But one of the things I learned from improvising is that all of life is an improvisation, whether you like it or not. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century came out of people dropping things.
Alan Arkin
I don't like improvising on camera, particularly, but very often, a scene will not be working, and you rehearse it once or twice, and you realize something's missing. So I'll play with it until it makes sense.
All improv turns into anger. All comedy improv basically turns into anger, because that's all people know how to do when they're improvising. If you notice shows that are improvising are generally people yelling at each other.
Albert Brooks
There are very few actors who are truly good at improvising; that's a real skill.
Alex Kurtzman
If the same phrase in the same place created the right effect, I was perfectly prepared to use it every time. I wasn't worried that I wasn't improvising.
Alexis Korner
I love food and am very good at improvising when preparing it - it's a really creative experience for me.
Autumn Reeser
Jazz vision is the fusion of music and art a real paradox of same-yet different. Here we play in exchanges, like the hardness of the key of c# major and from the softness of Db major - capturing, reflecting and improvising.
Barbara Januszkiewicz
When I do the roles, when I'm in the room and auditioning, I'll ask the director if they're cool with me adding stuff, or just improvising while we're doing it. And I would say, like, 90 percent of the time, they say, 'Absolutely.'
Ben Schwartz
Yeah, improvising only really works 100% when you're with somebody.
Bill Hader
In the U.S., it's like, you start with a great script, and then on set - not everybody, but definitely in the Apatow group - you go off, and you're improvising on camera. So while you're on camera, you're saying things that no one else has ever heard before during the actual take.
Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I'd always go off book and start improvising.
Billy Crystal
Every day, you have to make three hours of music, just randomly improvising, and that's a great way to weed stuff out.
Caroline Shaw
When you're writing, you're putting thought into what you want to express, and then you come up with it - it comes to you. When you're improvising, it's the same thing. You're writing. You just say it out loud right then, instead of saying, 'You think this might work?'
Catherine O'Hara
The Chili Peppers do a lot of improvising, but it's within the framework of song structures. The Meatbats is from a purely instrumental standpoint. But when you hear the term 'instrumental music' you think it's real serious stuff and everybody's playing a million notes and it's about playing fast. That's not what we do.
Chad Smith
I think it's very important to live in the present. One of the great things that improvising teaches you is the magic of the moment that you're in because, when you improvise, you're in right now. You're not in yesterday or tomorrow - you're right in the moment.
Charlie Haden
Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of a performance liberty, you're making a compositional choice. I don't know a serious performer who hasn't made compositional decisions, who hasn't engaged in the art of composition.
Chris Thile
I came up with a 'forecasting cell,' which is basically a mixed intention cell or chord that is a complete hybrid of a consonance and a dissonance, and what that does when you are improvising is lead you to where you are supposed to go.
Christian Scott
Improvising is wonderful. But, the thing is that you cannot improvise unless you know exactly what you're doing. That's a kind of paradoxical thing about improvising.
Christopher Walken
No, improvising is wonderful. But, the thing is that you cannot improvise unless you know exactly what you're doing.
When I'm on stage, it's a little world I've created where I'm sort of the thing, so I have total control over everything that happens. When we're improvising, I'm with someone I totally trust. I know things are going to work out. I don't have those guarantees in life. There are no consequences on stage.
Colin Mochrie
We have home movies of Chris playing the piano with Will on his lap. One of the things that made my life so full was putting Will to bed and hearing Chris downstairs improvising.
If you're improvising with Paul Reiser, man, you'd better hold on tight!
Jazz music should be inclusive. Smooth jazz to me rules out a certain kind of drama and a certain tension that I think all music needs. Especially jazz music, since improvising is one of the cornerstones of what jazz is. And when you smooth it out, you take all the drama out of it.
I don't have a fear factor. Well, not much of one. And I'm willing to risk quite a lot - as a comedian, you're always risking a lot. You're risking failure, especially if you're improvising and going on TV shows trying to make comedy out of thin air. That is quite a risky business.
When you're improvising, you connect with people in a way you don't in normal life, strangely.
It was a shock to my system leaving 'The West Wing' and going to 'Psych.' I remember being like, 'What are you doing?' when James Roday first started improvising. Steve and the writing staff write it that way. They leave gaps.
In improvising, you've got your scale; you've got the notes that are going to sound good with other notes, the intervals that are going to sound good. But you've also got all the chromatic possibilities, the possibilities of sounding dissident, of being unexpected.
I'm used to doing independent film where the style is a lot more casual. With improvising, you obviously find so much out on the day - and in a way, I feel more comfortable doing that.
While you are improvising, you need to be prepared, and I like to have a sense of who the character is, what she likes to read, where she grew up, where we went to school, and what she has for breakfast, so that when I go to set, I'm free to explore.
Certainly one of the more common experiences in the jazz field is discovering someone new. Improvising musicians are capable of being musical travelers, voyagers. We want to join in on whatever we hear. There is a freedom to wander the musical landscape.
I stopped being interested in improvisation, and I continue to not be that interested in it. Comedians can do it on a different level because they have a goal, but if you're improvising something that's dramatic, there's not that much to be good at.
In 'There's Something About Mary' and 'Dumb & Dumber,' I ended up improvising quite a bit of my scenes, and later I didn't even remember what I'd said because I just winged it. When I went and saw the movie, I was as stunned as everyone else was.
Improvising things is always changing. A lot of momentum.
I know there are some actors who are just brilliant at improvising and brilliant at just being in the moment and doing it there and then. I'm not one of those actors.
I was put through piano lessons when I was a kid. I say 'put through' because it was fun and I loved it, and it's been beneficial now, but it was difficult because, although I can read music, I much prefer just playing and improvising and at least finding my own way to play an instrument.
Truth of the matter is, jazz is American music. And that doesn't mean bebop. Jazz is really about improvising. All the music that's been created in America has been pretty much improvised... Whether it's hillbilly or rock n' roll for blues, it's basically jazz music... It's basically about another way of hearing what comes out of America.
When we were doing 'Freaks and Geeks', I didn't quite understand how movies and TV worked, and I would improvise even if the camera wasn't on me. I thought I was helping the other actors by keeping them on their toes, but nobody appreciated it when I would trip them up. So I was improvising a little bit back then, but not in a productive way.
Improvising political dialogue is not easy.
I had such a broad array of classes, in improvising, in clowning, in Shakespeare. It was so great to just be inundated with all that.
Maybe a part of me recognized how right the improvising spirit of jazz is. Not the sounds, but the freedom to work with musicians who work that way. It felt very natural to me, but I think there's a way to do it without it being a jazz record.
These actors like Danny McBride and Jonah Hill are so good at improvising, and when they do it, it's this fun moment for the audience. It makes them feel like they're watching something fresh and new.
The idea of just improvising and riffing can sometimes be at the expense of story.
Very early on, I started improvising. I was more interested in the music that came out of me than any music I heard.
When we improvise freely - that is, without a structure - it tends to sound more like 20th century classical music, more like a classical ensemble improvising, as opposed to a free-jazz group, where you're more used to hearing saxophones honking.
You're just sort of searching for this 'thing' and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't. All music is imperfect, but in jazz since you're improvising, at least the way I play, I'm trying to follow my train of thought in a solo.
I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet.
Even if you're improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure.
Sometimes I'll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I'll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story in it, I'll try and tease it out and figure out where the story is going.
I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.
There are certain actors who are very good at improvising, like Dustin Hoffman and Glenda Jackson.
