IMPROV

(Scroll down for audio files.)

I’m passionate about improvisation, which was an integral part of the performance of what we now call “classical music,” dying out over the latter part of the nineteenth century and pretty much disappearing in the twentieth, until the early-music and aleatory movements brought it back (in very different ways).  Organists never stopped improvising, but when they do it well, you can’t tell it’s an improv and not a composition (and if you are not a church-goer, all the more reason to not know about that).  My writings on improvisation are found at www.classicalimprov.com.

The Wall Street Journal featured my DePauw improvisation students in the November 28, 2008 article Making Up the Classics.  “Few teachers take improvisation further than Eric Edberg, a professor of music at DePauw University, in Greencastle, Ind. . . . Prof. Edberg’s unorthodox coaching sessions begin with freestyle humming, sighing, babbling and finger-wiggling. Sometimes he turns off the lights and instructs students to play in the dark to hone their instincts. His students say it helps them develop their own musical voice.”

I have several videos on how to get started with free, self-expressive improvisation.

My own improvising is mostly freely atonal (often chaotic and angry) or laid-back and modal (or some mix of the two).  Here are five free improvisations (as in freely improvised;  they are also free downloads!).

Alone

Low Pizzicato

Fast and Furious

On “A”

Emphatically Dotted