My projet : Improvisation

My project will be about improvisation.

I'm a musician and I play mostly jazz and free improvisation ("free" meaning that we can play any note we want at any time, without thinking about whether it will sound good or bad with the notes that the other musicians are playing. It is a kind of discussion between musicians (or non-musicians (see "SoundPainting")). So I'll be interested in learning more about improvisation in music.

But I'm also interested in how improvisation takes place in everything. There's improvisation in theater ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTqeVUpcK3k ), in movies (there's a film with Vincent Gallo where almost every dialogue was improvised, I'll try to remember the name), in art, in everyday life...

I'll try to see how one can improvise — how does a musician know he wants to play a C (Do) and not a C sharp (Do#) or a D (Re)? What can one do to guide these improvisations? (In jazz there's a written melody at the beginning of a tune, then there are written chords and we improvise on that base, in theater there is usually a given theme..) I'll also try to answer the question, "What concretely is improvisation?"  (John Zorn and other musicians describe improvisation as "instantaneous composition"...).

Julien