Why spontaneity and the ability to improvise are not what many people think it is … 

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Many people tend to think that improvising is

about being super spontaneous.

But what gets easily overlooked is how much improvising has to do with

being prepared to be spontaneous.

For example, the master improvisers in music don't just walk on the stage and

start playing what comes to their mind.

Or in fact they do, but they do it after years of practicing.

They have experimented a lot, played a lot of wrong notes.

Been surprised many times by an unexpected turn of their fellow band

colleagues, thought of a line that their fingers just couldn't implement.

But they kept trying, experimenting, playing.

And therefore, today they're able to react masterfully to every turn that

their fellow musicians are taking while their hands are able to quickly

play what their mind is thinking.

When you improvise unprepared, you are probably going to hit a

couple of lucky goals, but you're going to miss just as many.

In essence, you are leaving success too luck to a large degree.

Which, by the way, is a comfortable place to be in for some, because you can

always put the blame on the fact that you haven't actually prepared and were just

winging it and if only you had prepared you, of course, would've performed better.

It's always better to show up prepared when you're about to improvise,

because that will improve your rate of success by a large factor.

Of course, that's not to say that you shouldn't start to improvise

when you're just starting out.

It's rather a motivation to dig deeper in order to become

ever better at improvising.