Quotes About Improvisation

I record into my phone as soon as I hear a track. Melody comes first for me, and then my gibberish usually forms into lyrics and a concept from there.

I don't know how to read music. You pick your guitar, you start playing chords and make up a melody that comes out of your head.

The great thing with comedy is that I don't memorize ahead of time like I did on 'Breaking Bad.' With 'Breaking Bad,' I wanted to know those words inside and out, really have my lines down so I could say them verbatim. But with comedy, you keep it a lot more loose.

I memorize stuff that I know works, and then 25 percent is just feeding off the audience and going where they want to go. Sometimes things flop. That's where the jokes come in.

I am terrible at memorizing things. Hence, ad-libbing.

One thing I've really never had a problem with was memorizing lines. Most of the time I don't memorize the lines until we're on the set shooting the scene.

It's a mental fake-out to myself. I make believe I'm making a new show so I forget the material I was working on and make up some fresh material.

I wanted to look at the mentality that can breed that sort of intensity, that kind of cutthroat, pressure-cooker feeling, especially a form of music like jazz, that should be - or you'd think should be - all about liberation and improvisation and everything.

I think that's what I love about jazz is that you can do what you want, and you're allowed to mess up.

The best working experiences I've had are with directors who want to create with you while you're on set. I prefer a much freer environment. That's why I'm always trying to mess things up, just to know that I can!

And I like messing around in the engine room of music. Seeing what happens in the rhythm section area.

There are two schools of thought: There are those actors who explain to you that they know exactly how they're going to do the part... And then there is the other method, which is to have no method at all. This is mine.

Improvisation is a compositional method.

I've never written lyrics. I get up in front of a microphone, and I just sing what comes to the top of my head.

If I leave the mike in the stand, my hands absolutely move more. I'm not sure if it's a conscious thing.

When you play with Miles, you are on your own, and then it's you who decides what to contribute.

I like to listed to the adventurous guys - the Coltranes, Miles Davis, the guys who just let it loose.

Memorizing a playbook is like memorizing a script. When they change the script at the last minute it's like changing a play in a game.

It is better to accept any chance that offers itself, and then extemporise a procedure to fit it, than to get a good plan matured, and wait for a chance of using it.

We rarely get to prepare ourselves in meadows or on graveled walks; we do it on short notice in places without windows, hospital corridors, rooms like this lounge with its cracked plastic sofa and Cinzano ashtrays, where the cafe curtains cover blank concrete. In rooms like this, with so little time, we prepare our gestures, get them by heart so we can do them when we're frightened in the face of Doom.

And your dinner for the orchestra officials. Haven't you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what's in the fridge, Clarice. May I call you Clarice?

We rarely get to prepare ourselves in meadows or on graveled walks; we do it on short notice in places without windows, hospital corridors, rooms like this lounge with its cracked plastic sofa and Cinzano ashtray, where the cafe curtains cover blank concrete. In rooms like this, with so little time, we prepare our gestures, get them by heart so we can do them when we're frightened in the face of Doom.

We rarely get to prepare ourselves in meadows or on graveled walks; we do it on short notice in places without windows, hospital corridors, rooms like this lounge with its cracked plastic sofa and Cinzano ashtrays, where the café curtains cover blank concrete.

Blues is a matter of lower sidebands—you suck a clear note, on pitch, and then bend it lower with the muscles of your face.