Humming in the background of all life - and familiar and alien as breathing - is improvisation.[i]
As we speak, walk, make, practise, observe, react, work, and rest, we are improvising. From the cauldron filled with our past experiences, skills, knowledge and the unique particulars of the current scenario we find ourselves in, new moments are created in time. Whether it be the conversation with a barista as you order a flat white on the way to a rehearsal, directing a stranger to the nearest tube station, or the conversation with a close friend over lunch, we are forced regularly into improvising our way through life. Rather than sounding like a gimmick (like my cheesy wall print that says ‘life is like jazz, best when improvised’), seeing improvisation this way helps us recognise that musical improvisation is in close interplay with the dynamics and theology of the rest of life. As we think about what improvisation has to do with the gospel, I suggest that it can help us, firstly, towards a deeper understanding of the freedom God offers to us in Jesus, and secondly, to follow Christ’s example of being humbly interruptible because of His attention to the present.
Freedom
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
God has made us for freedom. But what does being free mean? The prevailing contemporary western worldview defines true freedom as a liberation from any constraints, being able to do to whatever you like, whenever you like, just so long as it does not harm anyone. This contrasts, however, with a biblical view of freedom in Christ, which defines freedom as ‘where the spirit of the Lord is’ (2 Corinthians 3:17), or in other words, living within the perfect parameters that our Creator provides for our flourishing.
While there may be many knee-jerk reactions to a notion of a freedom that involves constraints, improvisers often have often understood this. When asked about freedom in his music, jazz legend Dizzie Gillespie replied, ‘I go for freedom, but freedom without organization is chaos.’[ii] Improvisers compose on the spot, but not from carte blanche. There are all sorts of factors that contribute to what comes out including the harmony of the song being played, the style and genre of the music, the instrumentation, the specific musicians involved, the venue where they are performing, and even the mood of the performer - what theologian Jeremy Begbie calls ‘occasional’, ‘cultural’, and ‘continuous’ constraints. In jazz especially, there is a significance placed on the history of the music, which acts as a constraint on what contemporary performers play. According to trumpet icon Wynton Marsalis:
Each musician communicates with his predecessors, building on some aspect of what they did while contributing something of his own.[iii]
Far from coming up with material from thin air, jazz musicians improvise by having a deep knowledge of the tradition that they are tapping into, replicating it and twisting it in their own fashion. Even so-called ‘free jazz’ is connected intimately with its roots. Nevertheless, it is not in spite of, but because of these constraints that musicians are able to experience joyful freedom when improvising. Not left to a blank sheet with all the infinite crippling possibilities ahead, the improviser is able to dance their way through the music, adding buckets of personal creativity with the contingency they are allowed, while interacting with their predecessors and current bandmates.
So too, freedom in Christ deepens as we learn increasingly what God’s good constraints are for our thriving and as we learn to play within those constraints. Jesus said:
If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Notice how Jesus brings in a constraint - His teaching - which, if those listening hold to it, will yield an experience of freedom for them, because His teaching leads to salvation through faith in Jesus alone and into a life of living under God’s good and just reign. Jesus does not say that we will gain freedom when we do whatever we like, though He does offer a choice to us whether to enter into His freedom or not. The path towards the freedom Jesus offers walks on a knife-edge between contingency and constraint. Begbie writes:
the freedom realised in the best improvisation is not an amorphous ‘openness’ struggling to conquer (or ignore) constraints, but a fruitful interaction between contingency and constraint.[iv]
Improvisation, then, can help us to acknowledge and appreciate those constraints that God has given to us. One such constraint is time. Rarely something we are good at acknowledging as a good constraint, time is often something of which we feel in short supply. In modern society, with so many pieces of technology that complete tasks so as to apparently make life easier, people expect to be able to achieve more and more with their time, resulting in multi-tasking, lack of attention span, and hurry sickness.[v] Rather than living as slaves to time, we must see how improvisation helps us to learn to live peaceably within it. Begbie writes that:
coming to terms with temporality as a fundamental condition of our lives - avoiding the illusion both of absolute indeterminacy and of slavery to time…[is] critical to enjoying genuine freedom.’[vi]
Through improvising, a person may take advantage of the temporality of the world in a unique way, by moulding the music around the time as it is passing. In music, improvisation is unique in its ability to interact creatively with the passing of the seconds.
