Improvisation Quotes

With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.

There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It's an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It's a unit.

My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music; it's our music.

I never know what it's going to look like. Wouldn't be much point in painting if I already knew the outcome. I have a subject in front of me and I start flooding colour and making marks, I don't know, it's improvisation isn't it?

If it's a modern-day story dealing with certain ethnic groups, I think I could open up certain scenes for improvisation, while staying within the structure of the script.

I like films that are well-written and concise and with not a lot of room for improvisation.

As you know from reading many of these Negro writers, we don't deal too much with the discussion of democracy and what it means and how improvisation fits in all that.

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.

The music of the Gypsies belongs in the sphere of improvisation rather than in any other, without which it would have no power to exist.

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.

Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.

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.

All of the material for 'The Fine Line' was created via improvisation with my partner, but not in front of an audience. We'd continue to refine it in front of an audience based on their responses until it was set and scripted.

I love improvisation.

Acting is really scary, but it's also challenging, fun, hard work. There's always an element of improvisation with every actor, even when something is really scripted.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it's about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you'll never do it this way twice. I've studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

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.

All you're trying to do in an improvisation is get as much material as possible for the editing room.

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

I continued studying by myself in the field of jazz with my own technique of improvisation, walking bass lines, rhythms, all kinds of stuff, which I created for myself.

Improvisation is a compositional method.

We did very little improvisation on camera, and once in a while we did.

Improvisation is terribly haphazard.

There are a lot of visual marks that have to be hit, and lines that need to be said in a right way - so there wasn't really any improvisation on the set when it came to the bulk of the script.

Out of 30 years of Second City I was probably the third African-American with the main stage cast. I was surprised when I first heard that. I think part of the reason that improvisation has never been popular with African-Americans is that it isn't popular in the inner cities.

The shortest feedback loop I can think of is doing improvisation in front of an audience.

My father was king of the guidebooks and our holidays were always planned, taking us from a great gallery to an ace cafe to a beautiful view. And as an actor, I loathe improvisation because there's no structure and no one knows what's going on.

Much of what happens in Love Always is really from overheard conversations in the Russian Tea Room. It's an improvisation of the way certain Hollywood agents think and talk to each other.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.