ABSTRACT
Understanding improvisation in its various manifestations requires to consider the modes of improvisation in the context, not only of the other kinds of artistic improvisation, but of human improvisatory activity in general. In the case of theater and music, certainly in the west and in the last 400 years or so, the norm of the arts is that they involve highly specialized skills practiced in the context of specific sets of instructions such as musical scores and dramatic scripts. In the case of music, however, the development and use of musical notation and the possibility of fixing many aspects of instrumentation, dynamics, and tempi in the score, provide the pertinent backdrop against which improvisational activity can emerge in performance and be specifically appreciated. When musical improvisation consists primarily in more or less minor ornamental embellishments to a composed work, the listener's attention may focus more on the performance of the composed musical work than on the improvised embellishments.
