History Main / Improv

** Shoot From The Hip - London.

* Podcast/HeroClub is a D and D podcast created by and starring actors with improv experience. While sounds effects are added and parts are cut out, the hosts Nick and George specifically mention how nothing is written in the intros they put in each episode. They mention how D and D is like long-form improv in that intro as well.

* Podcast/HeroClub is a D and D podcast created by and starring actors with improv actors. While sounds effects are added and parts are cut out, the hosts Nick and George specifically mention how nothing is written in the intros they put in each episode. They mention how D and D is like long-form improv in that intro as well.

* Blues, rock and to a lesser degree HeavyMetal are some other genres that tend to feature a lot of instrumental improvisation. Like in jazz, improvisation in these genres is usually based on the "pentatonic blues scale".

** Evidently, the same can be said of ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'', who had quite a few cast members translate between the two shows. The "Drew Live" episodes were at least partially improvised.

* ''Series/MockTheWeek'', who was created by the same people as ''Whose Line'', mixes this with a satirical PanelShow.

* Though more scripted than most, at least in its final form, ''Series/TheColbertReport'' is grounded firmly in improv, with much of the show being done 'on the fly'; host Creator/StephenColbert trained at the famous Creator/SecondCity and carried that training with him throughout his career, and Second City's "say yes to everything" motto permeates the ''Report'' as well.

* Literally every major city (at least, in America) usually has an improv comedy show. Creator/SecondCity has very much popularized the art -- the troupe was the first of its kind in North America -- and has heavily impacted the art of improv worldwide. Second City's methods received much wider exposure with ''Whose Line'' and ''Saturday Night Live'', both of which draw heavily from SC alums.

** Creator/ChristopherGuest, Creator/MichaelMcKean, and Creator/HarryShearer found they enjoyed this formula so much that they went on to make a number of other improv-ed mockumentaries, including ''Film/WaitingForGuffman'', ''Film/BestInShow'', ''Film/AMightyWind'', and ''Film/ForYourConsideration''. Most of the ensemble cast in these movies started out in improv comedy groups such as the famous Creator/SecondCity.

* In the German show {{Schillerstrasse}}, ''everything'' is improv'ed. Really: the actors knows only the beginning of the episode, and they receive instructions via headphones. It was so popular that [[FollowTheLeader it spawned similar shows in other countries.]]

** Note that all of Creator/JonBenjamin's own series' involve large amounts of improv, ''Dr. Katz'', ''WesternAnimation/HomeMovies'', and more recently Archer.

** The distinction between free improvisation and jamming is that, in free improvisation, all the musicians are improvising all the time, so nobody knows (in theory, anyway) what anyone is going to play next; but in jamming, some of the musicians are usually providing a stable backdrop (such as a groove, or a chord progression, or both), against which other musicians solo. Jamming is fine if that's what you intended to do; Music/FrankZappa's bands, for example, were great at it, and Music/{{Phish}} are the most well know of the "jam bands" out there, certainly a deservedly famous one. But in the hands of unimaginative musicians, it can get very predictable.[[note]]Ian Hunter of Music/MottTheHoople wrote in his early 70s memoir about the tedium of every mediocre jam turning into an inevitable 12-bar-blues in G.[[/note]]

* Free improvisation is ''entirely'' improvised music, typically played by smaller ensembles and soloists. Bigger ensembles are capable of free improvisation, but the form relies very much on the quality of every musician's attention to what's going on, and after a certain point it becomes difficult-to-impossible to sift out what's happening, so large ensembles typically use a set of rules to determine who should play what and when (e.g. 'If there is another musician playing the same instrument as you, don't play when they're playing', or conversely, 'only one section at a time should play', etc.) The challenge is usually to avoid every improvisation having the same form: starting very quiet, working up to a big climax and then being quieter again. It requires players to be able to turn on a dime, hear what others are doing and respond appropriately, have an endless number of ideas and the greatest possible technical command of the instrument, and above all the willingness to not play anything at all if that's what's needed. Some rock bands have done it successfully, notably Music/HenryCow and Music/KingCrimson; rock bands who do this unsuccessfully generally end up merely jamming, which isn't the same thing.