Free Play

Free Play is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms.
           
An international bestseller and beloved classic, Free Play is an inspiring and provocative book, directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured, and how finally it can be liberated—how we can be liberated—to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice.

Stephen Nachmanovitch, a pioneer in free improvisation, integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity, drawing on unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. Free Play brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.
Free PlayPrologue: A New Flute
Introduction

The Sources
Inspiration and Time's Flow
The Vehicle
The Stream
The Muse
Mind at Play
Disappearing

The Work
Sex and ViolinsPractice
The Power of Limits
The Power of Mistakes
Playing Together
Form Unfolding

Obstacles and Openings
Childhood's End
Vicious Circles
The Judging Spectre
Surrender
Patience
Ripening

The Fruits
Eros and Creation
Quality
Art for Life's Sake
Heartbreakthrough

Notes
Bibliography
Illustrations

“Nachmanovitch tells it like it is in the most important book on improvisation I’ve yet seen.” 
—Keith Jarrett, pianist

“A classic . . . altogether vitalizing. The remedy for creative block and existential stuckness.”
—Maria Popova
 
“This is an unusually intense, packed, thought-through book on the most difficult subject in the world: mystic creativity. If you want to be intellectually informed about how people actually create things, then you should read it at least once.” 
—Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“When I first heard Stephen Nachmanovitch in San Francisco and when he later visited my school in England, I was captivated by his being, as were all others. Now having read Free Play, I understand his approach more deeply. Would that Free Play found its way into every school, office, hospital, and factory. It is a most exciting book and a most important one.” 
—Yehudi Menuhin, violinist

“I am grateful to Stephen Nachmanovitch for sharing his wisdom in these pages. I expect—I hope—to be rereading his book and practicing with it for the rest of my life.”
—Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness
 
“Stephen Nachmanovitch has produced a celebration of human uniqueness. In so doing, he helps us to make better use of our resources of playfulness, ingenuity, and creativity in general. What it amounts to is a guide for getting the most out of whatever is possible.” 
—Norman Cousins, author of The Anatomy of an Illness

“I absolutely love this book. What a blissful, friendly, fiercely intelligent thing; it expresses truths that I am groping towards in a way that is emboldening and clarifying. I don't think I have ever felt so happy to shout about or recommend a book and I know I will read it again and again.”
—Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Write It All Down
 
“The mother of all improvisation books.” 
—Jeffrey Agrell, University of Iowa
 
“This book is important not only because it delves into the creative process, but also because Nachmanovitch creates the opportunity for the reader to get in touch with his/her own creative possibilities and abilities. This is an essential book for everyone.”
—Harvard Educational Review
 
“The kit of tools Nachmanovitch lays before us are high-level generalizations, and could be applied equally well to just about any discipline from cooking to comedy. His intent is clearly unitary. He circles like a falcon around the inexpressible. His text is the finger in the haiku, pointing at the moon.” 
—Keyboard Magazine
 
“Free Play is a superb guide for anyone who aspires to create, whatever the medium.” 
—New WomanStephen Nachmanovitch performs and teaches internationally as an improvisational violinist, and at the intersections of performing and multimedia arts, philosophy, and ecology. In the 1970s he was a pioneer in free improvisation on violin, viola, and electric violin. He has presented lectures, masterclasses and workshops at many universities, and has had numerous appearances on radio, television and festivals. He is the author of two books on the creative process: Free Play and The Art of Is. He lives with his family in Virginia.

Table of Contents

 

Title Page

Copyright Page

Epigraph

Acknowledgements

Introduction

 

The Sources

Inspiration and Time’s Flow

The Vehicle

The Stream

The Muse

Mind at Play

Disappearing

 

The Work

Sex and Violins

Practice

The Power of Limits

The Power of Mistakes

Playing Together

Form Unfolding

 

Obstacles and Openings

Childhood’s End

Vicious Circles

The Judging Spectre

Surrender

Patience

Ripening

 

The Fruits

Eros and Creation

Quality

Art for Life’s Sake

Heartbreakthrough

 

Notes

Bibliography

Illustrations

About the Author

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The author thanks the following for their permission to reprint from copyrighted works.

 

Constance Crown, for Hands by Rico Lebrun.
Walter Gruen, for Musica Solar by Remedios Varo.
Ben Berzinsky, for his photograph of a Carlo Bergonzi violin, c. 1770.
Grateful thanks to the late Arnold Fawcus of the Trianon Press, Paris, for permission to
photograph his magnificent William Blake books.
Artist Rights Society, Inc., for Two Children Drawing and Dawn Song by Pablo Picasso. © ARS
N.Y./SPADEM.
Charles E. Tuttle Co., Tokyo, Japan, for Tomikichiro Tokuriki’s Riding the Bull Home.
North Point Press, for excerpt from Wendell Berry’s essay, Poetry and Marriage.
For M. C. Escher’s Encounter © 1989 M. C. Escher Heirs/Cordon Art, Baarn, Holland.
Excerpts from “Burnt Norton” and “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets, © 1943 by T. S. Eliot
and renewed 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot, .
Excerpt from The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life. Introduction by Carl Jung,
translated and explained by Richard Wilhelm, .
Excerpt from A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, © 1929 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc. and renewed 1957 by Leonard Woolf, .
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Nachmanovitch, Stephen.
Free play; improvisation in life and art / Stephen Nachmanovitch

 

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 9781440673085

1. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) 2. Improvisation (Music)
I. Title.
BH301.C84N-49303
153.3’5-dc2O CIP

 

Copyright © 1990 by Stephen Nachmanovitch

Paint as you like and die happy.

HENRY MILLER

Acknowledgments

The following are only a few of the many friends and colleagues whose support, criticism, ideas, and other contributions were vital to the creation of this book: