Top 100 Quotes About Improvising
#1. They are pretty good at improvising, but God help us if they are given time to think. Dean Atchison
Robert Dallek
#2. I was improvising before I was reading music. I was just trying to play things on the clarinet by ear. I think my ear is one of my greatest assets.
Pete Fountain
#3. People have said to me for a long time, "Man you're funny." I say, "Well, I'm quick," but being funny on purpose, take after take - that's why I said for me it was new territory, and so by improvising something might come out that might be good. And it's film, so they can cut it if it isn't.
Denzel Washington
#4. Improvising things is always changing. A lot of momentum.
Ikue Mori
#5. I had always been more interested in playing and improvising than sitting down at a desk and writing out a piece. I'd always found it more fun to play, and the other a little bit tedious. I always had trouble with the decisions.
Terry Riley
#6. The challenge is, well, there's a huge challenge, which is when you're improvising, you're meant to sort of clear your mind completely, just be open and funny, and paying, you know, paying attention.
Brian Henson
#7. In one scene, when I was supposed to say, "In a pig's eye you are," what came out was, "In a pig's ass you are." Old habits die awfully hard.
Ava Gardner
#8. In many ways, I think it's easier in some ways, or it's more entertaining or more guaranteed to be entertaining than traditional improvising. Again, because you're not just you in your body.
Brian Henson
#9. Vianne had been improvising recipes for years, and people, to her mind, were not that much different than food. Both were highly predictable if you paid attention. First,
Kenley Davidson
#10. I write and rewrite and memorize, and then inject my performance with improvising and spontaneity, because if something feels too rehearsed, it's not going to be fun.
Andy Daly
#11. In life, sometimes everything falls into place, and sometimes everything just falls to pieces. The key is to begin creating with these fallen pieces. By improvising, you'll create something magical that might be the best thing you've ever accomplished
Tori Amos
#12. Yes, for me audio-visual performance has its roots in my experience working as an improvising musician and composer.
Kurt Ralske
#13. 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.
John C. Reilly
#14. There are certain actors who are very good at improvising, like Dustin Hoffman and Glenda Jackson.
John Schlesinger
#15. I remember as a kid, I was improvising and making little trophies out of different materials and going in front of the mirror, lifting the trophies and saying 'Nole was the champion!'
Novak Djokovic
#16. Although arguably, it's my job to dig deep whether I'm improvising or not. It's just their style. That's the way they feel like they get what they want. I mean, they're really good storytellers, so I love being in their hands.
Amanda Peet
#17. I smile back at her. "I must be stronger than I look." "All women are," my doctor adds while scrutinizing the womaniest part of me, improvising a pattern upon which to seam the torn pieces and hem the jagged edges. Clint
Hope Jahren
#18. If you're improvising with Paul Reiser, man, you'd better hold on tight!
Daniel Stern
#19. There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.
Wynton Marsalis
#20. The concept of clearing one's mind before performing a task so that it is consumed by nothing but that task, yet is open at the same time to anything that might happen - that concept can be applied to playing guitar, and it's enormously helpful for improvising.
Kirk Hammett
#21. My favorite dish is cleaning out the fridge on Sunday night and improvising a great medley.
Matthew McConaughey
#22. I think there are dozens or hundreds of different forms of creativity. Pondering science and math problems for years is different from improvising jazz. Something which seems to me remarkable is how unconscious the creative process is. You encounter a problem, but can't solve it.
Oliver Sacks
#23. 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.
John Abercrombie
#24. I think when people talk about improvising it turns into this silly thing like, "Oh there's like a hula hoop there and I'm like 'Oh what's going on here? Is this a really big ring?'"
Aziz Ansari
#26. 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.
Ioan Gruffudd
#27. 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.
Alan Arkin
#28. Our domestic lives reflect the major trend that dominates the consumer marketplace today: an ever-increasing emphasis on variety and choice ... we find ourselves inventing our lives as we go along, improvising in an effort to take advantage of the bewildering range of choices that we face.
Sally Helgesen
#29. In my case, I am improvising with existing sound files. I use an MSP patch that a friend of mine made, and you have to improvise when you use this patch. I don't use a guitar in performance anymore.
