Improvising and Devising cheat sheet (click to download pdf)

Futurism
Imagine your instrument as a noise-making machine
Luigi Russolo and his Intonarumori instruments (built between 1910 and 1930)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbbmPD7NuDY

Dada
Anti-art and anti-music
Use non-musical sounds to make music, such as speech
Kurt Schwitters and his Ursonate (written between 1922-32)
https://ubusound.memoryoftheworld.org/bok/Bok-Christian_Ursonate.mp3

Expressionism
Use the extreme registers of your instrument
Free atonality (not strict 12-tone)
Use text as structure
Arnold Schönberg’s Erwartung (composed in 1909 but not performed until 1924)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rErXOMu7DW8

Silence
Make an empty structure using durations and then fill it with music
Imagine punctuating silence with sound
John Cage’s Imaginary Landscape Number 4 (for radios and written in 1942)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRa0j_EIth0

Process
People doing the same action at their own pace
Variation comes from individual differences
John White’s Drinking and Hooting Machine (1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER4KENdkVlg

‘On the Edge – Improvisation in Music #1 Passing It On’
4-part TV series broadcast on Channel 4 in 1992
It is an hour long, but will really help you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3aaHHMUUog