Improvisation In Music

Us humans have the innate ability to categorize everything. We categorize the colors we see, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the people we meet, the music we hear, I mean we basically do it to everything. By categorizing/classifying/assorting we are able to process objects and illuminate a relationship with that object, helping us create certain thought and reaction that enable us to survive. One of the things that I find really interesting is how our brain classifies different genres of music. Our brain uses many different methods to distinguish certain genres, such as, paying attention to the different instruments played, noticing the tempo of a song, analyzing the beats per minute, listening to the rhythm, ect. Most genres have certain …show more content…
The idea of improvisations originated from slave songs. During the time of slavery, African-American slaves would sing in order to express themselves. Many of their songs would be modeled by a call and response structure. The leader of the song would sing a line and the group would sing back. This concept becomes an important component in improvisation. When learning to improvise, musicians use the call and response technique. By responding to another musicians improvisation, a “student” can learn the basics and feel comfortable incorporating their “teachers” technique with their own technique which they attain through practice and emotion. Improvisation is like having a conversation with someone, it is music’s language. In a conversation, a person talks and the other listens, when the person is done talking the other person thinks of a response. Improvisation is just like that. When a musician improvises, the music sparks an emotion and the musician needs to then formulate what he wants to say with his own instrument. The musician imagines a note in his head, then plays it. This process has to happen in a very short amount of time in order for the improvisation to be a success. Each musician has his or her own sound and improvisation techniques that they harness through emotion. Although important, an instrument is not the key component of a song, an instrument does not define one artist from …show more content…
How does our brain make Jazz, Jazz? There aren’t any rules, any restrictions, no specific instruments and sound, no certain rhythm, it 's really vague. What makes Jazz what it is, is its ability to invoke emotion, its ability to improvise thoughts through sound, it’s performers techniques. All performers have different styles, different stories, and their differences make the genre of music such a fascinating one. Just listening to one song a person can feel happiness, anger, sadness, anxiety, confusion, enlightenment. Jazz isn’t a genre of music it 's a conversation, it 's a form of language, and that what makes it into the rebel of culture and