The Philosophy of Improvisation

by Gary Peters

Improvisation is usually either lionized as an ecstatic experience of being in the moment or disparaged as the thoughtless recycling of clichés. Eschewing both of these orthodoxies, The Philosophy of Improvisation ranges across the arts—from music to theater, dance to comedy—and considers the improvised dimension of philosophy itself in order to elaborate an innovative concept of improvisation.

            Gary Peters turns to many of the major thinkers within continental philosophy—including Heidegger, Nietzsche, Adorno, Kant, Benjamin, and Deleuze—offering readings of their reflections on improvisation and exploring improvisational elements within their thinking. Peters’s wry, humorous style offers an antidote to the frequently overheated celebration of freedom and community that characterizes most writing on the subject. Expanding the field of what counts as improvisation, The Philosophy of Improvisation will be welcomed by anyone striving to comprehend the creative process.

Genres: Philosophy, Music

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Jargon freezes over the substance of thinking, entrapping it in a complexity that is as distracting as it is unproductive," says Gary Peters.

At times, I wish he had directed his own insight back at his text. A book with some tremendously interesting and illuminating ideas about improvisation, but often needlessly mucked-up by dense "academic" language that serves to obscure what he's trying to impart to the reader.

Some problems may simply be the result of butting up against the limits of language, but constructions like "to keep the working of the work working (through the decisive interruption of the formation of a work)" can make for hard, slow going.

I'd say having a prior acquaintance with Heidegger, Benjamin, and Nietzsche would probably make this easier to jump into.

[SY · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an endlessly frustrating read. It was doubly frustrating because improvisation is such an important and under-theorized topic in the arts, and Peters as a philosopher, improvizer as well as composer should have been well-placed to tackle the topic, so you just wished that he had done a better job than this.

The text is full of stylistic and language issues that added labour to the reading experience, but that is actually a minor issue - I am sure he meant for the book to read like a sort of improvized theory. To me the biggest flaw with this book is that the author made no clear distinction between different types of improvisation, which created this really impossible theoretical situation. While most of the example he cited were musical, he would ocassionally also bring improvized theatre, comedy or dance into the fold with no qualification. And even within the narrower confines of music of the concert hall tradition, there is already a sea of difference between structured improvization with some sort of a score and a single author (Cardew, Wolff, e.g.) and open improvization where authorship is either shared or is a non-issue.

This wouldn't be a problem if the book is just a sort of ode-to-improvization that sings romantic praises of all of the wonderful things that could happen when people get together and play without a plan. But the author clearly has a philosophical project that demanded this level of detail. Actually, there are several philosophical projects in the book, but a recurring one is to formulate some kind of framework for aesthetic judgement, to move from the 'private feeling' of the improvizer to the universality of sense ('in full view of a judicial audience'); in other words, to construct sets of criteria with which to seperate the 'good' improvization from the 'boring' (his words) ones. To accomplish this he made a few surprising moves - for one, he invoked Kantian disinterested pleasure. This is puzzling, but I think maybe the goal there is to rescue some notion of 'pleasure of pure form' that is (a) not dependent upon a fixed text, or fixed anything, or artistic intent, and yet (b) is perceivable and externally verifiable by both the observers and the players who are involved in the act of improvising. To me, that is a bit pointless and regressive, but if he was serious about form, then he at least ought to have developed some way of 'imaging' improvized form; but that, to me, is actually a rather old musicological problem because we have already developed many ways of appreciating a musical experience other than resorting to the genius of formalist logic, and there are other ways to talk about (yes, even formally!) music-in-time.

And if he wanted to address the issue of reception, then he ought to have at least made a distinction between open improvization and open structure, because to me, it is not entirely clear that it matters at all that an improvization 'descent(s) into the contingency of a private psychodrama' in the case of the former, where I am not necessarily listening and then remembering what I heard moments ago (i.e., listening to myself listening), but listening moment-to-moment and knowing full well that I am not beholden to the completeness of the experience. My hunch is that the bar he'd set for what qualifies as good improvization is either too high, or it misses the point, or possibly both.

All of that said, this book is full of insightful quotes about improvization from a whole range of practitioners and theorists, and I do admire the author's ambition. I think he's on the money with reception. So if you are researching into the topic, you should try to get through the book, but expect it to be a difficult and seriously confusing read.

[Daniel Gorozpe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book unexpectedly at a bookstore in Madrid, Spain, in 2013. We've travelled together ever since. Not that I'm a full-time traveler but it lives in my bag. It is one of my recurring readings and has been a strong ally for developing: RESTLESS BODY (CUERPO INQUIETO), a workshop & movement research project focused on improvisation.

[Stephan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in 2009 as a major source for an undergrad research paper I was writing on squats in Berlin as sites of improvisation. As an improviser and as someone who was desperate for any kind of academic source material to support my flimsy argument, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As someone with limited understanding of western philosophy (both then and still now), I probably didn't understand this book. Time constraints or whatever prevented my professor from giving specific feedback on the paper, but when, a few months later, I had the chance to ask her what she thought of it, all she said, in her deadpan German accent, was that she could tell I had been up for three days straight writing it. I guess that's all the feedback I needed to hear.

Anyway, if you're interested in an attempt at philosophizing improvisation then I think this book is for you.

[Alex Delogu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really rewarding work. Improvisation has not really been a central topic for philosophy. This book reads like all the big names of, lets say "continental", philosophy got together to do just that, discuss improvisation. On this account it is no doubt a dense book with all the complex but rewarding theorising of philosophers like Derrida, Jameson, Heidegger, Adorno, Deleuze, and so forth. A work worth taking your time with. The main task here is to question some of the often contradictory ideas about what improvisation is. For example, improvisors often report being in the moment, while in actuality there are hours of practice and reliance on musical repertoire and past experience. The goal is not to pin down improv under philosophical thought but moreso to bring improvisation into philosophy.

[path · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I was hoping it would be, but I can hardly fault the book for that. For readers interested in cultural studies and already (at the very least!) passingly familiar with a lot of 20th century continental philosophy, the book will be a worthwhile investigation of "improvisation" across a range of high and low cultural contexts. For those readers less well versed in contemporary philosophy, the book will be tough going.

[Euwyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

the author was probably masturbating as he was writing his words and arranges his quotes. This isn’t written with a reader in mind, it’s quotes upon quotes and jargon upon jargon for no apparent reason other than that it probably makes him sound good (to himself). There is no communication, there is only language games upon language games with no strong tie.

[Katherine Kinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm more interested in improvisation than philosophy and the book in the end is more about philosophy than improvisation. Peters has a useful critique of the "liberatory" promise of improvisation and insights into the "given" and the "now." I was so disappointed that a book that began with reality tv shows about junk yard wars ended by proclaiming Derrida the greatest improvisor of all. I'm a critic not a philosopher, but why does every idea have to have to be folded back into a mostly German genealogy of thought?

[dv · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good philosophical journey into the concept of improvisation, mentioning all the main thinkers related to this topic and constructing good parallels with jazz, theatre and arts.