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Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art

Stephen Nachmanovitch (Goodreads Author)

4.18 · Rating details · 2,238 ratings · 171 reviews

This book is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms.

Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own cr

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Paperback, 224 pages

Published May 1st 1991 by Tarcherperigee (first published January 11th 1990)

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Aug 20, 2015 Janet rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-books-about-writing

The right book at the right time saves lives. Man, you can say that about Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. The thing about play in art, is it's a sign of strength to spare, wind to spare, like someone running a marathon who breaks out into a pirouette. Sometimes working on a long project, the task just seems monstrous--like trying to build a gothic cathedral all by yourself. This book is a reminder, for a writer in long form, that it's not stone on stone, a heavy, exhausting thing. That The right book at the right time saves lives. Man, you can say that about Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. The thing about play in art, is it's a sign of strength to spare, wind to spare, like someone running a marathon who breaks out into a pirouette. Sometimes working on a long project, the task just seems monstrous--like trying to build a gothic cathedral all by yourself. This book is a reminder, for a writer in long form, that it's not stone on stone, a heavy, exhausting thing. That play, like the free jazz that the violinist author Nachmanovitch loves, makes heavy work light. That there are other ways to solve problems, other ways to approach the page, and that improvisation, the lightness of it, the in-the-momentness of its playfulness, IS the 'air that falls through the net' that Neruda describes.

*************************
Here's my favorite part so far-- on editing.

"In producing large works… we are perforce taking the results of many inspirations and melding them together into a flowing structure that has its own integrity and endures through time…. We arrange them, cook them, render them down, digest them. We add, subtract, reframe, shift, break part, melt together. The play of revision and editing transforms the raw into the cooked. This is a whole art unto itself, of vision and revision, playing again with the half-baked products of our prior play. …

"Editing must come from the same inspired joy and abandon as free improvisation…. There is a stereotyped belief that the muse in us acts from inspiration, while the editor in us acts from reason and judgment. But if we leave our imp or improviser out of the process, re-vision becomes impossible. If I see the paragraph I wrote last month as mere words on a page, they become dead and so do I…

"Some elements of artistic editing: 1. deep feeling for the intentions beneath the surface; 2. sensual love of the language; 3. sense of elegance; and 4. ruthlessness. The first three can perhaps be summarized under the category of good taste, which involvers sensation, sense of balance and knowledge of the medium, leavened with an appropriate sense of outrageousness…."

I will definitely put Free Play on the shelf right next to The Art Spirit within arm's reach of my writing desk, to remind me about the air that falls through the net. I can't be reminded of it enough.

...more

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Feb 03, 2010 Nottyboy rated it liked it

Did not get interesting until the middle, where there were some concrete suggestions on how to play around with limits, the interplay between creativity and judgement.

The beginning and the end of the book are weakest, in my opinion. They are filled with too much pseudo-spiritual riffs, or get off track with rants against mainstream society, neither of which did much for me.

All that said, I still think it was a worthwhile read for what was there regarding improvisation.

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Nov 24, 2008 Ganesh rated it it was amazing

Shelves: creativity

In the fall, I discovered this book in my boyfriend's apartment.

As I was falling in love, this excerpt resonated deeply with me:

"Though love is a material act (whether sexual love, friendship, parenting, or any other kind of devotion, love is always an act), it lifts us out of the ordinary world into a kind of mystic participation with one another. We tune, more and more finely, our capacity to sense the other person's subtleties. We are willing to be infinitely patient and persevering. In a se ...more

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Mar 06, 2016 Malcolm rated it really liked it

Shelves: play

During the late 1980s and early 1990s I worked in a bookstore that managed to survive the mega-chain onslaught and political shifts that killed off most of the independent literary stores and others such as the local specialist feminist and the Marxist/leftist book store as well as quite a few of the second hand stores. Across the road from us was another survivor, specialising in New Age and similar publications. Like many independents, we relied on the high turnover of a few titles to allow us During the late 1980s and early 1990s I worked in a bookstore that managed to survive the mega-chain onslaught and political shifts that killed off most of the independent literary stores and others such as the local specialist feminist and the Marxist/leftist book store as well as quite a few of the second hand stores. Across the road from us was another survivor, specialising in New Age and similar publications. Like many independents, we relied on the high turnover of a few titles to allow us to keep a broad set of literary and non-fiction books with a much lower turnover: now we’d call that a long tail. Every few weeks, at our regular staff meetings we’d discuss sections of the store we thought we’d like to know more about, and at most, if not every second of those, someone would observe that the ‘north west corner’ was a bit of a mystery, and we’d all nod, slightly perplexed by direction until we realised, this as the area labelled ‘self-help’ (although nowadays that is more likely to be ‘body, mind, spirit’ or some such (perhaps even popular psychology).

