Jennifer Lin Improv
This is pretty incredible - Jennifer Lin, age 14 at the time, and having just finished discussing what she calls “flow” - a mindset she gets into in which she can spontaneously create beautiful music - proceeds to take five randomly chosen notes selected by the audience and create some serious beauty.
After playing two brief pieces and discussing the nature of creative flow, Lin embarked on what some observers called the highlight of the entire conference. Having prepared a deck of index cards by writing a single musical note on each, she asked for a volunteer from the audience to select five at random. Her volunteer – none other than screen actress Goldie Hawn – complied, and Lin sat down to improvise a theme based on the notes.
What happened is perhaps best described by someone who was there. Red Herring weblogger James Daley detailed his reaction in a February 29 entry: “Biologists may write books about the complex neurological, chemical and electrical functions that occur in order for certain stimuli to produce complex human emotions,” he wrote. “All I know is that as Jennifer continued to play the hairs on my arm stood on end. A buzz crackled through the audience as the beauty of her composition unfolded. Several people nearby had eyes that were moist with tears.”
Her full performance and improv discussion can be seen here:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/46