an interesting discovery I made about myself earlier today. When I improvise freely (i.e. not based around a set form), the techniques and freedom of movement that I have been working on elsewhere tend to manifest themselves much more clearly than when I play a pre-composed and practised piece of music. It seems to me that the old habits that usually cause me issues are weaker, likely because when I'm improvising everything I'm doing is new. I feel that I can trust myself in these circumstances to play healthily. Has anyone else had similar experiences? I guess that if one can approach anything of set form (e.g. a scale, a composition) as new every time one plays or practises it then the same benefits will occur.

I'm not so sure this is true. As a matter of fact, I think the word choice may have to be altered a bit for this discovery to keep bringing you (and the readers of this board) the same benefits in all cases. What you define as "new" may actually have to be called "simple". Just imagine that you go deeper into the art of improvising with the help of a teacher. That teacher puts a burden upon you ("Improvise on this or that theme and while doing so, only use this or that ", etc.) and you may experience the same constraint in your technique, even though the material is "new". The problem here is that, in the given context, you may not yet have discovered the simplicity that creates the freedom you need to do it. In this context, I'd prefer to define the problem as follows: "The greater the musical confidence in a certain task, the less the technical insecurity". Therefore: Simplify, simplify, simplify. As soon as you master the essence of what you want or have to do (almost instantly if you define the problem correctly), you can take it to a level that is higher than what is actually required in the music. In that way, the initial task itself (the piece you want to perform) becomes so simple that you can reproduce it instantly under any given condition and without any further preparation. Unfortunately, many teachers of classical music don't realize this simple truth, diagnose their students' problems incorrectly and with their "cures" lead themselves and their poor students astray; either they give yet another medieval finger torturing exercise/etude, or even worse: they forbid this or that piece of art for the wrong reasons ("You are not ready", "You are too young", "You are too old", "You don't have the talent - read: you are too stupid", "Your hands are too small", "It's not your piece", etc.). My favorite mindset while practising for immediate and future success is: "it should be/feel as simple as playing the central c on the piano". That is the key to conditioning yourself to be a master of your art. This mindset also helps to replace the distracting thoughts of other people's expectations with something positive. P.S.: If you have trouble discovering the simplicity in a piece or passage, ask someone who has been through it. Advice like "practise until your arms fall off" or "play this or that Czerny etude (or Hanon exercise)", "move your little finger/thumb/other body parts like this" is rarely really helpful. You may eventually be able to play your way through the piece somehow, but it will never be your own. Paul

Thanks for your insightful response, Paul. I think you're right about the choice of words. What you say about simplicity coincides with one of Moshe Feldenkrais' sayings: "To make the impossible, possible; the possible, easy; and the easy, elegant." Although I do tend to ask myself, "What am I doing to make this difficult", when practising, on reflection I must finally admit that I don't really pursue an answer. I'll get part way to a solution, then perhaps due to laziness or force of habit I'll just start to slog through the piece. I'm usually quite wary about asking advice from other people, because, from my experience the standard of advice given is usually, at best, harmless, or at worst potentially damaging. The only places I've ever really received useful advice has been from Alan, or from other people on this forum. Quickly back to improvisation - perhaps the reason I reap such benefits from it is because I don't have time to get in the way? I'm so focused on the musical result that I'm not thinking about the way I move my fingers or the height of my wrist. Thanks again for the post, Nick

I think the only thing you are doing "to make it difficult" is that you tend to forget how simple (= beautiful) it actually is. There really is no reason (not even subconscious) to ruin something simple by complicating it. I was not talking about advice concerning movement; more in the field of analysis. For example the right hand configuration of Chopin's Winterwind is just simple chords, combined with a chromatic scale downward and with a very easy and recognizable fingering pattern. You would be surprised how many students don't realize this and blame their fingers because they "can't do it", "it's so complicated", "it's so fast", their fingers are "not strong enough", etc. As I said before: in the kind of improvisation you do, there is no reason to confuse yourself by making simple, clear stuff complicated and/or unclear. Besides, there is no "norm" from any third party, because you yourself determine the norm. You may not even care whether anybody hears it, likes it, etc., all of which may be decisive factors for succes/failure. Falling arches, buckling fingers, awkwardly twisted wrists and elbows, painful shoulders, etc. usually have their roots in the music itself; or rather: in the student's attitude towards that music or in his/her attitude towards performing that piece. For example, the mere thought of possible future punishment (disapproval from some authority) or hoped-for reward (enthusiastic appraisal from some authority) may be enough to spoil everything. I've seen too many students who are able to stand their fingers up in a beautiful arch on a D major chord, but collapse everything when they meet an A major chord in some classical piece; a chord that technically has exactly the same form (white-black-white-white) and the same fingering. Of course, focus on the musical result and constantly realizing the simplicity and beauty of it all is the way to go to solve such problems during preparation for perfomance; the arch immediately restores itself with confidence and the wrists suddenly take on a more natural position without the student even paying attention to them... Paul