In my case, not only was this corner of the store a mystery area, it also seemed like a big pile of hokum – truisms for the desperate bundled up inside usually some crudely articulated version of ‘Eastern’ mysticism as a foil for the weaknesses of the ‘West’ with its ‘alienating rationality’. All this meant that I was more than a little unsettled when, acting on the advice of a musician friend whose work I respect, I picked this up to find the publishers had classified it ‘self-help’: my retail bête noir. The book has many of the characteristics of the ‘self-help’ style, at least those few I have dabbled in – the breezy knowingness, the magpie approach to various ‘Eastern’ religious concepts, the step-by-step progress through the problems of our inner being. To his credit though, Nachmanovitch manages to avoid the ‘here’s the answer to everything’ tone of many in the genre, or the serial re-visioning and restatement of one idea in book after book after…... A key aspect of this ‘avoidance’ is that in his day job he seems to be a practitioner of the cultural/creative work that he is dealing with. And it here that my recommender-friend comes into the mix: Nachmanovitch, the violinist, has been recommended to me by a singer, and voice teacher.

So, I read this adopting two standpoints: as a writer (OK, so academic writing but still that relies on a particular creative style), and as on who intermittently ventures into the scholarship of play (basing this on the title, Free Play). Of course, there is a whole bunch of play theories we call on but the one I kept coming back to is a set of ideas that sees almost anything as play if we approach it with the ‘right’ attitude – that is, an attitude of playfulness (a ludic disposition). We’ve all seen that, the ‘game’ that should be fun but is a dull grind – I see it all too often in sports matches – because the ‘players’ did not approach the game with a ludic expectation. A ludic attitude can make pretty much anything fun, but drawing on the work of one play scholar, the cultural historian Johan Huizinga, ludus is one aspect of play while the other paidia seen by French philosopher of play Roger Caillois as having four stages – disturbance, tumult, fantasy and imagination. By my reading, Nachmaovitch’s Free Play works best as paidia (there is an essay about this I have co-authored in a recent edited collection of philosophical papers).

Adopting this standpoint gave me a basis on which to make sense of Nachmanovitch’s approach and when I cut through all the dressing of the tao and Buddha and other ‘Eastern’ spiritual trappings this is a pretty good book about a ludic disposition and the limitations placed on its enactment by the constraints of the ‘way things should be done’. (btw: as a non-believer I can see many of the same ‘overcoming alienation’ ideas deployed from these religions in forms of monotheism – Christianity, Islam and Judaism – and they’re not that mystical.) What is more, it is full of pretty sensible advice about ways to deal with diversions, distractions and barriers to creative work – be it music, visual or plastic art, sport, writing, dance or pretty much anything else where we need to allow ourselves to be absorbed. That said, the third section of the four that make up the book (‘Obstacles and Openings’), did in places get a little prescriptive, although without falling into the trap of lists or imperatives.

Many years ago I recall sitting in my local pub with a (still) well-known poet. For some reason we’d got onto a long rambling discussion about organising cultural events – and I recall him saying that nothing was spontaneous, or rather that all spontaneity was rehearsed. Throughout this book I found myself remembering that conversation of over 35 years ago and realised that Nachmanovitch was explaining the rehearsal than Sam (the poet) had identified as the basis of successful spontaneity. What’s more, he manages to avoid the psycho-babble of so much of the current writing on creativity, but alas he remains stuck in an individualising discourse (there is little here about collective work and stimulating environments) but even with those limitations I expect I’ll be coming back to this quite regularly – even if it is to do more (or less) than seek inspiration for tasks for my students, who seem to park their ludus at the door. ...more

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Apr 13, 2009 Flissy rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2009

