I firmly believe that every true musician should be able to improvise. It’s an absolutely essential skill, even if you can only execute it in the most basic way. If one cannot freely speak their own musical ideas through their own instrument, how can he or she expect to perform another composer’s work with that same natural, musical freedom? We could liken it to public speaking: a person will have very little success reading a piece of literature for an audience if they cannot first articulate their own speech clearly and concisely, with attention to phrasing and accent.

Andreas Werckmeister, an organ-builder of 17_^th century Germany, wrote a treatise on the mechanics of organ-building, tuning, and maintenance. Appended to this treatise is a brief outline of the general expectations of a good church organist. Interestingly, he criticizes the organist that shows up to their job audition and plays a piece of tablature music (tablature being the most common form of musical notation for keyboard instruments in that era).

“Of late, church officials are increasingly being bamboozled when hiring an organist. For many organists are in habit of memorizing a few tablature pieces, or they put the tablature in front of them [on the music rack]. Having previously practiced these pieces, they play up a storm, and a person without technical insight must think that they are obviously good organists, since they extemporize such learned music. On closer examination, however, it is clear that they have used up the full extent of their art. Usually they stick to the same old lyre [or repertoire] and a few memorized tablature pieces for the rest of their lives. Every Sunday and Feast Day they will spring them again on their listeners, whose ears must ache in the end. Therefore, when an organist is being auditioned, he must be given a theme to be developed in various manners. Or one might select a few chorales [hymn-tunes] and have him play variations on them and let him transpose them.”

Werckmeister, Andreas. Erweitere und verbesserte Orgel-probe in English. Translated by Gerhard Krapf, The Sunbury Press, 1976.

How times have changed! Nowadays, it is an expectation that you learn or memorize a piece of “tablature music” for any kind of audition. The style of audition that Werckmeister suggests sets a high benchmark for the musician of today. Most modern classical musicians struggle to play any kind of musical phrase if it isn’t laid out for them in notation. This type of hesitancy can spell disaster in any kind of musical setting, be it ensemble or solo.

I urge musicians to look past musical notation. Try to create something new (canticum novum?). Consider, instead of the context of a composed work, the context of your own performance. Instead of asking, “What was the composer’s intent with this piece?” ask yourself, “What is my intent in performance? How can I beautify this occasion? How can I create something specifically for this moment?”

Don’t allow yourself to cause ear-aches.

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