Attuned to the Present
Since improvisation allows a performer to play peaceably with time, it forces them to be attuned to the present moment. When improvising, musicians must be attentive to the people they are playing with and for (Begbie’s ‘occasional constraints’) to gauge what their next move should be. When improvising I regularly find myself zoning out of the present, paying less attention to the occasional constraints, and the music suffers as a result. In autopilot I reproduce the same old patterns that my muscles are familiar with, rather than properly listening and responding to the musical conversation that is going on around me.
A lot of emphasis in our society has been placed on being more attuned to the present, otherwise known as ‘mindfulness’. Although prevalent in popular culture and there often mixed with elements of Buddhism, we must not forget that mindfulness - not living in the past or with worries about the future - is a deeply biblical concept, and Christian spiritual formation has roots in meditation and contemplation. Jesus said:
Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Jesus did not just teach about living in the present: He modelled mindfulness in the way He was willing to be interrupted when somebody needed His attention (cf. Matthew 14:13-14, Mark 5:21-43). To follow Jesus, we need to be interruptible, and improvising offers an opportunity to practise, since an improviser will be listening out for what the other musicians are playing to influence their own course. This requires humility on behalf of the improviser, to set aside the idea they thought they were going to run with because of another’s contribution. In this way, improvisation acts both as a training ground for living humbly in the present, but also as a moment of living it out in and of itself. The way we react when interrupted often reveals our true character and this is no less true when improvising. When the pianist comps [accompanies] you during a solo in a way you don’t expect, do you react with annoyance and frustration, or with joy, empathy, and trust? Improvising can spotlight the more unpleasant parts of one’s character, but can also be a means of demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
As well as demonstrating all these virtues, a mindful improviser may often respond with humour. When listening to the interaction between skilled improvisers, you can often pick up on little musical jokes, as one musician mimics another, responds in a deft manner, or perhaps quotes a section of another tune or solo. And jazz is not the only sphere for humour to emerge from improvisation. Music therapist Gary Ansdell shares how the power of humour can work through musical improvisations with patients that have severe neurological and psychiatric disorders.[vii] Christians can sometimes overlook the humour in the Bible, but Jesus frequently employed humour in his teaching. From cartoon imagery of planks in eyes, straining out gnats and swallowing camels, to creative insults, calling the Pharisees a ‘brood of vipers’ and ‘white-washed tombs’, Jesus was not averse to using various means of humour throughout His ministry. Improvisation points us to how humour, that most commonly shared of emotions, can emerge from fully being present to one another.
Conclusion
Improvisation helps us to navigate a biblical concept of freedom, a freedom based not on utter contingency but on a beautiful balance of contingency and constraint. By learning to follow the lead of improvisers who glean the foundation of their playing from the great musicians who lived before them, followers of Christ will step into freedom by standing on His teachings. As we do, we will increasingly thrive in the good constraints God has given, learning to live peaceably, engagingly, and creatively with the temporality of the world. We are made alive to the present, listening attentively to the current situation we find ourselves in, responding with the fruit of the Spirit and with humour in all moments of interruption.
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[i] Toop, David, Into The Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom, Bloomsbury, 2016, p.1
[ii] Taylor, Arthur, Notes and Tones, Da Capo Press, 1993
[iii] Marsalis, Wynton, Moving to Higher Ground, Wynton Marsalis Enterprises, 2008, p.23
[iv] Begbie, Jeremy, Theology, Music and Time, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.200
[v] https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/hurry-sickness#how-to-cope
[vi] Begbie, Jeremy, Theology Music and Time, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.203
[vii] Ansdell, Gary, How Music Helps, Ashgate, 2014, p.185
