http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16688007

He didn't look too happy though.

That's funny! It's good that he wasn't an a-hole about it.

...and he even smiled....that's a good ear that can follow-up and improvise as he did...
rada

ps....scott I like your info....we share similar sentiments about teaching...

I'd like to see Keith Jarrett be as gracious.

The ringtone is a slight modification of a theme by Francisco Tárrega, according to the British quiz and comedy show QI. Wikipedia has a page specifically for it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_tune
There really is a musical background to it, despite the horrible sound of the phone.

I love classical performers who understand the need for innovation and creativity. If I wanted "perfection" untainted by human flaws, I could just get a midi file and let my computer play it.


It reminds me a bit of Victor Borge's harmless mocking of audience members who arrive late.

Excellent video clip - and good on him!

I'm just wondering, what is the biggest hurdle facing a classical musician who wants to improvise? Confidence? The ability to transfer ideas to the instrument?

I'd be interested to know what folks think (I'm a jazzer and have forgotten what it felt like to start improvising...)!

I think when you have a long education in playing the notes correctly as written, and then teachers who are clueless about improvising - well, that fairly sums it up for me.

Yep.

I was self-taught in piano until college, but was a classically-educated flutist all through school (eventually a music major at university) and I didn't find out there was a world of non-classical playing until I heard my brother playing Jethro Tull records. Even still, there was no opportunity for creativity or improvisation in any lessons I took, even at the college level. Unless you were enrolled in composition as a major, you didn't do any composition (of course we did analyzing of scores in theory, but we didn't compose).

I wish my adult self could go back and tell my parents what I was missing as a student and beg them to find other teachers so that I would have had a broader base in my music education! I was the first musician in my family, though, so even though I was getting very poor private lessons, I didn't find that out until auditioning for college because I was always first chair in my school bands.

I'm, for the moment, a full-time mommy, but I teach an alternative method that includes composition, improvisation, chord method, and classical. I just believe that students can be learning all of that from the very beginning, and it's fun! Some of my young students have been AMAZING composers right out of the gate. It blows my mind.

Kim