ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of improvisation, intimately connected with that of the composer-performer divide. It shows the distinctions to the contrast between broad and narrow senses of improvisation. Broad sense improvisation is spontaneous creation. Under this heading is spontaneous creation using an established method, as well as spontaneous creation involving “making do,” which has artistic and non-artistic manifestations – the artistic kind that people revel in and the practical kind that is forced on one rather than chosen and which is a nuisance at best and a catastrophe at worst. The contemporary Western concept of musical composition arises from the composer-performer divide, which developed in Western music over a period of centuries during the medieval era, along with staff notation. Contemporary musicology is modifying that picture, with improvisation seen as a compositional method.