Falling arches, buckling fingers, awkwardly twisted wrists and elbows, painful shoulders, etc. usually have their roots in the music itself; or rather: in the student's attitude towards that music or in his/her attitude towards performing that piece. For example, the mere thought of possible future punishment (disapproval from some authority) or hoped-for reward (enthusiastic appraisal from some authority) may be enough to spoil everything. I've seen too many students who are able to stand their fingers up in a beautiful arch on a D major chord, but collapse everything when they meet an A major chord in some classical piece; a chord that technically has exactly the same form (white-black-white-white) and the same fingering. Of course, focus on the musical result and constantly realizing the simplicity and beauty of it all is the way to go to solve such problems during preparation for perfomance; the arch immediately restores itself with confidence and the wrists suddenly take on a more natural position without the student even paying attention to them... Paul Quite honestly, I think it's often the very opposite. Musical intent often causes poor technique- unless the foundations are truly cemented. I recently learned the petrarch sonnet 104 by liszt- which I never really studied but hacked through many times while younger. Although I had no major issues with the notes, my hands went into countless bad habits. This was because of the EXTENT of what I was trying to do musically, not due to a lack. By aiming for strong contrasts and big crescendo etc, my old habits of pushing and collapsing the hand came to the forefront. Recently, I came back after a break and I concentrated on pure physical issues- specifically, feeling the fingers are already pushing the knuckles up before depression starts. The change to the sound has been phenomenal already- but to get this internalised I have to distance myself from the musical result altogether. If I aim for the dramatic, my hand stiffen instead of moving well. If I concentrate purely on the movement issues in practise, I come closer and closer to good results when I let go again. If I want a good sound, training my fingers to feel a better starter position for each key currently has overwhelmingly more use than concentrating on my goals in sound.

Just to add to that- what's the one difference between the a major and d major? It's musical context. The logic may seem cold here, but it's the lone explanation for why the hand goes wrong there. It's not to say we should throw out music, of course, but it does illustrate the fact that having musical intent can interfere with quality movements. The really hard thing is to be so well programmed that a musical intent only triggers good movements, not bad ones. Without that, strength of musical intention can literally be a source of problems.

I don't think that this is what I had in mind. If you "recover" what was never good enough anyway, and don't rethink the simplicity of the material, just going on old reflexes, then the result cannot be any better than it ever was. I'm not saying that certain problems with the fingers don't exist; they should just be solved away from the piano. If your hand stiffens while "aiming for the dramatic", then your image of what "dramatic" is may need correction. The music should never ever paralyze the pianist. Physical reactions like near-fatal heart attacks, cramps, orgasms and so on are solely to occur in those who paid to listen to you, not in yourself while performing or preparing to perform. I never stiffen my hand, for example, not under any circumstances. But then, before I play anything the first time, I create a very clear picture of what I want/have to do. You know well enough for yourself by now that there is no need to brace or to stiffen anything, no matter how dramatic the music becomes. Hence, the problem must lie somewhere else, not in the music itself. Perhaps, if you don't "train your fingers for good sound" in your pieces, the music overwhelms you and that's why these negative body reactions occur? Instead of creating something, you are consuming too much, or being consumed while you play? Paul

Not only. When we speak about 4-voice triads, for example, then: D major is white-black-white-white. D minor is only white. This is always the same, whatever the musical context or tonality of the piece. A major as such has the same feeling in the hand as D major; no need to do anything else. A minor again is only white, the same feeling as D minor. When we speak about D major and D minor scales, then again, they each have their own topography of white an black that makes them easily and unmistakenly distinguishable and that determines the form of the hand. The same goes for A major and A minor. They have their own topography that can't be mistaken for anything else. Paul

When we speak about D major and D minor scales, then again, they each have their own topography of white an black that makes them easily and unmistakenly distinguishable and that determines the form of the hand. The same goes for A major and A minor. They have their own topography that can't be mistaken for anything else. Paul I think you misunderstand my point. You spoke of how a student might play one with a good arch and then go totally differently when it occurs in a piece? Why would they do that- if not the fact that in one case they are free to concentrate on the physical issue, whereas in the other they have to aim for a specific type of sound within the context of music. In that case, it can only be seen that the musical context and intention that they brought is specifically what led the student to abandon what they did fine elsewhere. In my opinion, the least musical students would often be those who can easily get it bang on the same in both cases- because they don't care greatly about sound and hence just get the movement the same. A student who appreciates musical context (is the chord louder/softer or voiced in a particular way etc.) is often the one who loses the securest type of simple technique- in a bid to make it fit musically. The really hard thing is to make effective quality of movement, when you are trying to make a specific quality of sound. That is why so many lose all sense of stability or control in softer playing especially. It's not easy to get musicality without resort to poor movements- unless you know the good movements inside out. The thing I particularly like about the extension action that I've been using recently is that it makes no difference whether you play loud or quiet or voice an inner note of a chord or whatever. It's just a case of doing it with more or less intensity- not taking on a whole new movement. It keeps things very simple. I think the problem in many cases is that musical context causes people to change their style of movement altogether. I think the best control of musical sound comes when you have a simple approach that merely involves more or less intensity of motion- not radically different angles or paths of movement. Without that, strength of musical intention can even hold some people back- unless they first learn control via a more middle of the road rendition.

Because they: 1) consume, while it is not the task of a performer to consume; suffer while it is not the task of a performer to suffer, etc. In such circumstances they forget that good music making requires a certain emotional distance to be able to evaluate the effect of what you're doing 2) are eaten up by worries around the performance that have nothing to do with the music itself There is no objective reason to collapse that which stands very well in other circumstances, and certainly not any intended sound result. Paul