Improvisation Techniques Quotes

If I'm improvising and I'm not doing well it's because I'm not listening very well. Either I'm overly concerned with something or I'm drifting or maybe I'm too stoned but I'm not getting a clear signal.

Learning the craft as an actor in Los Angeles is a very hard thing to do, in my opinion. We all come from a certain world and when you start learning the craft, you need material to read/study that you can relate to. We do not have too many Latino writers on the West Coast that I was able to relate to (or at least, I didn't know at the time). I came from the streets, so the most published authors had no relation to my world. As soon as I picked up Pinero & Guirgis, it was all over. It was my world, just in a different location. They cracked me open inside and out.

Since being diagnosed with Asperger's, I'd been working with an acting coach who has now become a good friend. We'd been trying lots of improvisational techniques to help me with some of the problems I experience. But it's a very slow process.

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

I can't play long solos anymore without boring myself.

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

Before we really started writing our own songs in the James Gang, we'd play covers, and then, in the middle of them, we'd go for a jam for four or five minutes. At some point, we had six or seven of those sections, and we didn't need to cover other people's songs anymore.

I just feel my way through. If I had to give an acting class, I wouldn't know what to do.

I've always been interested in shaping music in odd ways, with odd riffs and that's been probably something that I've continued on with my studies with improvisation as I'm working with people.

I think I'm a better actor now. I mean, I really think I know a lot about acting now. But I didn't know a lot about acting then, in 80's, and I never knew how to be myself. I never knew how to relax and just play it from me. I was always trying to deliver a line.

That's why I love improvisational theater so much - you do it [scene] once and then it's done. You don't get bogged down with a lot of preplanning and repetition. If I do something and it gets a laugh, I don't want to do it again. Why bother? I'm just repeating myself. It's boring.

You have to start thinking a little differently as an actor.

When I started stand-up, the first thing I did was to take an improv class.

Usually I like to improvise. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the piece, I like to improvise because I think it brings certain freshness and a reality to it, as long as it doesn't go too far out of the box.

When you do improv, you're everything. You're a performer, writer, and director, because you're moving the scene in the direction you want it to go, you're making it up as you go, and you're acting it.

Even if you're improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure.

I wasn't a great improviser when I started there; I'm not really up on current events. I would always just mug, just try to get my laughs from making faces. So I decided to do a character who should never have become a comic - somebody you would see at the Comedy Store and go, "This person is never going to make it."

I don't think of myself as a great improver. A lot of times there's long periods of silence when everyone in the recording studio is looking at their watch and waiting for me to say something. And I'm searching desperately in my brain for anything before something dribbles out.

We gave each other a hug, [Richard Pryor] said how much he admired me, I said how much I admired him, and we started working the next morning, and we hit it off really well, and he taught me how to improvise on camera.

Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

I’m going to break one of the rules of the trade here. I’m going to tell you some of the secrets of improvisation. Just remember—it’s always a good idea to follow the directions exactly the first time you try a recipe. But from then on, you’re on your own.

I try to be prepared for the moment, through understanding, and being warmed up, knowing all about chords and scales, so I don't even have to think and I can get right to what it is I want to say.

Chicago was where I realized that improv is its own thing, its own art form. And through that, you kind of develop a work ethic of not selling it short.

Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker's next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?