My experience with improvisation was quite limited when I began this master’s program. Looking back on my first guitar lessons as a teenager, I do not recall ever encountering this concept. In that context, mastering the instrument was primarily focused on learning chords and rhythmic patterns, with only a superficial exploration of melodic approaches. Since I was also a singer, I quickly understood that my guitar playing would serve solely as an accompaniment tool. It was only later that I was introduced to the concept of improvisation, and my initial perception was that it was an exceedingly complex and highly analytical skill that could only be executed after a musician had mastered all possible scales, modes, and techniques. In other words, I initially believed that improvisation was only attainable once a musician had achieved complete theoretical and technical proficiency on his instrument, or summing it up, after he knew everything.
Is it even feasible? Is it possible for a musician to master everything about their instrument within a lifetime? Obviously not. However, for an immature and rather insecure teenager, this was the thought that blocked me from engaging with improvisation. Rather than perceiving it as a way of having fun and being more playful with my instrument, I saw it as a mysterious and inaccessible skill that seemed beyond my reach. I was thinking in a way that could be described as, using the terminology proposed by sociologist Hartmut Rosa in his book Resonance, “resource-oriented, if not resource-fixated”.12 For the sake of exemplifying this terminology, Rosa depicts a fictitious painter called Gustav, describing his creative process to prepare for a painting competition. Gustav surrounds himself with all the necessary tools to create the (ideal) best painting: all kinds of brushes and paints, the best lighting and his knowledge of the most important painting techniques. He also takes time trying to find inspiration or motivation for the subject. It is only after this entire process, when the day comes to an end, that he finally begins to paint. He has assembled every resource he could access. Yet, in Rosa’s words, “possessing – or being able to obtain – resources does not on its own constitute good art.”13 Thus, bringing this reflection to the field of music, what does it take to improvise? What are the skills and mindset that should be encouraged and developed? These questions have guided my entire artistic research process throughout this master's program.
During my bachelor course in arrangement at UNIRIO, improvisation was not a skill that was particularly emphasized or encouraged. In my guitar lessons with the renowned professor Luiz Otávio Braga, I transcribed guitar arrangements of samba songs played by Dino 7 Cordas14, focusing on the chords and bass lines typical of the style (called baixarias). I learned the specificities of Brazilian guitar accompaniment in genres such as samba-canção, Bossa Nova, marcha-rancho, and baião. With the classical guitarist Maria Haro, I refined my left and right-hand technique while immersing myself in the classical guitar repertoire. The first time I truly had improvisation lessons was during an exchange program at the University of Örebro, Sweden, in 2012. There, we had group lessons with students from various instruments, practicing some basic concepts of improvisation. Each class focused on a specific theme: different types of scales, church modes, motif development, genres, etc. However, I do not recall any contact with extended techniques or free improvisation.
FIRST APPROACH
In one of my first lessons with my mentor Anders Hagberg at Högskolan för scen och music (HSM), after I had shared with him my unsuccessful history with improvisation, he asked me to take my guitar out of its case, while he did the same with his flute. He then said, "Now that we have communicated with words, let us converse through our instruments."15 I immediately started to feel nervous, since I knew how talented and skilled he was, and I feared he would play something too hard to follow, which would be embarrassing. I began asking specific questions, such as, "But in what key? What is the chord progression?" He did not seem particularly concerned with those “details”. He simply set a key and began to play. I do not remember exactly how the music we played sounded, but I recall two sensations: 1) playing both things I liked and things I considered "wrong" or "ugly," and 2) the absolutely liberating feeling of playing without any pre-conceived rules or form. That was a turning point for me: if I wanted to develop improvisation, I had to get down to work instead of endlessly waiting for the perfect moment in the future when I would supposedly have mastered everything about my instrument.
After that, he suggested that I read the book “Free Play”, by Stephen Nachmanovitch, which I did in a couple of weeks while taking many notes. I felt truly moved and inspired by this book. I related to many of the reasons the author listed to explain why people shy away from improvisation: fear of making mistakes; being more concerned with the final result than with the journey itself; a constant need for approval; the desire to be accepted; and an excessive attachment to a seemingly mature and professional attitude towards music.
