Improvisation Quotes

• Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.

  Paul Simon

  Chance

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• Improvisation means coming to the situation without rigid expectations or preconceptions. The key to improvisation is motion — you keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Mean, Keys, Expectations

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.

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• In improvisation, there are no mistakes.

  Miles Davis

  Music, Mistake

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• In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

  Charles Darwin

  Teamwork, Creativity, Knowledge

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.23, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.

  Stephen Colbert

  Inspirational, Graduation, Education

  "Top 10 Commencement Speeches: Best of All Time" by Meena Jang, www.hollywoodreporter.com. March 8, 2015.

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• Composition is frozen improvisation.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Frozen, Composition

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• Improvisation is the art of being completely O.K. with not knowing what the f— you’re doing

  Mick Napier

  Art, Knowing, Not Knowing

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• The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear.

  Paul Merton

  People, Beautiful Day, Listening

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• Life is a lot like jazz. It's best when you improvise.

  George Gershwin

  Music, Jazz Hands, Cool Jazz

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• Improvisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and learn to respond to her call.

  Stephen Nachmanovitch

  Intuition, Way, Action

  Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.41, Penguin

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• 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

  Discovery, People, Life Is

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• I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow — there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance.

  Charlie Haden

  Beautiful, Yesterday, Age

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• Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Moving, Next, Notes

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• Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Spiritual, Jazz

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• And in Improvisation there is one hard and fast rule, and that rule is known as "Yes And." The term YES AND: to say yes, and not just yes, but to add information. In the adding of information you don't negate the other persons idea - but you build on it.

  Maya Rudolph

  Ideas, Add, Information

  "Maya Rudolph's Commencement Speech is Fantastic - 'Create Your Own Destiny'". Maya Rudolph's commencement address to the students of Tulane University in New Orleans, Los Angeles, onmogul.com. May 16, 2015.

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• Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.

  Cecil Taylor

  Music, Jazz Improvisation, Ability

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• Stay fluid and roll with those changes. Life is just a big extended improvisation.

  Jane Lynch

  Inspirational, Graduation, Life Changing

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• Improvisation is the art of becoming sound. It is the only art in which a human being can and must become the music he or she is making. Improvisation is the only musical art which predicated entirely on human trust and love.

  Alvin Curran

  Music, Art, And Love

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• You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!

  Art Tatum

  Music, Kids, Practice

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• The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Would Be, Habit, Unendurable

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2012). “The Gay Science”, p.129, Courier Corporation

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• Composing is improvisation slowed down.

  Wayne Shorter

  Music, Jazz, Composing

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• Improvisation is not the expression of accident but rather of the accumulated yearnings, dreams and wisdom of our very soul.

  Yehudi Menuhin

  Dream, Expression, Soul

  "Theme and Variations".

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• Improvisation can be either a last resort or an established way of evoking creativity.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Creativity, Way, Lasts

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.4, Grove Press

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• Life is improvisation. All of those [improv] classes were like church to me. The training had seeped into me and changed who I am.

  Tina Fey

  Who I Am, Class, Training

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• My game is based on improvisation. Often a forward does not have the time to think too much. You have a second, rarely more, to decide whether to dribble, shoot or pass to the right or left. It is instinct that gives the orders.

  Ronaldinho

  Motivational, Soccer, Thinking

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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