“Ready or not.” That easily summarizes my first experience with improvisation. Jazz was a foreign concept to me and I found myself enrolled in the “Beginning Jazz” class at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. The instructor spent an hour discussing what appeared to be rocket science. (Later, I realized it was simply beginner’s jazz theory, and that often chords by the name of “dominant” were used. Who knew?) After this crash course in Confusing Symbols 101, a rhythm section started to play and the teacher started pointing at each student to take a solo. Upon my turn, I simply stared back at him wide-eyed, frightened, and embarrassed. I maybe played two notes. By the end of the week I had progressed to about seven. Ready or not – there’s much to be said for that. Often the best way to learn is to be thrown in head first.

However, readiness rarely gets its due. As a result of the above experience, I completely avoided jazz for another ten months before attempting to tackle it with my private teacher. I had wanted to ever since my failure of a debut at camp but was too embarrassed (even though no one I knew saw me crash and burn). I was interested but far from ready.

Conversely, last week I practiced some flute etudes (on saxophone) by Benoit Berbiguer. I had gone through them in graduate school at my professor’s request, but I was far from interested at the time. I begrudgingly got through them, often wishing to practice other material. However, last week’s work on the etudes was far more productive because I was interested and ready. Instead of going through the motions I had a vested interest, and my practicing reflected that.

The moral of course is not to never leave your comfort zone but to become aware of your boundaries, interests, and readiness. Such awareness can be a wonderful, intuitive guide to improvement.