A little kid stands by a piano and plucks a few notes at random. Oscar Peterson sits at a piano and plucks thousands of notes, seemingly at random but in trained, intelligent, creative response to a grid of chords with a time signature and a strict number of bars.

The kid and Peterson are both improvising. Call them the Beginner and the Master, and put them at the extremes of a continuum with infinite gradations. Then place yourself somewhere along the continuum—maybe very close to the Beginner, maybe a few or several gradations more sophisticated than the Total Baby Beginner Born Yesterday. The main thing is for you to understand that anyone, anyone, ANYONE! can improvise at the piano (or the harp or the French horn). And also to understand that the way you define a concept determines your behavior.

I like thinking of improvisation as an archetypical energy, manifesting itself in thousands of different ways. The kid and Peterson; Peterson and Bach; Bach and Beethoven; Beethoven and a dog standing on its hind legs, pushing down keys and howling.

Improvisation-as-archetype manifests itself in your own life, in dozens of ways, often without your realizing it. Traffic is blocked when you’re driving to the office; you improvise a new route. A friend shows up unannounced at dinner time; you improvise a salad with the few ingredients you have in your fridge. Conversation is Improvisation. (The capital “I” suddenly lets us see that the concept is big, eternal, widespread, vital, Archetypal.) Talking to a stranger or a friend or a client or a child, you make up phrases, paragraphs, arguments. With incredible mental dexterity, you string together words and thoughts from your gigantic inner database, and you do so at high speed and often while multitasking. It means that you’re a natural-born, skillful Improviser.

Baby crying? Improvise a soothing solution. You don’t speak Italian and you’re visiting Florence? Improvise a way to communicate. All your shirts are in the washer? Improvise an outfit. You get caught cheating? Improvise an explanation. The improvised response sometimes makes a situation worse, sometimes makes it better; sometimes it solves a problem, sometimes it saves a life.

Let’s imagine another continuum, from improvisation to structure. At the extremes of the continuum live two types of terribly unhealthy human beings: the one totally lacking in the necessary organization of structure, and the one totally lacking in the necessary adaptability of improvisation. We might imagine new therapies, new pedagogies: the doctor tells you to go pluck random notes at the piano, and at first you say no, never, not in a million years, not me, and then you pluck two notes and you hate the piano and you hate the doctor and you hate yourself, and then you pluck two more notes and you say, Wait a minute. Pluck, pluck, pluck, I’m reborn!

The improvisatory response or impulse is a sort of biological function, like breathing and circulation, digestion and sleep. What would happen if you decided that “breathing isn’t for you”? The world record for holding one’s breath is 24 minutes and 37 seconds, although this takes a lot of training. Without training, you’d pass out or pass away if you didn’t breathe for one minute. I think this also apply to improvisation. If you thought or felt that “improvisation isn’t for you,” you’d be at risk.

Once you understand that the Beginner and the Master are both Improvising, you’ll accept that you too are an Improviser, by birth and by nature. It settles the issue. You can Embrace your Nature and Set Out to Develop your Improvisatory Responses to Life. It’s a Capital Joy.