#improvisation

I like to think that we've got a plan, so let's stick to it. That said, once we've stuck to it, we're allowed as much improvisation as anyone cares to indulge themselves in. ↗

— Guy Ritchie

#anyone #cares #got #i #improvisation

It ain't about if he knocks a guy out. It's about how he knocks a guy out. It's the style, the improvisation. ↗

— Don King

#guy #how #improvisation #knocks #out

My voice is my improvisational instrument, the melody instrument. The guitar is harmonic structure. I'm not a good enough guitarist to improvise on it. ↗

— Paul Simon

#good #guitar #guitarist #harmonic #i

I've always been interested in shaping music in odd ways, with odd riffs and that's been probably something that I've continued on with my studies with improvisation as I'm working with people. ↗

— Roscoe Mitchell

#been #continued #i #improvisation #interested

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

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

Sholem [a painter] was saying that freedom, for him, is having the technical facility to be able to execute whatever he wants, just whatever image he has in his mind. But that's not freedom! That's control, or power. Whereas I think Margaux understands freedom to be the freedom to take risks, the freedom to do something bad or appear foolish. To not recognize that difference is a pretty big thing. [...] "It's like with improv," Misha said. "True improv is about surprising yourself--but most people won't improvise truthfully. They're afraid. What they do is pull from their bag of tricks. They take what they already know how to do and apply it to the present situation. But that's cheating! And cheating's bad for an artist. It's bad in life--but it's really bad in art." -p.20-1, How Should A Person Be ↗

— Sheila Heti

#control #freedom #improvisation #living-well #risk-taking