In the myth of the flute player, when he plays for approval, plays for prestige, plays to meet the expectations of his teacher or to avoid shame, there is always something lacking. But when he has nothing to gain and nothing to lose, then he can really play.16
I then understood that my issues with improvising needed to be approached, at first, much more from a psychological and even spiritual perspective than by a technical one. I suddenly became aware that my unsuccessful attempts to engage with improvisation were consistently rooted in an overly rational and technical approach, which only reinforced my rigidity and distanced me from the essential flow and open mindset.
WHAT CAN WORDS TELL US?
‘Play’ is an intriguing word in English. Among other meanings, it can refer both to the act of producing sounds with an instrument and to what children do when they “engage in activities for enjoyment and recreation rather than for a serious or practical purpose.”17 In contemporary Swedish, we have two distinct words for these meanings: spela, for playing an instrument, and leka, for having fun. Nevertheless, during the Middle Ages in Sweden, a musician was called lekare. In Faroese - the language spoken in the Faroe Islands - the term for “musician” is tónleikari, which can be roughly translated as “the one who plays with sounds.” In Portuguese, on the other hand, we say tocar (“to touch”) an instrument and brincar (“to play”) with children. Nevertheless, in Brazil, particularly in the Northeast region, there is a specific term, brincante, which refers to a popular artist who performs both for and with the local community. The brincante engages in storytelling, singing, playing instruments, acting, dancing, and actively encouraging audience participation. A brincante (literally, "the player") can be described as a multidisciplinary artist deeply rooted in local traditions and imbued with a profound worldview regarding the role of art in society and everyday life. Spontaneity and improvisation are defining characteristics of their performances. They seamlessly integrate the two distinct meanings of the word "play" we discussed, creating an organic and immersive artistic experience.18
The concepts of brincante and cantautor are deeply embedded in a shared tradition originating from the medieval period, a time when artistic expression was not yet confined to a select group of enlightened individuals, who were believed to reside in an 'ivory tower', maintaining privileged communication with either the divine or the muses. This vision, which became predominant during the Romantic era, continues to resonate in contemporary discourse. However, an examination of the terms concerning music and the musicians across various languages makes us remember a fundamental truth: music transcends technique, resources, intellectualization, over-rationalization, as well as the notion of “genius”. It is fundamentally about self-expression, connection with other people, pleasure, healing and enjoyment. It is about playing in the children’s sense, and also about touching both our own and other’s souls. We will come back to this matter later in the discussion.
SOME STRATEGIES
One of the approaches Anders Hagberg proposed in my classes regarding improvisation was to exercise more freedom in the songs’ forms. Instead of deciding for a fixed form to play a song and stick to it, I could think of “blocks” of music that might be mixed in different ways depending on the mood of the performance. He dissuaded me from the idea that the musicians always needed to solo over the original sung form of the song (for example, if I sang A|A|B|A, then the solos should be played over the same structure). Instead, he encouraged me to create new sections for improvisation, sometimes with less chord changes. This was a way of making me and the other musicians feel less constrained and open the music to new soundscapes. Improvising could also be a way of starting and/or finishing the song.19 We tried this approach on the song “Meu lugar”, that we played together with the pianist Danilo Andrade both on my first mid-term examination and on my first semester concert. We also did not set an ending for the song and decided to improvise together until we felt it was time to end it. You can see the result in the following video from my first semester concert, held at the end of the autumn semester of 2023:
Together with Anders, I decided to apply the same strategy during our duo performance at my third semester concert. Anders played the contrabass flute while I sang and played brushes on a wood sheet music stand. Not having a pre-defined ending (or beginning) to a song made us connect better and let the creativity and the ideas of the moment flow. I truly felt like I was playing, in the child’s sense, when I improvised within these freer forms. You can watch our performance in the video below:
Another strategy that helped me deal with my fear of improvising on stage was to set smaller sections within the songs for my improvisation instead of, as I would probably do before, just leaving it out of the performance. I did this when writing the arrangement for my song “Sempre é pouco” to perform with Bohuslän Big Band. The percussion, trumpet and trombone had each 16 bars to solo, while I had 8 bars of a vocal solo. I also chose to solo over a different chord progression from the other instruments, selecting a section where I felt my voice would be better highlighted. I also practiced this solo part with my vocal teacher Karin Bengmark20 in order to feel more prepared and relaxed when it was time for the concert. The whole performance is displayed in the video below, with the vocal solo section starting at 6'25:
One aspect that instantly grabbed my attention in my lessons with Karin was her approach to singing, which I would describe as natural, spontaneous, and embodied. Unlike other voice teachers I had in the past, who emphasized a highly theoretical approach with a strong focus on vocal physiology, Karin adopted a more practical method while maintaining a deep connection to the artistic dimension of singing. Our improvisation exercises were primarily based on active listening, minimizing extensive discussions on scales, modes or even on vocal registers or techniques. While theoretical concepts were present, they occupied a small but sufficient role in our practice. These features directly addressed my need to feel freer and more creative in my musical performance.
