One of the big things I remember learning about while taking lessons for music was the concept of improvisation. The idea of improvisation is that you aren’t really supposed to know what it is you’re going to play next. Pure improvisation is probably a tad weird because there would be no rhyme or reason to anything you’d play. It would be playing strictly for the sake of playing. I remember being told the best way to learn would be to sit in a dark room with another musician. Each would take turns playing chords and the other would improvise a melody over the top of them. The idea of being in a dark room is so that you can’t see your hands. Thus you would be more inclined to rely on your ear to tell you if you’re hitting good notes.
Most improvisation is actually like canned practice. Meaning you would practice certain ideas, scales, runs, motifs etc. Then while you’re playing over a chord progression you would string those ideas together in a fashion that would make sense over the chords. Thus its not really pure improvisation, but rather practiced improvisation.
In life, there are times where you have to improvise at work, or play, or whatever. Mainly when something happens beyond your control. To me that’s the true test of human creativity when you have to improvise to get to an outcome. Improvising doesn’t mean you’ll always succeed, however, the more you do it, the better you get.
Today’s song is apparently something created from an improvisation. Thus you’re not going to get a real commercial feel out of it. I think what impressed me about it is that it’s part of an entire album that was improvised. To me that would take serious balls to create and then release. The motif behind the improvisation is the Apollo Moon landing. It was apparently created that day.
Since I’m feeling like I’m gonna have to switch into full improvisation mode before the end of the month in order to keep my sanity over my situation with getting out on tour, I’m going to pass that feeling on to you. Remember, it’s a full album of improvisation, all about the Apollo Moon landing. It may get spacey in parts as well it should. The moon is in outer space. Close your eyes and take a journey.