Music: Improvisation

Improvisation and Jazz

Reading about improvisation had a closer impact and related more to my life than some of the other units we’ve looked at. I liked watching Victor Borge and Anton Kontra play an encore together of a song that Victor had never played before, only heard. This reminds me a lot of concerts or music festivals that I go to today and sometimes performers of two different genres will play together and learn each other’s music and have to use improvisation and it makes for a really great show. An example would be Snoop Dogg (hip-hop/rap) and Slightly Stoopid (mixture of acoustic rock, blues, and reggae) doing a tour together this summer and having to complement one another when playing.

I also liked learning about jazz and Louie Armstrong. The video we watched where it tried to show notes for what Louie Armstrong was playing was incredibly amazing because he played so fast and different that it’s hard to write music for other people to imitate him. I also like the comparison we read between the development of jazz music and our country politically because at the same time there were so many American developments in music and politics. Jazz definitely is an expression of American spirit and from traveling to New Orleans years ago I remember it having a lasting impression on me.