Cello Accompaniment Concepts

A reader of and occasional commenter on my blogs, Terry, has supplied the link to this Cello Accompaniment Concepts page as an example of the type of thing he is hoping to read more about here (but is afraid he won't).

The page he refers to has some good references about improvised cello accompaniments in the history of music, especially (but not only) folk music. Eventually, I will be writing about improvisation in earlier eras. We are just waking up from a period of "creative slumber" among classical performers which is indeed a historical anomaly. Until well into the 19th century, competent instrumental performers were trained to and expected to be able to improvise and compose. Terry imagines sitting in on a Bach family jam session--now that would have been something!

Specific techniques for improvising cello accompaniments in folk music is an example of one of the three main categories in my preliminary improvisational taxonomy: improvisation as (part of) a performance art.

How much detail I will go into regarding such idiomatic forms of improvisation is still unknown, even to me. There is an awful lot of information available on the various musical idioms which incorporate improvisation to one extent or another. My mission, as I understand it now, is to provide justification, encouragement, and support to classically-trained musicians who want to develop their creativity. Pointing to non-classical idioms and resources is well within that scope. Writing in depth about non-classical idioms probably isn't.

But I certainly want to be one of the people who help make all sorts of resources easy to find. I'll definitely put Terry's link up on my improvisation links page! And express my great appreciation to Terry for sharing.