Riassunto
Is it possible to teach improvisation? After all, the improvisations gathered in this book are studies — whereas improvising is essentially the product of creativity and instantaneousness. Once fixed on paper, once written down, an improvisation crystallizes and, as a matter of fact, loses its essential character of instantaneous and free composition. Nonetheless, I would like to point out that in my experience of studying and teaching improvisation, what has proved itself invaluable – besides listening – is the natural process of imitation set about by studying other musicians’ improvising. I believe that to study phrasings which have already been codified is one of the most effective ways to learn and go on to develop your own original phrasing. It is therefore a pleasure for me to present this new work. I am certainly aware that this is a complex and ambitious subject. I have gathered in this book a series of studies which I hope will stimulate the readers and raise their curiosity. Talking about improvisation is never easy, and even less so when we focus on fingerstyle guitar. My intertwined interests in acoustic guitar and jazz music somehow drove me on a multifaceted path, and led me to develop techniques of improvisation that may also be suitable for solo concerts. As for acoustic guitar, reference names on the matter are Davy Graham and John Renbourn, and Stefan Grossman for the Blues — just to name a few. Duck Baker himself has long worked on improvisation and collaborated with Jazz players, including Free Jazz ones. As for “solo guitar”, one should not neglect Joe Pass’ extraordinary skill, Ralph Towner’s impressive synthesis of Jazz and Classical music, as well as Pierre Bensusan and Peter Finger (Folk and World Fingerstyle), Roland Dyens (Classical guitar), and Ferenc Snetberger (nylon-strings, World-Jazz Fingerstyle) — all excellent fingerstylers, whose music has improvisation playing a central role. Generally speaking, however, improvisation can be said to have been seldom dealt with in the world of fingerstyle guitar. This holds true with the possible exception of Blues music, where any decent guitarist, including fingerstyle guitar players, needs to be able to play characteristic phrasings and passages, by making use especially of the Pentatonic Scales. My familiarity with musicians other than guitarists, and with music not exclusively written for the guitar, has persuaded me little by little that improvisation should indeed be promoted also in the field of solo fingerstyle guitar — at a minimum, as an ingredient to be aware of. Improvisation is a treasure-trove of creative elements, it helps to master harmony, and to know better the instrument one is playing; it educates our ear and improves our musical intuition; lastly, it is an important factor in contemporary music. With this book, I hope to make my modest contribution to the development of such a promising field.
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