One of the improvisation exercises she introduced was inspired by a technique developed by the singer Rhiannon, who has collaborated with Bobby McFerrin. The exercise consisted of sitting face-to-face, where one of us would spontaneously create and repeat a riff until the other learned it and joined in. Then, the first person would begin improvising over the riff. We would alternate roles until we naturally returned to the original motif. I found this exercise incredibly engaging and liberating. Without the harmonic support of another instrument, - like the piano or the guitar - we focused on blending our vocal timbres, allowing each other’s ideas to inspire and shape our own rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic exploration. This practice helped me become increasingly comfortable with vocal improvisation. Below you can listen to an excerpt recorded during our class on February 26, 2025:
Karin also gave a couple of improvisation group classes, along with some of her students who were interested in the subject. These sessions included various group dynamics aimed at encouraging our spontaneity, creativity, and sense of fun. One of the techniques she used was circle singing, which I will explore further later in the text. These sessions were also very liberating and fun for me.
OPEN IMPROVISATION
During the autumn term of 2024, I started joining the Open Improvisation workshop at HSM, led by three teachers: Per Anders Nilsson21, Palle Dahlstedt22 and Merje Kägu23. It is not a mandatory course, but an open group or rather a “jam session”. Students from different programs, instruments and levels met approximately once every two weeks for 3 hours to improvise freely together. The teachers (and sometimes the students) proposed exercises to inspire or give a frame to our playing. These “rules” were never connected to the common parameters we use to agree when playing together, such as song, key, mode, tempo, chord sequences or genre. They were more abstract and based on suggestions such as: “Create a soundscape of an airport” or “Search for the perfect ‘click’ sound on your instrument”.24 During this autumn term, I decided only to play the acoustic guitar there (without singing). I wanted to focus and explore new possibilities for this instrument that for so long has rarely been more than an accompaniment tool for my singing.
Playing with this group felt like a new world unfolding before me. I had never had such a clear opportunity to explore new sounds, or even embrace sounds traditionally considered ugly or undesirable on my instrument. Could these new sounds be called "extended techniques"? Perhaps. But more than just exploring extended techniques, the possibility to try conventional sounds (notes and chords) completely outside the familiar context was a revelation. Unlike other settings in which I had improvised with musicians, in this workshop, I never felt pressured, embarrassed, or diminished. The phrase, repeatedly emphasized by the instructors - "There are no rights or wrongs here" - had a profoundly liberating effect. Attending this group had an almost therapeutic dimension for me. In what other instance of my musical life (or my life as a whole) could I act with such freedom? I realized that attending this workshop was a successful strategy to deal with that fear of improvising described by Nachmanovitch. Even though I have no intention of fully immersing myself in the world of free improvisation, engaging with this group played a crucial role in deepening my connection to spontaneous self-expression and musical interaction with others.