A lot of things rang true with what I have come to believe about creativity and my own process. My number one creative mantra lately has been "All creative acts have value." Knitting, baking, drawing, dancing, doing yoga, making up silly songs to the cats... they all are equal in getting juice flowing, removing blocks, and revealing new things to incorporate in my art/dance/yoga. Another thing I found really interesting is that he stresses the importance of allowing your internal muse and intern ...more

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Mar 06, 2022 Blaine Snow rated it it was amazing

Shelves: art

Two names sum up my my review of this fantastic book: Keith Jarrett and Gregory Bateson... well OK, and the fact that Nachmanovitch weaves together wisdom threads East and West, ancient and modern, in the arts and sciences to create this little masterwork on creativity. But if you know these two giants of creativity, you'll already know a lot about this book.

Keith Jarrett's life and work are a perfect example of Free Play in art music (jazz and classical) and Gregory Bateson's life and work (hi ...more

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Nov 22, 2017 Anna Granberg rated it really liked it

This is an interesting read on creativity and improvisation to come back to. I read it with pen in hand and highlighted the parts that spoke to me. If I reread, I feel like I might find other parts that capture me next time.

Some parts of the book were too filled with spiritual flummery for my taste, and I didn't like that some is written like if it were the objective truth, even though it's the writer's opinion, theories and own experiences. The writing is also unnecessarily complicated, often I ...more

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Jun 09, 2018 Rachel Van Amburgh rated it it was amazing

An essential read for anyone creative, and pairs well with The Artist’s Way; in fact, Nachmanovitch lays out some concepts around creativity much better than Julia Cameron does. Reading this is really helping me let go of music as a career so that I may regain it as a love and passion. It’s worth just reading it, but ultimately, it derails most of what I learned in school, and I can’t help wondering if I’d embodied this outlook sooner what my life would look like. Oh well!!

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Jul 26, 2010 Marilyn McEntyre rated it it was amazing

One of my favorite books. I've reread it several times, and referred to it often. An inspiring reminder of what it means to be awake to the moment and to receive its possibilities with gratitude and imagination. ...more

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Mar 25, 2010 Holly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: writing-craft

I read this book at least twice. It worked. I was trying to be a serious musician and artist; I'd just discovered that I loved writing. I wish I could remember more, but there was something about the description of the human need to create though improvisation (play) that resonated with me.

I might just have to read it again. ...more

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Sep 09, 2007 Maria rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: To all artist, and anyone who loves to play!

Shelves: spiritual

This is one of my favorit books! I go back to it often when I need a reminder about the role of play and creativity in life. This book is filled with stories, and lessons about the bigs and smalls of life. The take home message is: Relax, and bring play and into all aspects of life!

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Mar 25, 2008 Kelley rated it it was amazing

Man do I love this book. No really. I've read it four times at different points in my life and each time I find something new and awesome. If, for some reason, you want to know my philosophy on creativity and the purpose of art, this is the book to start with. ...more

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Jul 30, 2009 Samantha rated it it was amazing

If you are an artist of any sort, read this book.

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Jan 09, 2022 Sungbin Kim rated it really liked it

The theme of this book is that, for art, the process is more important than the result. Evolution is a "process" by which nature creates, and it models all arts. Everything is art when it becomes "play." Play is an activity that is an "end in itself" rather than a means. Play without rules does not produce art, so artists "practice" their craft and learn its rules. Too much practice can impede creativity, so artists should regard every practice as a "performance." The mathematicians' definition ...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Lyndon Goodacre rated it it was amazing

Shelves: assigned, best-textbooks, favorites

"We now find ourselves, as individuals, as nation-states, and as a species, involved in a period of intense and often bewildering transformation. The systems of government, production, culture, thought, and perception to which we have become accustomed and that have functioned for so long are not working. This presents us with a challenge. We can cling to that which is passing, or has already passed, or we can remain accessible to - even surrender to - the creative process, without insisting tha "We now find ourselves, as individuals, as nation-states, and as a species, involved in a period of intense and often bewildering transformation. The systems of government, production, culture, thought, and perception to which we have become accustomed and that have functioned for so long are not working. This presents us with a challenge. We can cling to that which is passing, or has already passed, or we can remain accessible to - even surrender to - the creative process, without insisting that we know in advance the ultimate outcome for us, our institutions, or our planet. To accept this challenge is to cherish freedom, to embrace life, and to find meaning."

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(Just a later paragraph that captures the zeitgeist of 2020 from 30 years ago. The rest is an expanded review after re-reading.)

At the core, Free Play is about wu wei, the Taoist and Zen principle of "action without action," pure awareness and responsiveness. It's a feeling Michelangelo channeled when he brushed the stone away from the statue inside - a feeling he called "intelletto," nonrational artistic awareness. Others call it "beginner's mind," "radical openness," or "oneness."

Nachmanovitch's book was the text for a senior seminar I took in transpersonal psychology (that would be the study of religious experiences, epiphanies, flow states, meditation, etc). It's as sonorous and streamlike as you'd expect from an admired improvisational violinist, but ten times more useful than you'd expect.

I've never found a more concentrated guide to creative processes. Inside out, outside in. If you ever feel stuck, this book tells you how to gently obliterate preconceptions. It goes into extraordinary detail on that easy thing that isn't easy, that difficult thing that isn't difficult, how and why you get blocked, avoidant, afraid. And it brings in oodles of great references, anecdotes, and poetic quotations that would be pretentious if they weren't so to the point.

If you're interested in ludology, he has a lot to say about the magic circle, which he calls temenos, ancient Greek for sacred grove. For those who don't know the magic circle by name, you do know it: it's any safe space where you are free to play, where you can enter a world of make-believe, something a little set apart from the rest of reality, with its own rules. It's the proverbial sandbox in all its manifestations.

Artistry goes beyond play, but without some form of play there is no art or invention. Play requires safety, or it isn't free and isn't really play; it's suffocated. Hence the creative blocks arise from fear. When people agree to play a game together (or simply let each other know they're playing around), as long as they cooperate and follow the rules, a new world appears in the midst of their imaginations. The rule-following (or at least not hurting anyone you're joking around with) corresponds to staying in the magic circle, and the imaginative world is the result. The metaphor refers to a magic spell cast in a circle of candles or a pentagram, and the rules (of play and safety) are the ritual of the spell itself, how it's cast.

The stage of a theater performance is part of its magic circle. When someone gets run through with a halberd on stage, you know not to worry too much, because inside that circle are found hypothesis, counterfactual, recapitulation, fantasy, performance, play, etc. When lights go off in a cinema, that's part of the magic circle. Dogs and wolves enter the magic circle by dropping on their front paws and wagging their tails; then everyone knows this is not a fight. Even formal debate occurs in a magic circle; participants shake hands to reinforce that what happens inside is a symbolic battle, a battle of ideas, not a display of personal animosity. This idea is shared across all the arts.

People are typically most creative in a state of free play, which might look very serious. The freedom is freedom to try something different - without any of that freedom, you can't. Removing heavy consequences makes experimentation possible. The magic circle is a metaphor, but it refers to the essence of what makes play itself.

Creative blocks can be analyzed usefully as fear in relation to that concept, though I wouldn't reduce the contents of the book quite so far as to say that's its entire thesis. It's a rich and faceted look at many kinds of creative processes and how they unfold, from a point of view that's both mystical and practical. It applies regardless of art form, and even on re-reading this, I found a number of surprisingly helpful suggestions and ways to subversively reframe things. Flights of fancy aside, it gives some very down-to-earth advice that anyone can follow.

The professor of the class I mentioned is somewhat famous for his lectures, a style of performance art I've never seen before or since. I liked them so much I took a second course with him, even though at the start of that, the seminar involving this book, he looked at all of us, then the ones he recognized, and yelled, "Why are you still here??? What are you doing? Didn't you learn the first time???" Anyway, his copy of Free Play was more inked up than the Hell's Angels. Whenever he read from it, he'd rest it in his palms carefully. An ancient, gigantic speckled moth. It looked like it might crumble if stared at. ...more

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Apr 13, 2021 Carolina Pinto rated it really liked it

a good prespective about the creative process. however, it felt a bit like a too romanticized ideia, it gave me the sensation that almost everything in art must be about pleasure. At times I felt that I was doing all wrong because creation in me is sometimes truly painful. It is a good book, it is the opinion of a person about improvisation and about art and of course with value.

