#improvisation

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality. ↗

— Mose Allison

#concerned #essentials #far #i #improvisation

With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive. ↗

— Carrie Brownstein

#cohesive #did #disparate #even #form

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation. ↗

— Jan Garbarek

#i #improvisation #jazz #keep #only

Actors need bricks to play with, and in fact we rejected all the improvised fragments we had made without a plan. Improvisation without a plan is like tennis without tennis balls. ↗

— Lars von Trier

#bricks #fact #fragments #had #improvisation

Mockingbirds are the true artists of the bird kingdom. Which is to say, although they're born with a song of their own, an innate riff that happens to be one of the most versatile of all ornithological expressions, mocking birds aren't content to merely play the hand that is dealt them. Like all artists, they are out to rearrange reality. Innovative, willful, daring, not bound by the rules to which others may blindly adhere, the mockingbird collects snatches of birdsong from this tree and that field, appropriates them, places them in new and unexpected contexts, recreates the world from the world. For example, a mockingbird in South Carolina was heard to blend the songs of thirty-two different kinds of birds into a ten-minute performance, a virtuoso display that serve no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#artists #improvisation #mocking-birds #music #art

With improvisation, I just do it. It might be a total failure but then you just throw the dice again. ↗

— Christian Marclay

#dice #failure #i #improvisation #just

Out of 30 years of Second City I was probably the third African-American with the main stage cast. I was surprised when I first heard that. I think part of the reason that improvisation has never been popular with African-Americans is that it isn't popular in the inner cities. ↗

— Tim Meadows

#been #cast #cities #city #first

The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear. ↗

— Paul Merton

#hear #improvisation #listening #other #people

All you're trying to do in an improvisation is get as much material as possible for the editing room. ↗

— Martin Short

#get #improvisation #material #much #possible

My father was king of the guidebooks and our holidays were always planned, taking us from a great gallery to an ace cafe to a beautiful view. And as an actor, I loathe improvisation because there's no structure and no one knows what's going on. ↗

— Olivia Williams

#actor #always #beautiful #because #cafe