Another immediate and tangible result of my practice in the Open Improvisation group was the organic incorporation of certain techniques into my musical practice in other contexts. This became remarkable in the composition process of a piece called “Autumn”, where I applied some of the sounds and concepts practiced in the workshop, such as:
- composing in a less pre-structured and more intuitive way;
- creating a soundscape through sounds which evoked images;
- not setting a fixed tempo for the song;
- mixing regular chord changes and rhythmic patterns with less dense sections (without any defined harmony, rhythmic patterns, or tonality);
- using chromaticism;
- using “speech-voice”.25
The piece ended up being so different from the ones I have written before that I struggled with notating it. I felt that the sheet music I wrote was a somewhat forced simplification of how I actually wanted the music to sound. Especially because the tempo was not regular, and for each phrase or section of the piece, it was necessary to understand these tempo changes and the cues. The lead sheet would definitely not be enough to reach the musical result I wanted. I regarded it merely as a starting point, with the rest of the interpretation being developed through rehearsals with the musicians. Below, you can see the original lead sheet with my comments in red, as well as the video of the final performance of this piece with the band in my third semester concert:
CIRCLE SINGING
I was introduced to the concept of circle singing by my body percussion teacher Charles Raszl. He showed me Bobby McFerrin’s album “Circlesongs”26 and told me about his own practice conducting groups of singers and non-singers using this method. The idea of circle singing is quite simple and rooted in ancestral communal musical practices. There are various ways to approach it. The most common one is to position people in a circle and define a leader for the group. This leader creates different melodic phrases, patterns, ostinatos, percussive motifs and other types of sounds, attributing them to different groups on the spot. Step by step, the musical layers overlap, creating a true orchestra of sounds. Over this musical foundation, the leader can then improvise, assuming the role of a soloist. Bobby McFerrin describes his experience with circle singing as follows:
I do this form of singing called circle singing and I do workshops and teach it. It's very simple because I think it's very natural: you get your singers in a circle, most of the time, I have them in parts. The leader stands in the middle, and they simply start to improvise, to come up with a part that they think maybe the altos or the sopranos or the tenors or basses could sing. Then they hold that part, then the leader comes up with other parts and assigns parts to the whole group. I'll tell you, after singing that way for 15, 20, 30, 60 minutes, with different leaders coming in and changing parts and rearranging them, and the singing doesn't stop - it's a very uplifting experience! I don't know what it is, but there is a real sense of empowerment when you're done.27
Inspired by Bobby McFerrin and by Charles’ classes I decided to experiment this technique for the first time in a concert context in my third semester concert that took place at Skeppet in December 2024. I invited the audience to join me in a circle song. In “The concert as a ritual” subsection (inside "Between the staff lines: addressing non-musical issues through music" section), I will explain this experiment further. This experience left a very positive mark on me. I felt I was immersed in a state of flow while I listened to the audience’s voices and sang with them. It felt really rewarding. After that concert, I decided I would continue exploring circle singing, not only in performance contexts but also in my practice and in my teaching.
I had the chance to try out circle singing in my fourth mid-term examination and also in some “Student’s labs” – regular meetings in which the students from my program brought musical ideas and played together – as well as in group classes with my vocal teacher Karin Bengmark.
It was interesting to notice the challenges that emerged during my experiences with circle singing. Spontaneous musical ideas did not always work for everyone right away: sometimes the rhythm would get lost along the way, or the original melody would shift and change. As a circle singing leader, you gradually start to develop strategies to help keep the group cohesive, such as marking the tempo with clear physical gestures - movements, finger snaps, stomping, and so on. Often, it is also necessary to turn to specific groups to remind them of their phrase, repeating it a few more times with them until it settles. Circle singing is always a work in progress, and that, to me, is the beauty of the process. Depending on the group, there may be more or less ease in engagement and responsiveness, but it is always possible to arrive at a harmonious and interesting result, and, above all, to have fun together. In the following video, you can see an example of how circle singing was approached with a group of students from my master's program in April, 2025: