Improvisation in Writing
My music tends to be very structured and measured. In general there isn’t anything wrong with writing this way, it really just reflects my personality and preferences; I like symmetry, organization and logic.I don’t always want my music to be crisp, clean and symmetrical though. Sometimes I want it to be flowing, or unpredictable, or simply to feel fresh and organic. But because of my tendency to like logic and symmetry, finding a way to break out of evenness can be a real challenge.In the past I have tried different ways solve this problem methodically. Sometimes I would find ways to insert an extra bar here or there, or to change up the fills, but often these approaches felt forced. I would listen to other composer’s music that had a more linear, freely developing structure and keep wondering “how do they do it?”.Then one day it finally struck me, in one of those “it’s so obvious that I feel ridiculous even saying it” type of ways: If I want my music to sound spontaneous, it should be spontaneous.What I need to do, in order to have something feel fresh and spontaneous, is improvise. There is an obvious contradiction in “planned spontaneity”, but for some reason it took my a long time to understand that.
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