The Art of Is: Improvising as a Way of Life

by Stephen Nachmanovitch Narrated by Robertson Dean

Overview

A critically acclaimed musician and teacher presents a guide to the dynamics of improvisation

It's easy to assume that Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous and endlessly influential "I Have a Dream" speech was pre-scripted, vetted by others, written, and re-written. It was not. Instead it was given on the fly, when from the audience singer Mahalia Jackson urged King off his prepared text. The result has inspired millions.

The Art of Is contains breath-of-fresh-air thinking about how to cultivate the kind of game-changing creativity everyone seeks. Stephen Nachmanovitch shows exactly how the passion and immediacy of improvisation can be cultivated and how, in fact, we all improvise all the time-whether we are driving or deep in conversation. He explores ideas about being in the moment and reacting to people as they are, finding gold in unexpected distractions and roadblocks, and not only accepting but also celebrating imperfections in everyday practices. This creative mindfulness also makes innovation the province not of solitary geniuses but the result of engagement and interaction-and makes clear that improvising, creating, innovating are only of value when rooted in an ethical and social foundation. The results, Nachmanovitch shows, foster meaningful change and invention-and may just ignite a dream.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

In an age of standardized packages and constrained choices, Stephen Nachmanovitch gives us The Art of Is, a refreshing encounter with how to improvise and be fully alive in the face of deadening habits of mind. The author is a musician and a teacher who has an uncanny ability to see and listen and help others do likewise. We are verbs, not nouns, he tells us, because we are ever in motion — open to change and surprise. Like musicians who improvise together, human beings can break barriers: teaching, playing, creating, and being present to one another. In clear prose, Nachmanovitch effortlessly shows how people discover — in themselves — the sheer power to relate and endlessly adapt.”
— Jerry Brown, governor of California 1975–1982 and 2011–2018

“A beautiful book, full of power, full of life, written from the deep experience of an artist and a wise person.”
— Joan Halifax, abbot, Upaya Zen Center

“The Art of Is IS real ART! It is so lucid, grand, kind, easygoing, and deeply helpful, I could not stop reading it, even in time I did not ‘have’! It is full of surprises, gems, and open-ended inspirations. It starts from the moment of Mahalia Jackson’s startling outburst to MLK Jr., catapulting his “I have a dream” speech into the improvisation of a soaring liberation of the spirit that it was. Stephen Nachmanovitch takes us with him on his life-walk of love in music all over the world. He delivers us to a place of new vitality in our own lives where we more fully recognize the harmonies at hand. This is a lovely guidebook for our own journeys, helping us appreciate ourselves and each other as the precious human beings endowed with liberty and opportunity that we are!”
— Robert Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University, co-founder of  Tibet House

“Stephen Nachmanovitch brings forty years of practicing improv to the page and offers a rich trove, hard-won and long-pondered. In graceful prose that reflects not only his talking the talk but walking the walk, he explores the art of being present. You’ll finish the book enriched by his experiences studying under Zen masters and his mentor, the great polymath Gregory Bateson, and teaching aspiring improvisers all over the world.”
— Randy Fertel, author of A Taste for Chaos: The Art of Literary Improvisation

“Stephen Nachmanovitch beautifully reveals a world of communication and co-creation that is both new and ancient. To play in this realm of improvisation is to recognize the tenderness with which interdependence knows aloneness, and the way silence defines sound. The stories he tells show us that the complexity and simplicity of life itself exist in our interrelationships. These findings are laid out in this book with grace, humor, and careful articulation. Nachmanovitch makes it clear that the art of being human now is acutely tied into an improvisational way of being: making sense of ourselves, each other, and the natural world in ways that find new offerings within old patterns. It is to feel anew.”
— Nora Bateson, filmmaker, International Bateson Institute

“The Art of Is gives us a precious philosophical prescription for engaging the creative opportunities of our life as the greatest work of art.”
— Alex Grey, artist

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

Narrator Robertson Dean lends his judicious pacing and artful vocal variation to this production, accompanying listeners through musician and teacher Nachmanovitch’s reflections. “Improvising is life itself,” Nachmanovitch says; his book redefines improvisation as more than a creative practice—it’s also a step to finding one’s true self, one’s own “skilled discipline of doing and being who you are.” Dean offers a consummately professional performance with his deep, mellow voice and natural ability to mix up pace and emphasis in ways that keep the audiobook’s more abstract moments engaging to the ear. Improvisation, Nachmanovitch argues, requires the ability to listen and in doing so connects us to each other and to what is most deeply human. Dean’s narration connects listeners with the author’s observations on art and humanity. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169525779
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	04/09/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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