Businesses are sending their top managers to improvisational classes to learn how to give presentations, how to talk to clients, and how to finesse difficult situations. But those same skills can be mastered with the help of the simple and fun exercises found in this book. The authors explain how improvisation comes into play in our daily lives, and the rewards of taking risks in those situations. Improvise This! is filled with true-to-life business scenarios and offers methods for not only surviving but triumphing in those situations, making this a valuable and entertaining resource.
Every day we deal with the unplanned and the unexpected, from a broken toaster to losing (or gaining) a major client. Our natural ability to adapt and improvise gets us through. But we feel as if we're winging it, rather than acting with courage and conviction. Robert Poynton teaches his acclaimed method to some of the world's biggest brands and companies. Now, he shows us how these improvisational skills can be applied to the everyday business of work and life. Newly updated, Do Improvise will help you to navigate the obstacles life throws at you, and recognise that uncertainty can be enjoyed, rather than endured. You will: -Become more productive without trying harder -Overcome creative blocks and generate new ideas -Respond fluidly to events beyond your control -Realise that you don't have to know everything Not sure what to do next? Improvise.
Improvise for Real is a step-by-step method that teaches you to improvise your own music through progressive exercises that anyone can do. You'll learn to understand the sounds in the music all around you. And you'll learn to express your own musical ideas exactly as you hear them in your mind. The method starts with very simple creative exercises that you can begin right away. As you progress, the method leads you on a guided tour through the entire world of modern harmony. You will be improvising your own original melodies from the very first day, and your knowledge will expand with each practice session as you explore and discover our musical system for yourself. Improvise for Real brings together creativity, ear training, music theory and physical technique into a single creative daily practice that will show you the entire path to improvisation mastery. You will learn to understand the sounds in the music all around you and to improvise with confidence over jazz standards, blues songs, pop music or any other style you would like to play. And you'll be jamming, enjoying yourself and creating your own music every step of the way. The method is open to all instruments and ability levels. The exercises are easy to understand and fun to practice. There is no sight reading required, and you don't need to know anything about music theory to begin. Already being used by both students and teachers in more than 20 countries, Improvise for Real is now considered by many people to be the definitive system for learning to improvise. If you have always dreamed of truly understanding music and being able to improvise with complete freedom on your instrument, this is the book for you
On December 4, 1957, Miles Davis revolutionized film soundtrack production, improvising the score for Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’échafaud. A cinematic harbinger of the French New Wave, Ascenseur challenged mainstream filmmaking conventions, emphasizing experimentation and creative collaboration. It was in this environment during the late 1950s to 1960s, a brief “golden age” for jazz in film, that many independent filmmakers valued improvisational techniques, featuring soundtracks from such seminal figures as John Lewis, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington. But what of jazz in film today? Improvising the Score: Rethinking Modern Film Music through Jazz provides an original, vivid investigation of innovative collaborations between renowned contemporary jazz artists and prominent independent filmmakers. The book explores how these integrative jazz-film productions challenge us to rethink the possibilities of cinematic music production. In-depth case studies include collaborations between Terence Blanchard and Spike Lee (Malcolm X, When the Levees Broke), Dick Hyman and Woody Allen (Hannah and Her Sisters), Antonio Sánchez and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman), and Mark Isham and Alan Rudolph (Afterglow). The first book of its kind, this study examines jazz artists’ work in film from a sociological perspective, offering rich, behind-the-scenes analyses of their unique collaborative relationships with filmmakers. It investigates how jazz artists negotiate their own “creative labor,” examining the tensions between improvisation and the conventionally highly regulated structures, hierarchies, and expectations of filmmaking. Grounded in personal interviews and detailed film production analysis, Improvising the Score illustrates the dynamic possibilities of integrative artistic collaborations between jazz, film, and other contemporary media, exemplifying its ripeness for shaping and invigorating twenty-first-century arts, media, and culture.
Improvisation is an art of spontaneity, freedom and impulse. Audiences the world over flock to shows where anything could happen! But lurking at the heart of many companies that perform it is a contradiction, a bait and switch. Students who sign up for classes are taught 'The Rules': the strictly right and wrong way to play make-believe. How the hell did that happen?Patti Stiles is an actor, improvisor, director, teacher and playwright who has worked professionally in theatre since 1983. In Improvise Freely, she turns 'The Rules' of improvising on their head and shows that there is another way. Is it okay to ask questions? Why do we Who? What? Where? And what if it's time to say 'No thanks' to 'Yes And'?
