Hi,

This question is partially about theory and practice, but more about history. But it isn't about "It comes from the heart." My question lies in another register:

That is, historically, how did improvisation evolve as something akin to the guitar? Is there something about the guitar as an instrument (physically or culturally) that lends itself to improv?

For my own view at this point (not particularly informed, just opinion) it appears that old blues players in the delta needed to expand the time of any single song, and I get this to some degree. Maybe we can call that the 'expansion' theory and see it as a contribution, but I would like to bracket it out, positing that the time could have been filled with repetitions or gone nordic and filled with long stories. Instead, something else emerged.

Clearly in Chicago blues there is almost a formula that rock picked up, and the solo (improv or fake improve, depending...) became a part of many live performances and many recorded sessions. There even seems to be a valorization of improv and long solos that mark authentic music from pop music (at least in the minds of those into improv) are part of this.

There seems to be some randomness and chance involved as well. Richie Havens was asked to keep going at Woodstock because the other bands weren't set up and ready - and the never ending Freedom, Freedom became a 'thing'.

This all came up for me as I was reading Clapton's autobiography yesterday. He was talking about how they ran out of songs and so they just started jamming and the crowd went wild. Later, upon visiting (don't call it) Frisco during the Fillmore/Psychedelic years, Clapton noticed that the band could improvise and kind of "plug into" the crowd. Perhaps that takes substances were everyone becomes ONE anyway, but it interested me in terms of the feed-back aspect of improvisation, and how that works or doesn't. Everyone in SanFrancisco seemed to be plugged into jamming in those days, improv that would go on and on, and surely there is a florescence of improv during that time.

Now, less so. Is improv and jamming fading? I hear a joke (I hate) that says, Q: how is a rock solo like a premature ejaculatory? A: You know it's coming and there isn't anything you can do about it.
Is this the current attitude? Get the song out under 3 minutes and move on?

Sorry, digressing - I'm not here to bang new music. Though I did notice in Amsterdam last summer that the "Coffee shops" are not playing songs with long extended jams anymore. They are playing non-ending electronic stuff, so I can't quite get my theory about substances and improv to work..ha ha, it's not 3 minute pop songs, so maybe the theory still holds.

I saw an ethnology video once about Kalahari Kung! Bushmen. They dance and dance until they achieve a higher level. I think this has something to do with it, but then so would rave repetitiveness, and that is sort of what I am NOT getting at. Rather I think there is an kind of circulambulation, a kind of poetic interweaving, (impleaching) and interlacing over this repetition that respects it, but traces out themes...

Just a theory, curious about what other guitar lovers think and do,

RC