Piano Pandemictivities: Why Did Improv Die?

Why did classical musicians stop improvising? A quick history lesson.
Learn historic keyboard improvisation:

[jean_c_santos]

I remember first starting out composing pieces, and had a very difficult time doing so. I realized that this was in part because I was trying to write the music BEFORE I played it. Improv is probably the most important tool for me to begin composing something, as it allows me to fully listen to and test ideas.

[sunnyday]

Greetings! I haven’t checked in with you for awhile and have never commented but wanted to let you know that you have really helped me. I got a B. A. In piano many years ago, dropped classical and began a performing career in jazz and pop. You have helped me so much in reopening the closed book of classical for me. I was stuck in so many ways and you had the glue remover! Now classical piano music is an open book again and I am delighting in applying what I’ve learned from you!! Thank you so much!!

[JuanDhas]

Fascinating perspective on this, especially listening as a Jazz musician. Really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on this!

[Nathan_Schneider_Music]

Just to comment about what you said at 13:10...in the organ world we do have a fair few international improvisation competitions (albeit there are probably 10x more solely repertoire competitions). Notably there’s the Haarlem International Improvisation Competition.

As an organist student in Rome and now in Zurich, improvisation has always been greatly emphasized with the great Naples partimento tradition/basso continuo/classic harmony/species counterpoint training. In fact my professor is currently publishing his treatise on improvisation. It’s great reading through your book and then his to see the connections you two make.

Great video as always, thanks!

[rishidesai]

I've "learned" more about music through improvisation and composing in one year than I did with ten years of traditional classical training. Similar to how Winston from 1984 "lives" more in those couple months with Juliet than his entire lifetime before. 10/21/2020.

[subjectline]

I have been wondering about this. Thank you for the interesting historical details. "Gate-keeping" is a good way of putting it! I follow a few young classical soloists, of various instruments, on social media, and I have noticed that it is not unusual now for them to include their own compositions and arrangements in albums, or perform them on YouTube. I loved Kian Soltani's "Super Mario" for solo cello. Perhaps a revival is in progress?

[hopesonmakokha]

Improvising is such a powerful tool that is very underestimated in this day and age. There's something incredible about spontaneous ideas that come out of improvising. My best compositions have come from simply improvising something out, and my word I've had amazing ideas suddenly spring out. It's a great tragedy actually that improvisation has declined. Glenn Gould sort of discusses this in one of his talks, he says about the repercussions of when musicians stopped being composers/Improvisers that led to a decline in musicianship...I am struggling to recall his point exactly but he was so eloquent and thought provoking about this topic, and likewise you have as well. I always find topic interesting because it really does make you wonder what's been lost in the art of music, and how might we turn this around and bring back improvisation in music.

[azizbenbachir]

Great video! I would be really interested in a pandemictivity to talk about what is going on with improvisation in the classical music world right now.

[profsjp]

How interesting and insightful. Thanks.

[wolfie]

Thank you sir, very accurate.
Improvasation is really important, sadly people don't think that it is important.

[ellenfigueira]

I'm recommending this video to all of my piano students!

[MrFilmMusic]

A couple of extra things:
1.) Invention of printing press which allows reproduction, reciting, preciseness. It had a major effect on the way we think. Thinking in absolutes and linear paths.
2.) Invention of gramophone. Now we try to imitate and copy. Also opens up possibility for study. Both above open up idolization of studying over creating.
3.) Change in spiritual observances and rise of secularism. This led to idolization of composers rather than seeing them as servants of God: hence genius rather than artisan. Also spontaneity is something deeply spiritual. "Nobody knows where the wind blows. So it is of one born of the spirit" (John 3:8)
4.) Rise of materialism which is obsessed by having a product. Sheet music or a recording is a product - improv is about embracing the moment.

[matthewgoldberg]

My theory is that the great improvisations through the 19th century we simply lost because they were never recorded. For the past 75 years, we have captured on recordings and videos the improvisations of the great jazz pianists: Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, just to name three. Without recording technology, we would only know their formal compositions. And ironically, entire CDs or concerts by Evans and Jarrett have been transcribed and published. We should be careful not to sanctify them as “compositions.”

[gwojcieszczuk]

No doubt being able to improvise makes you better all-round musician. I think one of the reasons why improvisation isn't very popular in classical music world, is the much higher emphasis on virtuosity these days; pianist possibly don't have enough time to focus on improvisation; they are busy mastering technique and memorizing huge repertoires.

[gerardvila]

If you compare music to painting - AFAIK for a painter it is normal to master the style of other painters as part of their education. So... even if each 19th century composer uses a different set of rules, would it be feasible to teach music students to do a pastiche of various great composers?

[amandajstar]

Lovely. Bought your book. By the way, things differed 'among' different cultures not 'between', unless there were only two. It's just a quirk of English that we make the distinction, and I like that distinction, so why not preserve it?

[sameash]

Because my teachers would yell at me when I improvised and told me to practice my music and stop wasting my time. I learned to improv before I learned to read music.

[amandajstar]

Oh and incidentally, since I'm being a language nudge here, (or 'noodge' -- I got that usage from my New Yorker husband -- I was born in London) -- 'codified' spoken as if we're speaking of codfish is really odd to me. The noun is 'code', rhymes with 'ode' even for Americans. Why would 'codified' change the vowel to a short O -- a short O that Americans almost always shun, please note (I have never ever heard an American say the short genuine [British] O in words such as 'hot', 'cot', 'shot' -- most Americans in their whole lifetimes never make this rather charming forward-in-the-mouth sound). There is no reason to change the vowel from 'code' to 'codify', and so Brits like me don't do it.

[Pretzels]

recording devices probably exacerbated the 'perfectionist' athlete repertoire player effect. if you record a live concert and hit a bung note, it is there to be replayed endlessly. hence further obsession with technique pushing out inherently riskier things like improvisation. just my layman's theory.

[SirWhiteRabbit-grso]

Performance has become being a human piano roll. **boring**