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Vijay Iyer Improvising at Piano

09/02/2013 GMT

Improvisation

BBC World Service - The Forum, Improvisation

Why improvising comes naturally to all of us.

Playing the piano live in the studio, Vijay Iyer explains how the process of improvisation works, in words and in music.

The magic and mystery of improvisation. If you took piano lessons as a child and were taught to play the classics, the idea of improvising music seems extraordinarily difficult. How do you know what to play next? Celebrated jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer lets us into the secret of how he goes about extemporizing and plays live in the studio. Adding their thoughts are young Indian writer Samhita Arni who uses one of India's great epic tales as a basis for her verbal improvisation, and leading London psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz.

Photo: Vijay Iyer improvising on the piano (BBC)

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