Christian Fennesz
#30. Where is this conversation going?" Because she wanted to finish it, strip him naked, and finally get him where she'd always wanted him. Oddly, a heart shaped bed was never in her fantasies, but she was okay with improvising.
Jennifer L. Armentrout
#31. If you do improvising, it can sometimes end up being a waste of time. And if you do that, it's more or less based on a writing process.
Giovanni Ribisi
#32. You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It's very structured, but it's all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know.
Mike Leigh
#33. I wouldn't want the pressure of a Six Feet Under or the pressure of improvising like Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Robert Englund
#34. Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I'd always go off book and start improvising.
Billy Crystal
#35. 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.
Harland Williams
#36. I grew up in the funk, rock and roll, blues and r&b tradition, and I came to this thing we call jazz later. And I came to improvise music from the standpoint of jazz; I was improvising, but within these other genres of music.
Hamid Drake
#37. We're improvising a lot of this, which amazes people.
Tom Bergeron
#38. The main thing about improvising is listening so if something happens that wasn't expected and you know your character, you know what has to happen in this scene, you can react to that in a way that's honest and it might take you in a different direction to go to the same place.
Vince Vaughn
#39. I love improvising on the spot. I like that pressure.
Lauren Lapkus
#40. Normally when I'm writing, in the beginning I don't think of lyrics at all. I'm just improvising.
St. Lucia
#41. There's something very edgy about Bill Murray out there improvising.
Harold Ramis
#42. I found the recording sessions very freeing because you can really try things. When you're filming something, if you're improvising a film and you're wasting film and wasting a cameraman's time.
Tina Fey
#43. I think initially it's terrifying because going into a show where, you know, "Oh, I'm going to be on stage for two hours, I have no lines to memorize, I have nothing really prepared," and actually I say that, the show is not all improvising.
Brian Henson
#44. I think of improvising as composing - fo me it's all about playing melodies. When I improvise, there's not a lot of real thinking going on, per se - it's more like riding a wave. and I know how to stand on the board
Robben Ford
#45. I'm an improviser at heart, when I'm writing, I'm improvising in my head. When you're an improviser on stage, you can never be precious about anything, you can't control what anyone else is going to do. The best stuff comes out of moments of inspiration that spontaneously happen.
Scot Armstrong
#46. I'm improvising all the time. Everything I do is improvised. On the piano, at least.
Mose Allison
#48. My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music; it's our music.
John Zorn
#49. 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.
David Walliams
#50. When we were making Speaking in Tongues and Remain in Light, we were jamming. From that we were taking the best bits and then recording and improvising on top of those.
Tina Weymouth
#51. No goal is impossible. Some things simply take more effort, more time, and more improvising that others.
T.C. McMullen
#52. 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
#53. 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.
David Sanborn
#54. No, improvising is wonderful. But, the thing is that you cannot improvise unless you know exactly what you're doing.
Christopher Walken
#55. The idea of just improvising and riffing can sometimes be at the expense of story.
Jim Rash
#56. I've always loved improvising. That's how I write songs. Creativity has an improvised element to it.
Jamie Lidell
#57. I find myself improvising a lot. But, sometimes I'll come us with a chorus or just one line and it will sort of hang out for a long time before it get's flushed out into a real living song ...
Kate Brown
#58. 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.
Jane Siberry
#59. 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
#61. When you're improvising, it's fun to find something that you can lean on that is similar to your life experience. In my opinion, that's very helpful.
Mark Duplass
#62. When I worked with Robin Williams, now there is improv! He is just as funny as you think he is. We did at least five or six takes of every scene, improvising every scene differently. He was a riot.
Stephen Root
#63. Most of the time, it seemed as if the piece was fully formed in his mind. He was not one for improvising. It was more a question of executing something he saw in a flash.
Patti Smith
#65. If you're onstage and you're improvising and nothing's happening, people are racing for the door. But the director can go shopping later and pick up pieces and moments and insert them.
Gary Cole
#66. I anticipated all the changes in jazz because they were all problematical things, that I was dealing with myself. In New York in the late '50s, there were a lot of experiments being made on how to avoid playing popular standards and how to get improvising out of those constricting formats.
Paul Bley
#67. 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.
Jillian Bell
#68. The planet isn't improvising, it's creating dynamic tensions between complex living systems in a planetary choreography, a balancing act between physical, chemical, biological, environmental, and human components.
DJ Spooky
#69. When I joined the band I was coming largely from an improvising background, and the idea of a fluid rhythm that was really coherent attracted me.
John Dieterich
#70. Boxing is a lot of preparation and then improvising, so there are parallels to being an actor.
Seth Numrich
#71. 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.
Dule Hill
#72. 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
#73. When Indian musicians play a raga it's very restrictive. But, in a way these restraints are essential to liberate yourself through them, if that makes sense. I'm very much of this school of rhythm, it's the direction I'm drawn in when I'm writing and improvising.
John McLaughlin
#74. Writing is improvising sitting down. K.B.Brege
K.B. Brege
#75. I love being onstage. I love the relationship with the audience. I love the letting go, the sense of discovery, the improvising.
Stephen Colbert
#76. I don't even think you should tell the audience you're improvising. It's like an apology in case it's bad : 'we're just making it up' If the improv isn't better than the rehearsed stuff, then you should just rehearse it.
Keith Johnstone
#77. My school life was very much a wandering experience. I was having trouble in school and I was not making a lot of friends. So coming home and actually improvising on the piano and just coming up with melodies was an escape for me.
Josh Groban
#78. Ah, you coward! Look at you, running." "Actually, it's called improvising.
Jonathan Stroud
#79. My younger brother and I have been writing together, mainly for fun, for years, but we've been improvising together since we were kids. Literally.
Ty Burrell
#80. 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.
John Darnielle
#81. Symphony musicians are not trained in improvising, certainly not in a jazz style.
Gunther Schuller
#82. I love food and am very good at improvising when preparing it - it's a really creative experience for me.
Autumn Reeser
#83. 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
#84. I think that if you're improvising on TV, it's a great way to help the dialogue between actors and writers.
Zach Woods
#85. While you're improvising, you may come up with something which will break him up. As soon as that smile comes out, you know that, hey, we're having fun.
Shelley Berman
#86. First of all, you're improvising through a puppet, so you're not always yourself: you're a cow or you're a pig or you're an old woman, you know, whatever puppet you pick, or you're a demon, you know, whatever you pick up, that's what you get to be in the scene.
Brian Henson
#87. 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
#88. That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
Twyla Tharp
#89. I did a smaller gig with an acoustic guitar and a drum machine. In one song, something wrong happened with the drum machine. I tried to cover up the mistake by playing faster and improvising a new song but it became crazy, and I had to admit it was all a mess.
Violante Placido
#90. If you have a child, you're improvising with rules all day long, and some of them are total lies.
Sarah Jessica Parker
#91. 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.
Bill Hader
#92. Growing up playing jazz and improvising has had a big impact on me, and it translates into my music.
Stephen Bruner
#93. I don't think there's an improvised word in the movie. I hope not because I admire writing. Improvising is kind of gambling. It's just that you're standing up.
Bill Nighy
#94. 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
#95. The old dictum is that "no plan survives first contact with the enemy," and the special-ops team is already regrouping and improvising a new plan. He hears the sharp, disciplined fire
Don Winslow
#96. I knew I was going to be composing. It all makes sense in retrospect. But you don't know while you're in the process of improvising your life.
William Bolcom
#97. I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.
John Ratzenberger
#98. As much as I think John Coltrane belongs on the list, I think without Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, both of whom defined improvising on the tenor sax, there would not have been the evolution of the craft by John Coltrane.
Herbie Mann
#99. Think it a vile habit to alter works of good composers, to omit parts of them, or to insert new-fashioned ornaments. This is the greatest insult you can offer to Art.
Robert Schumann
#100. Shamanic healing is a journey. It involves stepping out of our habitual roles, our conventional scripts, and improvising a dancing path.
Gabrielle Roth
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top