Most students at Brandeis who hear of the Improv Collective have little or no idea what it is. Some mistake the group for a comedy improv troupe or a jazz combo, two examples of groups who may do "improvisation." What the Improv Collective actually is may surprise students, as the idea behind the group is extremely simple. Tom Hall, the director of the group, teaches musicians how to improvise. But what is improvisation? As a member of the group, this has been a question I've been trying to tackle for a long time. Fortunately, I was able to sit down with Tom Hall last week and talk about how he developed his method of teaching improvisation, what improvisation means, and what exactly it is that he does with the Improv Collective.JustArts: So, first off, what is improvisation?

Tom Hall: Well, I think that improvisation is something that, as humans, we all naturally do. It's the process of combining the knowledge and skills we possess with the possibilities and materials available in the moment, and spontaneously creating something. From the moment we're born until the moment we die, from the most creative artistic endeavor to the most mundane action, it is an inextricable part of human life.

JA: How did you come to this realization?

TH: Well, the idea actually came from playing an instrument. When I started off in seventh-grade jazz ensemble, I realized that what I liked best was just that, being up there and playing stuff. That's why I became a musician, and I went to college in the New England Conservatory. We had a band there called Ensemble Garuda, and what we would do is get together basically every day and improvise in every way that we could think of. And that really got me started thinking about improvisation in a broader context.

JA: So as a musician who improvised, how did you connect that with the idea of improvisation being something completely universal?

TH: Well, after I graduated college, I started playing a lot of different styles of music, whether it was funk or disco or straight-ahead jazz. What I realized was that no matter what kind of music I was playing, I always felt like an improviser. I had the ability to work with what was happening in the moment and to improvise in a way that worked and made sense. The process was the same, no matter what kind of music I was playing. Then I started wondering, well, if improvisation is the same with all music, is it the same with everything we create?

JA: You mean, other forms of artistic creativity?

TH: You see, I actually went through a period of time where I took some improvisational theater classes just to see if the process was the same, if I could apply what I knew about the process of improvisation to this other medium. I found out that, aside from certain things that are inherent to the medium, such as in music you have pitches and harmony, there's all this stuff about improvisation that's all the same: Basic concepts like beginning and ending, things like phrasing, creating a story, a narrative arc and the idea of relationship. And I spoke to dancers a lot, and to musicians, too. And the more I did this the more I realized that the process of improvisation in all artistic mediums was the same.

JA: Are there any specific examples of theater and music using the same process to improvise?

TH: Well, there's a improv comedy term called "finding the game." What's the basic relationship between the characters, what's the game that they're playing? Then once you find the game you can follow the flow of the improvisation and know where the joke is going to be. In musical terms, maybe you're playing in this key or you're accompanying him, and that's the game.

JA: So what finally led you to doing the Improv Collective at Brandeis?

TH: [Prof.] Bob Nieske (MUS), the jazz ensemble director here, asked me to be a sax teacher at Brandeis. I came in and started doing work with sax players, and we ended up doing a lot of improvisation. That got me thinking about how to get somebody to feel comfortable improvising music if they haven't done it before. So that's how, in 1997, I got started developing the Improv Collective, the system I have for teaching people how to improvise.

JA: A lot of times musicians come to the Improv Collective, and I've heard them play in the orchestra and they're phenomenal performers. But I talk to them and they say, "Oh, I don't know how to improvise." How do you make them realize that they can improvise?

TH: It's actually remarkably easy. I ask them to improvise just one sound that tells me who they are right now. If you can get somebody to play that one note and to really truly have it come out as an expression of themselves in that moment, then the ice is broken. Then it's just a matter of learning technique, like how to improvise a melody.

JA: Would you say there is a process of learning and becoming a better improviser?

TH: Everyone has an incredible amount of knowledge of how to improvise. Every culture has music and speech, and everyone lives in a world where making sense of the sounds around you is so important. So the key to becoming a free improviser is how to put the two things together. We have all this knowledge improvising, we have all this knowledge about how to make sense of sound, and to be a great improviser you have to learn do the two at once.

JA: I heard you were coming out with a handbook that puts together all of these ideas of improvisation.

TH: Yes, it's a workbook called Free Improvisation: A Practical Guide. I've been writing this book for over 10 years now. The book covers the theory and practicing behind improvisation, and it has 124 exercises focusing on developing skills to help you improvise.

JA: Will you be publishing the book yourself?

TH: Yes, I'll be selling it on my Web site, www.freeimprovisation.com, as well as Amazon.

JA: What kind of people are you targeting?

TH: I truly think everybody can use it. I think an intimate understanding of improvisation can help everything. I gave it to my old English teacher, and he said, "I wish I had this when I was a teacher. All of these ideas I would have used in teaching writing." It's all the same thing.

JA: I also heard that you are performing free improv in the Boston area with other professional musicians.

TH: I'm currently doing a series called The Sessions, currently at The Outpost in Inman Square. I invite musicians that I think I would enjoy playing with and we improvise. I don't distinguish between who's in the free jazz realm and who's not. Part of my thing is breaking those boundaries, getting an avant-garde jazz musician together with a blues player. The CD of Sessions III, which is a studio session I did recently with bassist Marty Ballou and trombonist Jeff Galindo, is currently available on my Web site.

JA: It seems like you'll be busy with not only the Improv Collective but also the book and the performances. Any other future plans or projects you're working on?

TH: Eventually I want to do more sessions and workshops, open for anyone to come and work on different improv elements. I also want put on a theatrical show involving dance and improv music and costumes, but that's far in the future. My next Session will be on Dec. 13 with Jerry Leake on percussion and Sonny Barbato on accordion.

JA: Final question, what's the wackiest thing that's happened during your time with the Improv Collective?

TH: Well, there's always wacky things happening. Everything from purely beautiful music to some guy playing a two minute solo with his flip-flop, which happened in performance. It was during the final concert, and he just took off his shoes and started hitting things with them. It was intense.