Did you learn to read and write?  

If so, could you talk before that?  

Just the simple action of everyday conversation involves improvisation. You learned improvisation as an integral part of language usage. You learned how to do it as you learned how to communicate. You spent hours every day, you practiced everyday of the year, year after year. You learned one word and practiced it over and over, said it again and again, got rewards for saying it right, then another word, then both words together (mommy daddy) . Then just kept on practicing while receiving this incredible amount of instruction and positive feedback. Sure, some people can use the language more eloquently(Think Shakespeare), but all of us are pretty good language improvisors. We carry on all kinds of conversations, making up what needs to be said right on the spot! Enough already got the point! 

Improvisation, you, of course, now take that skill for granted. 

So maybe (most likely) you have not spent that ridiculous amount of time and energy with music learning. (Some people have!) So maybe you can improvise with music notes and chords and rhythm about like a 3 year old so hey What's wrong with that? You string a couple of chords together, get a note in here and there and put it into some kind of steady time. Hey why not memorize the thing, play it over and over, give it a name and call it a song that you've written. Wow congratulations! You are now a composer. Just like the praise you most likely received after composing and speaking (playing) your first own/made-up complete sentence. 

Ok, so maybe you can't just throw around words live like some high school trained debate team student or college trained politician or some radical talk show host. And maybe you are not as creative with the words like Shakespeare was. Likewise with music maybe you can't just throw around musical sounds live like a jazz musician or a jam band jammer. And maybe you are not as creative as Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. (Who, by the way, were all incredible improvisors.) But you may not have put in the same amount of time and energy toward those skills. Also, of course, some people have a bit more of a gift than others. But still almost everybody can put a few words together and throw them around. 

OK, now some words from a few different angles. 

Music Improvisation “ Acoustical Space time signals with sources from both preconceived ideas, and unknown positions.  

While playing music freely improvising sound, the spell is so easily broken by doing. Then the mind so easily falls into making judgements. Then playing is more than just hearing, listening and enjoying. It is making conscience decisions.  

While riding that wave of full potential where all directions and choices are possible become that which you are expressing at one with the sounds unconcerned with how well you are doing. Then time becomes the master of space suspended. Trapped here/now, held hostage, hooked on the harmony in perfect timing with every beat.  

Then mind makes a conscious artistic creative choice, and that wave of full potential collapses. We are left experiencing the solid, the slow life of low energy and potential, of mass and finite distances where the gravity of culture takes hold of the music.  

We are both cursed and blessed with this existence where our knowledge and technique, our craft can become as an extension of our will, which then allows one to venture out but then we contemplate this awareness and consciousness. Creating a birth and death cycle of earthly time where past and future have meaning and the music allows us to steal it's soul, it's truth, and it's power.  

The never ending potential, has given up an existence of infinite possibilities. Mind now uses cleverness and craftsmanship and creates Art.  

Now sound is only a slave to be used in our service. The musical power, truth and soul easily exploited. Music no longer wild, free, and magical; but tamed and magical.  

And still..we love the sounds!  

-Stan Hirsch