DIV“An entertaining education on leadership, creativity, business and getting ahead of your competition . . . your career will never be the same.” —The Edge, PRSA blog This year alone, 3.2 million U.S. students will graduate from college. Unprecedented percentages of them will move back home, and many will be unable to obtain a job in their fields of study. Improvise is an inspiring story of how Fred Cook followed an unusual yet fascinating path from young adulthood to the corner office as CEO of the award-winning PR firm GolinHarris. Melding learnings from a lifetime of uncommon experiences with insights from a surprisingly successful corporate career, this book will inspire workers mired in indecision and dimly lit prospects. Following college, Cook was initiated into the business world through a dozen odd jobs, each of which provided valuable insights into the business world and the understanding of how to make the most of even the smallest opportunity. Each chapter delivers a bold truth, supported by relevant episodes from Cook’s personal life and reinforced by his encounters with corporate America. Filled with colorful anecdotes about being punched by a guru, stalked by an intern, and lectured by Steve Jobs, Improvise is full of hilarious yet poignant moments. “Fred is a legend in the PR business . . . [Improvise] is immensely fun and engaging.” —Forbes “An offbeat career guide for new college graduates.” —Parade “Fred shares the street smarts he gained from a lifetime of uncommon experiences to educate and inspire others who are trying to find their own way in the business world.” —Execunet.com“/DIV>
Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment teaches fundamental concepts of jazz improvisation, highlighting the development of performance skills through embellishment techniques. Written with the college-level course in mind, this introductory textbook is both practical and comprehensive, ideal for the aspiring improviser, focused not on scales and chords but melodic embellishment. It assumes some basic theoretical knowledge and level of musicianship while introducing multiple techniques, mindful that improvisation is a learned skill as dependent on hard work and organized practice as it is on innate talent. This jargon-free textbook can be used in both self-guided study and as a course book, fortified by an array of interactive exercises and activities: musical examples performance exercises written assignments practice grids resources for advanced study and more! Nearly all musical exercises--presented throughout the text in concert pitch and transposed in the appendices for E-flat, B-flat, and bass clef instruments--are accompanied by backing audio tracks, available for download via the Routledge catalog page along with supplemental instructor resources such as a sample syllabus, PDFs of common transpositions, and tutorials for gear set-ups. With music-making at its core, Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment implores readers to grab their instruments and play, providing musicians with the simple melodic tools they need to "jazz it up."
More than a quarter-century after his death, James Baldwin remains an unparalleled figure in American literature and African American cultural politics. In Who Can Afford to Improvise? Ed Pavlić offers an unconventional, lyrical, and accessible meditation on the life, writings, and legacy of James Baldwin and their relationship to the lyric tradition in black music, from gospel and blues to jazz and R&B. Based on unprecedented access to private correspondence, unpublished manuscripts and attuned to a musically inclined poet’s skill in close listening, Who Can Afford to Improvise? frames a new narrative of James Baldwin’s work and life. The route retraces the full arc of Baldwin’s passage across the pages and stages of his career according to his constant interactions with black musical styles, recordings, and musicians. Presented in three books — or movements — the first listens to Baldwin, in the initial months of his most intense visibility in May 1963 and the publication of The Fire Next Time. It introduces the key terms of his lyrical aesthetic and identifies the shifting contours of Baldwin’s career from his early work as a reviewer for left-leaning journals in the 1940s to his last published and unpublished works from the mid-1980s. Book II listens with Baldwin and ruminates on the recorded performances of Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington, singers whose message and methods were closely related to his developing world view. It concludes with the first detailed account of “The Hallelujah Chorus,” a performance from July 1, 1973, in which Baldwin shared the stage at Carnegie Hall with Ray Charles. Finally, in Book III, Pavlić reverses our musically inflected reconsideration of Baldwin’s voice, projecting it into the contemporary moment and reading its impact on everything from the music of Amy Winehouse, to the street performances of Turf Feinz, and the fire of racial oppression and militarization against black Americans in the 21st century. Always with an ear close to the music, and avoiding the safe box of celebration, Who Can Afford to Improvise? enables a new kind of “lyrical travel” with the instructive clarity and the open-ended mystery Baldwin’s work invokes into the world.
Renowned improv instructor and award-winning director Mick Napier has been at the heart of the professional improvisation community for more than 25 years. The first edition of Improvise. quickly earned its position as necessary reading for improv students across the country and around the world and gave birth to a new generation of performers who questioned "The Rules" of improvisation. This expanded and revised edition has a new foreword by The Late Show host Stephen Colbert, additional advice and tips for success, and a full reproduction of Mick Napier's web journal from his time directing the famous show Paradigm Lost for The Second City that included Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, and Kevin Dorff. In this entertaining and incredibly informative book, Napier will teach you the essentials of... --Why "The Rules" don't matter --How to take care of yourself in a scene --Using context to your advantage --Effective two-person scenes --Balanced large-cast scenes --Successful auditioning --Solo exercises you can practice at home
