I had to think of my former teacher Reinette van Zijtveld-Lustig more often these days. When it came to finding an entrance into jazz improvisation, she asked me to imagine an empty room with a beautiful view. Now I should slowly fill it with my furniture and move one thing after another inside the room until I liked it. In the end, it was about the basic principle of creating, dealing, varying and adapting motifs… This technique of connecting improvisation with an everyday
example, easy to visualize in front of the inner eye, taught me a more unencumbered approach to improvisation than the theoretical, function-harmonic one did later.
The last two painting processes have triggered a more realistic view of my previous approach, which I would now like to document in writing.
I would now like to consciously bring this decisive characteristic of improvisation, the further development of motifs, into my methodological approach.
As soon as I no longer try to mirror a complete song in a visually perfect way, more intuitive creative processes emerge and I enter improvisation with a different attitude of expectation. I also find it easier to listen to myself while I’m busy processing the visual stimuli.
I select a part of the picture that illustrates the musical aspect that particularly catches my attention in the original composition.
During the further processing of the improvisation it becomes clear that no coherent song emerges from the improvisation. One idea follows the next and it resembles a collection of inspirational possibilities, which make it much easier to get started with the composition.
When listening to the improvisation several times, ideas crystallize more and more clearly that were not identified as such in the affect. When I listen to the recordings with a little time distance, it almost feels as if a person from the outside is giving me new musical impulses that I can use for my current composition.