Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, talking, creating artworks, problem solving, or reacting in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act. This invention cycle occurs most effectively when the practitioner has a thorough intuitive and technical understanding of the necessary skills and concerns within the improvised domain. Improvisation can be thought of as an "on the spot" or "off the cuff" spontaneous activity.

The skills of improvisation can apply to many different abilities or forms of communication and expression across all artistic, scientific, physical, cognitive, academic, and non-academic disciplines. For example, improvisation can make a significant contribution in music, dance, cooking, presenting a speech, sales, personal or romantic relationships, sports, flower arranging, martial arts, psychotherapy, and much more. Techniques of improvisation are widely trained in the entertainment arts; for example, music, theatre and dance. To "extemporize" or "ad lib" is basically the same as improvising. Colloquial terms such as "let's play it by the ear", "take it as it comes", and "make it up as we go along" are all used to describe "improvisation".

The simple act of speaking requires a good deal of improvisation because the mind is addressing its own thought and creating its unrehearsed delivery in words, sounds and gestures, forming unpredictable statements that feed back into the thought process (the performer as listener), creating an enriched process that is not unlike instantaneous composition .

Where the improvisation is intended to solve a problem on a temporary basis, the "proper" solution being unavailable at the time, it may be known as a stop-gap. This particularly applies to engineering improvisations.

Read more about Improvisation:  Music, Sculpture, Film, Television, Writing, Engineering, Improvised Weapons

Other articles related to "improvisation":

Ari Poutiainen - Musical Career
... His dissertation, Stringprovisation - A Fingering Strategy for Jazz Violin Improvisation, focuses on fingering, shifting, and position playing ... The study presents a unique fingering strategy that is targeted to formulaic modern jazz improvisation ... has been acknowledged as a groundbreaking achievement in the field of jazz violin improvisation technique, research, and pedagogy It gained outstanding peer-reviews ...
Stopgap
... Improvisation is the practice of acting, dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, talking, creating artworks, problem solving, or reacting in the moment and ... Improvisation can be thought of as an "on the spot" or "off the cuff" spontaneous activity ... The skills of improvisation can apply to many different abilities or forms of communication and expression across all artistic, scientific, physical ...
Stopgap - Theatre - Dance
... Dance improvisation as a choreographic tool Improvisation is used as a choreographic tool in dance composition ... Improvisation without inhibition allows the choreographer to connect to their deepest creative self, which in turn clears the way for pure invention ... Contact improvisation a form developed in 1973, that is now practiced around the world ...
Laptronica - Electroacoustic Improvisation
... Electroacoustic improvisation is a form of free improvisation that was originally referred to as live electronics ... British free improvisation group AMM, particularly their guitarist Keith Rowe, have also played a contributing role in bringing attention to the ... A variety of terms have been used to describe music associated with electroacoustic improvisation such as “lowercase” (a term coined by artist ...
Laptronica - Electroacoustic Improvisation - Characteristics
... Altena suggests that a defining characteristic of electroacoustic improvisation is its “anti-virtuoso” æsthetic, arguing that conventional instrumental techniques are rarely ... Electroacoustic improvisation sometimes differs significantly from music associated with the established free improvisation scene ... magazine, and referring to the "new school of electro-acoustic improvisation," critic Jeff Siegel writes, In case you are as yet not indoctrinated into this ...