Improvising Quotes - Page 4

• Everybody improvises without noticing it. Life is about improvising. You can't control what happens in your life, I mean, you don't know what can happen in your life today. So you somehow improvise.

  Hiromi

  Mean, Today, Life Is

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• I think the other thing that's important is getting to a place, which very, very rarely happens with improvising groups, where somebody can decide not to play for a while. You watch any group of musicians improvising together and they nearly all play nearly all the time. In fact I often say that the biggest difference between classical music and everything else is that classical musicians sometimes shut up because they're told to, because the score tells them to. Whereas any music that's sort of based on folk or jazz, everybody plays all the time.

  Brian Eno

  Thinking, Play, Differences

  Interview with Mark Richardson, pitchfork.com. Nove,ber 1, 2010.

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• I knew I was going to be composing. It all makes sense in retrospect. But you don't know while you're in the process of improvising your life.

  William Bolcom

  Retrospect, Process, Composing

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• John Cassavetes was there at night while I was working. After they [with his friends] discussed as much live TV as they felt they needed to, they started improvising scenes just for the fun of it and one of those scenes everybody got very interested in and it turned into Shadows [1959]. That movie was entirely improvised.

  Gena Rowlands

  Fun, Night, Shadow

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I think everybody came into it with the understanding that they would go through an experience that is literally not by the book, that is not executing the script and then going home, but living and breathing these characters and being in the moment with each other, and improvising and creating a lot of present-tense intensity between characters.

  Oren Moverman

  Book, Home, Character

  "Rampart Director, Oren Moverman Interview". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• I do a lot of improvising on movies, actually.

  John C. Reilly

  "Interview: John C. Reilly (Talladega Nights)". Interview with Devin Faraci, trouble.city. August 2, 2006.

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• When you're improvising, you're relying on this connection to creativity.

  Reggie Watts

  Creativity, Connections

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• If I'm improvising and I'm not doing well it's because I'm not listening very well. Either I'm overly concerned with something or I'm drifting or maybe I'm too stoned but I'm not getting a clear signal.

  Reggie Watts

  Listening, Signals, Drifting

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• When I'm at the piano, and I'm improvising some song about something, it usually oscillates between factual, absurd, and sincere.

  Reggie Watts

  Song, Piano, Sincere

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• But one of the things I learned from improvising is that all of life is an improvisation, whether you like it or not. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century came out of people dropping things.

  Alan Arkin

  Discovery, People, Life Is

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• Growing up playing jazz and improvising has had a big impact on me, and it translates into my music.

  Stephen Bruner

  Growing Up, Impact, Playing Jazz

  "Thundercat’s Touching Bass". Interview with Tempe Nakiska, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 4, 2013.

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• The key to writing for Richard (Pryor) was to just push his buttons and then know when to push the buttons on your cassette recorder. You'd get him started, then surreptitiously start recording when he got inspired and started walking around the room and improvising in character. Then you'd get it all transcribed and take credit for it.

  Alan Thicke

  Writing, Character, Keys

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• I had always been more interested in playing and improvising than sitting down at a desk and writing out a piece. I'd always found it more fun to play, and the other a little bit tedious. I always had trouble with the decisions.

  Terry Riley

  Fun, Writing, Play

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• As an improvising musician, I am not in the music business, I am not in the creativity business; I am in the surrender business.

  Stephen Nachmanovitch

  Creativity, Musician, Surrender

  Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.21, Penguin

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• That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.

  Twyla Tharp

  Action, Impulse

  Twyla Tharp, Mark Reiter (2003). “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life”, Simon and Schuster

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• I did a smaller gig with an acoustic guitar and a drum machine. In one song, something wrong happened with the drum machine. I tried to cover up the mistake by playing faster and improvising a new song but it became crazy, and I had to admit it was all a mess.

  Violante Placido

  Song, Crazy, Mistake

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The trouble with the jokes is that once they're written, I know how they're supposed to work, and all I can do is not hit them. I'm more comfortable improvising. If I have just two or three ideas and I know how the character feels, what the character wants, everything in between is like trapeze work.

  Stephen Colbert

  Character, Ideas, Two

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• When I'm in the studio, when I'm warm, when I'm what people call improvising, I feel a very special connection. I feel the most right. I don't want to become too mystic about this, but things feel as though they're in the best order at that particular moment.

  Twyla Tharp

  Order, People, Special

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• ...this is my dilemma. I'm a guy who makes things up as I go along, so nothing is ever finished - there are so many layers. So when you solo, yeah, you might get into one thing, but then, hey, everything has implications! You can hear the next level. And that's how I feel about improvising - there's always another level.

  Sonny Rollins

  Guy, Next Level, Hey

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• I'm trying to be expressive on my instrument and conduct as I'm improvising. So I'm conducting with the melodies and the rhythms that I play. And so it's a very organic way. It's a lot like Charles Mingus played, cuing people in from what you play and how you play it rather than standing in front of a band, conducting and pointing.

  Joe Lovano

  Play, People, Trying

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• Yes, for me audio-visual performance has its roots in my experience working as an improvising musician and composer.

  Kurt Ralske

  Roots, Musician, Audio

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• I do a little improv in my shows. Kind of like our movie, I'll do beats and ideas of dialogue, but I think there's less pressure because it's a live show. If you mess up, the audience laughs because we don't really know what we're doing. But as far as shooting, that was very scary, trying to make a point and drive the film. It definitely helped improvising.

  Charlyne Yi

  Thinking, Ideas, Laughing

  Source: www.seventeen.com

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• Although arguably, it's my job to dig deep whether I'm improvising or not. It's just their style. That's the way they feel like they get what they want. I mean, they're really good storytellers, so I love being in their hands.

  Amanda Peet

  Jobs, Mean, Love Is

  "Amanda Peet and Steve Zissis discuss what the second season holds for Togetherness". Interview with Gwen Ihnat, www.avclub.com. February 21, 2016.

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• I find myself improvising a lot. But, sometimes I'll come us with a chorus or just one line and it will sort of hang out for a long time before it get's flushed out into a real living song.

  Kate Brown

  Song, Real, Long

  Source: www.nerdprobs.com

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• No hawk swooping down upon his prey, no stag improvising new detours by which to trick the huntsman, no dog scenting game from afar is comparable in speed to the celerity of a salesman when he gets wind a deal, to his skill in tripping up or forestalling a rival, and to the art with which he sniffs out and discovers a possible sale.

  Honore de Balzac

  Dog, Art, Wind

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