To me, noodling isn't just improvising (that would make the term redundant), but it's a kind of aimless improv that may be probing some creative directions but doesn't really go into one or develop any of them. If it did go anywhere, you'd just call it improv or a solo or a melody or something.
A good example of what I think of as noodling can be found in King Crimson's Moonchild. Most of that song is just vague nibbles of random playing not really developing much structure or doing anything interesting. It seems like a giant waste of vinyl to me and I wish they'd filled it with something more interesting, but many disagree.
Another example which I could find on youtube can be heard at the beginning of this Return to Forever recording of La Fiesta. Before La Fiesta gets moving, we get about 7:15 minutes of noodles that, while they probe certain melodic ideas and so on, don't really develop any of them until the opening theme of La Fiesta finally comes together.
Generally, I don't think musician should put recordings of themselves noodling (by my definition) on records. The track above f.ex would be better if it just started with La Fiesta, same as Moonchild would be better with the noodles cut out.
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