Everything Is Improvisation — Including This TED Talk | Reggie Watts | TED

(Accent) Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Certainly, it's pleasure to be back here. All of you guys here?

Certainly a special show here, TED.

You know, TED is one of those places.

Makes me feel like I'm somewhere.

And that means something these days.

(British accent) Now,

people ask me, why start like that.

(Laughter)

I don't really have an answer,

but all I can say is that I'm really motivated

by something called improvisation.

Many of you are familiar with improvisation

because you've heard the word, and sometimes --

(Laughter)

sometimes, that's enough.

(Laughter)

But what is it, really? Improvisation?

Why am I speaking like this?

(Laughter)

How do I really sound?

(Low voice) I don't know.

But I try, as much as I can,

to be as truthful about who I am in the moment,

even if I'm using different voices.

I know that there are times

(Normal voice) when some of us are wondering

what is truth and what isn't.

But here's a quick summary.

Truth is the intersection of two different things

that are constantly colliding

for no other reason than the fact that they need to collide

in a moment of perception.

Why does perception come into it?

Because that’s super cool,

and no one loves perception more than people who are conscious.

(Laughter)

So I've been dealing with improvisation all of my life.

It's hard for me to write things down.

TED was so gracious to allow me to come up here on the stage,

when they keep asking, "Can we see that script?"

And I was like, "I'm sorry, I don't have that.

But after I perform it, then you'll have that."

(Laughter)

But they've been so kind to just trust me

and let me come up here and do my thing.

I wanted to explain a little bit about improvisation

in the way I think of it as I'm doing it, which is,

improvisation, to me,

is something that some people are very fearful of,

when they think about going up and just speaking on the fly.

But in actuality, you're doing it all the time.

A conversation that you're having with a friend is improvisation,

unless it's scripted, and that would be a weird friendship --

(Laughter)

but I suppose those do exist.

(Laughter)

Improvisation is something that I love very much,

because it is the center of existence to me,

and for me, that allows me to reformat any situation at any given time.

Because I do think about situations

where you might feel imprisoned in some way.

Perhaps you did something strange and it wasn't thought of as very cool,

and then you end up in prison.

(Laughter)

You always have your mind,

and you can always recontextualize anything at any given time.

And so I think that's how I lead my life.

You know, there's a scene out of the "Airplane!" movie.

I don't know if you guys remember

this movie "Airplane!" by the Zucker brothers.

There was a moment where one of the air-traffic controllers

was handed a piece of paper, and the person said,

"What can you make of this?"

And they say, "I could make a hat, a brooch, a pterodactyl ..."

(Laughter)

And that's how I lead my life.

(Laughter)

Anything can be anything at any given time.

You don't have to accept things for face value.

And so because of that, I do things that I really enjoy

that may not necessarily exist,

but I try to bring them out if I can.

So I'd like to show you an element of improvisation

that I would like to show you,

as I've just said.

(Laughter)

So we're at this station right here,

and I'm going to start by doing something like this.

(Beatboxing)

(Beatboxing on loop)

Because this is looping,

it gives me time to think about what I want to do next.

So I think I'll probably add, who knows, maybe a bass-like thing.

So let's see if I can remember what a bass looks like.

OK, now that'll tell me what it sounds like.

(Recording new beatbox loops)

Now maybe I'd like to subdivide.

(Recording new beatbox loops)

And then, I might just stop. (Loops stop)

(Laughter)

So what is interesting about improvisation

is that you can constantly do it, all the time.

So if you're ever in a situation where you hate where you're working,

just realize that you're constantly improvising,

even when you have to go to reach for a pencil on the desk,

you're still thinking about how you're going to do it.

Sometimes, it's a huge ordeal.

You have to actually lift your hand from where it was resting on your lap,

and avoid the desk,

because if you just raised your hand,

you would just come in contact with some wood,

and then, you move around that, navigate it,

and grab that pencil and know where it is,

and the feel of it, so that you know that you're grabbing the right thing

if you're not looking at it

while gracefully handing someone something from another desk.

So, with that, I would like to demonstrate how that comes into being,

by doing this.

(Recording a low-tone loop)

(Vocalizing)

(Rattling sound)

(Vocalizing)

(Shorter vocalizations)

(Stops low-tone loop)

So again, that's an example of a way that you can --

(Applause)

sample the environment around you.

So this is what I expect all of you guys to be doing at the end of this session.

(Laughter)

All the things that you're hearing,

just remember them and reflect them back in a way that you think is creative,

as though you've been given a box of LEGOs that have been dismantled

and no longer a part of any particular package that you bought previously,

so the instructions make no longer any sense,

and just dump them on the ground and see what you can come up with.

Now, because of that principle, I have adapted three out of six

of the former principles that I used to talk about at TED Talks.

And this is my seventh TED Talk.

I usually skip the last two,

and I'm going to include these two right now,

by going back two measures in time

and reallocating that space

in a way that might be a little bit more comprehensive to some of you

who are wondering what exactly is happening.

(Laughter)

(Playing a bass-drum loop)

I don't know if you remember this song, but I think it'll come back pretty quick.

(Playing a bass-drum loop)

(Adding a synth loop)

(Beatboxing on loop)

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

(Rapping in a British accent) All the people at TED,

doing all that they do, when they're doing it well,

like technology, yeah, it's really cool and stuff.

I like my entertainment and my design as well.

Yo, I'm launching satellites to monitor the methane, everyone's looking,

they're looking at all the methane.

You can't complain if you're monitoring the methane.

The methane is the method of the madness, you know, light a match.

See what happens with that methane? You never know.

Sometimes it makes you go insane. The methane is the answer.

I think it may be, I don't know. Listen --

(Vocalizing)

(Vocalizing echos)

(Vocalizing)

(Vocalizing more quietly)

(Heavy breaths)

(Vocalizing and loops stop)

So now you can improvise any time you want.

Have a good time. Thank you.

(Cheers and applause)