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Jan 26, 2022 Andy Vanderford rated it it was ok

Duh

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Apr 09, 2010 Marydanielle rated it it was amazing

I have several guidebooks for living and this is one of my most precious. I've shared it, relied upon it, and re-read it. Interestingly, though it is by a musician, it is very apt and helpful in any field of endeavor. When I first read it I was working in a law office and had to design little interactive macros for legal documents so that attorneys could use their computers more easily and this book helped me do that. It has also helped me design my garden, decorate my house, find my way through ...more

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May 06, 2013 Tine! rated it really liked it

Recommended to Tine! by: Christov Churchward

Another book representative of my recently-favourite genre: "genre-less". Yes, it's sold as an improv skill-booster, but Nachmanovitch dips into every circle of the human hell and ties the ends together neatly with a taut viola string. When I mentioned to the friend who let me borrow this book ("it's meant to be passed around") that this was the author's only published book, he shrugged and riffed, "he said it all". Truth. Unfortunately, as the author is wailing away with his handsaw of personal ...more

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Jan 31, 2017 David Sasaki rated it really liked it

I read this book back in 2002 when I aspired to be a roving, down-and-out, bohemian novelist. I remember staying up late into the night underlining passages that felt like a clear expression of a worldview I had never considered. Nachmanovitch asks us to treat every moment of our lives as an input to a creative project: be it a painting, a short story, a computer program, or a story to be re-told.

As I look back over my journals from that time of life, I constantly carried creative inspiration. M ...more

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Sep 17, 2012 Gwen rated it really liked it

"A poetic embrace for the role that muse plays...beyond art. A refreshing balance to reductionist efforts to simply map our way into uncovering the mystery of creativity.

People interested in "the five steps to improving your creativity" will find this book highly unsatisfying. People who are intimately familiar with the angst of bringing the new into the world will recognize the undercurrents of brilliance and frustration that coexist with any true new undertaking or inspirational voyage.

Message ...more

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Mar 04, 2009 Kat rated it really liked it

Philosophy of improvisation--cool. The author is an expert in about 85 million different fields, and it helps him write a truly interdisciplinary book that will have some relevance to just about anyone. I only got half-way through this before returning it to the library. I plan to buy it; it's way too dense to read through quickly. The writing is clear, there are just too many ideas in this little book. ...more

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Mar 02, 2014 Beth Bacon rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction

This book ruminates on the nature of creative genius and proposes that we all have genius in us, if we just transcend rational selfhood, express that unbounded expression, and translate it back out through practiced craft. He doesn't tell us exactly how to "transfer this receptivity, compassion, and free flow of mind to everyone and everything we touch" (p. 169) but it's inspiring to know that free flow is possible for all of us. ...more

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Dec 28, 2020 Lucy rated it really liked it

Shelves: education

Surrendering to complexity and uncertain beauty ahead is encouraging. It takes stillness to let all the noisy signals to die. Most overwhelmed feelings stem from a discrepancy of resources(capability, team) and the challenge.

Revisit the book when I need inspiration for creating beauty. The book reminds me of the film Soul by Pixar.

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Jan 12, 2015 Luisa Asiul rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

A fine little book that I suspect I will come back to time and time again. Creation is hard work and Nachmanovitch will not do your heavy lifting for you, but he will point you to the moon (even—perhaps especially—if you have seen it before).

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Dec 03, 2015 Mauricio Lopes rated it it was amazing

Shelves: art

This is about creativity and improvisation in general. It is mostly about music and I am a painter, but it still managed to become the most influential book on the manner I establish project goals and strategy in my work.

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Jun 06, 2008 Jmaynard9221 rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Jmaynard9221 by: Daphna <3 <3 !!

I need to read this again and again, with a highlighter in my pocket. It will be ragged and torn by the time I am 32. This book is wonderful.

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Dec 25, 2008 Paul added it

The most comprehensive book on creativity and improvisation. This will truly unlock the child-like creativity in all of us :)

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Jul 22, 2010 Dennis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: teaching

One of the best books I read on creativity.

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Dec 27, 2010 Terri R rated it really liked it

Love the book. The book has taught me to turn discipline and learning into an adventure--- and in fact helped me become a better chef and hostess by preparing and the being playful.

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