That reminds me of another crucial element of improvisation: fearlessness. If you’re going to learn to improvise, you have to get over your fear of making mistakes. You have to be willing to crash and burn…a lot. Because you will. That’s how you learn. And if you want to improvise at a high level, you’ll eventually have to crash and burn in public. There’s no way around it.
I believe this fear of making mistakes, which is a type of perfectionism, is what keeps a lot of people from learning to improvise. Your dad is trying to help you. He’s saying, “Play something.” He knows that once you’ve played something, you’ve started. Doesn’t matter if it’s wrong or right, it’s something. And something, you can work with. He obviously believes you’re capable of more than you realize…maybe he’s right...dads often are.
Bookmarks