An Improvisational life
By Michael Keith
I recently had an epiphany: I have been an improviser all my life.
My earliest memories are of
spontaneously creating characters and settings for them to do things. Yes, I
suppose most of us did this -but most of us forget this. When I was about 10
years old I would make up my own melodies on a small electric organ my parents
had. I would do this for hours. Sometimes just a couple notes, back and forth,
back and forth -what joy! My parents became interested only when I mimicked part
of "Silent Night". They
got a teacher for me. He told what to do. YUCK. He was unimpressed with my
fiddling around on the keys. Why? I stopped the lessons.
I went back to my spontaneous adventure games. No one ever told me what
to do there.
At 13 I wanted a guitar.
I liked rock music and the people playing it looked like they were having fun. I
got an acoustic from the department store. I scratched at the strings, I pulled
at them, I struck them with other things, and I played with the tuners and so
on... tons of fun! NO.
This was not music I was told. You need direction. A few lessons in I
quit.
Years later the bug was back. I
was getting a little old (according to society) to play with imaginary friends
doing imaginary things, so I went back to the guitar. I worked at it like mad. I
got the basic chords and strumming together and now I was off. I began creating
my own instrumental pieces based on improvisation. I didn’t know that it was
improvising -I just knew that it felt right! "Play a song” everyone would
say. "Why?” I thought. Everybody does that. Sometimes to seek approval I
would compare my improvisations to recognizable things for people. "Here is
a train" I'd say, "here is a spider". My English teacher in high
school said I should try drama class to get this creative energy out. Why act?
I WAS getting it out.
Eventually I learned to
play guitar quite well. Lessons wouldn't work for me, only listening would. I
listened to everyone and everything. I
learned to play country, jazz, blues, rock, punk, funk, junk you name it. I
traveled and recorded quite a bit for a number of years but I wasn't happy. The
music was the same night after night. I
drank a lot –a real lot. After
about a year off and getting sober I discovered that there are so many other
players like me and I was amazed. When
I quit worrying about how to make ends meet with my music/gift it all seemed to
make sense.
I am so grateful, and
excited to be an improviser at this point in my life. I now enjoy playing music
that I disliked for a long time. I perform and record regularly now as an
improvising musician.
I teach guitar as well. I
inform my guitar students about the beauty of improvising freely. I tell them
that despite what some people may say, improvised music is traditional,
basically the first music on this planet. I see their eyes light up (in a
somewhat joyous disbelief) when I applaud them for sticking a piece of paper
under their strings or something…