Improvisation
In
the session today, we explored 'improvisation'. The thought of
improvisation instantly makes me connect it to drama and how we
explore characters and situations through an 'on the spot'
performance. However using it through music is also important and can
help the musician to become more creative and imaginative with their
music. The three main points to think about when preparing for
improvisation is to firstly;
have a collective goal,
central/general ideas,
have a pre-discussed set of rules,
allow
space for the improvisation to happen.
Improvisation is important
as it gives the musician the chance to personalise their music. It
gives them the opportunity to display thoughts and feelings of the
time.
We
then used these in action and began an activity which would help us
to feel comfortable with the use of improvisation and understand it
better. The activity involved us laid in a relaxed position with our
backs on the floor, touching shoulders with the people next to you
sot that you are connected. As you exhale, create a sound in any
pitch. Sounds commonly used where; Ah, Mo, Me, La, Sh, Zz and Mm.
The
activity gave us a clearer understanding of improvisation and how the
group could connect and communicate without making a physical
connection. Even when not planning the performance the group aligned
and became in tune with each other. This was through communication
with one another and how the brain is connected through music. It was
clear to see who had the most musicality in the group and who
struggled as those who tended to come in with each other through
timing and pitch found it easy to to improvise once a main sound had
been found. As the activity carried on it then shown how much people
were trying to use their natural skill of harmonising trying to
create music over the top of others. A huge part of improvisation.
Improvisation
was originally made through jazz musicians who wanted to experiment
with their music, to create something new. 'The
revolution of improvising in the western world came through jazz.
Jazz wasn’t only revolt, but also an expression for a desire to
live and create beauty at the same moment.'
(http://bergmark.org/why.html)
What
I found the most interesting about the history of improvisation was
the fact that it was swayed mainly from black musicians, they wanted
to embrace the culture and freedom of their race which was mainly the
issue in the 1960's when this was usually found. 'To
the same degree that self-respect increased, the respect for the
classical music culture was given up. The choice of instruments often
became exotic and experimental, a.o. things many used toy
instruments.' (http://bergmark.org/why.html)
Improvisation
is closely linked to the traditional use of 'scatting', when looking
at examples of improvisation I found it interesting as to how easy
these musicians found it, firstly looking at the famous Ella
Fitzgerald (1969):
add
youtube video here
In
this piece I found that she already had a prepared structure as she
sung the blues because of this it gave her the initial overall idea
of what she was going to do, she often used the instruments as a base
and mimicked their sounds keeping this in mind she would then mess
around with the vocals and vary her pitch and tempo then return to
the original structure.
This
is not unfamiliar with improvisation as musicians like to know a
structure to base their piece on, which gives them more ideas as the
improvisation progresses. Artists tend to draw on their past
experiences whether it be vocally or through movement to create
improvisation, they mix all of their knowledge together to create
something that has been heard but not heard before. Long held notes,
repeated sounds, constant communication and signals to one another
are commonly found within an artists creative piece. Which makes us
question whether it is actually improvisation or not? Improvisation
is a dialogue.
When
putting improvisation into practice we used a stimuli of a storm.
This gave us a rough idea of how we were going to create this. Our
ideas generated from the weather that is created in a storm, this
gave us the perfect opportunity to use instruments such as shakers,
chimes/bells and drums to create the chaos of a storm.
I
felt as though it was easy to create this piece, especially with the
given stimuli as it gave you a starting point. However if this
included vocals I feel as though this would have been a lot more of a
struggle.
After
experimenting with our own piece, we then discussed the use of chance
music. Personally I thought this would have been around the same
thing as improvisation, chancing what you do with music. However,
chance music has an element of pre-planning whereas improvisation has
an idea. Chance could be simply done by rolling a dice to determine
what comes next within a piece. John Cage – a performer who is
famous for his chance music experimented with this procedure, he done
this by using an ancient Chinese book called 'I-ching'. His most
famous performance is the 4'33" piece:
this
performance is based on silence and only sounds from the audience.
For example. Sniffing, coughing, and rustling. The audience almost
where the performers without knowing. The book used dictated this
abstract piece, the strange 'music' was disorganised and messy like.
I found it overwhelming how someone could use nothing and be famous
for something he regards as 'music'. Chance music is not so
dissimilar to improvisation although the piece's contrast in so many
ways.
What is improvisation and why improvise? [online]. (2014). Available from: <http://bergmark.org/why.html>. [Accessed 21/10/2014].
diegodobini2 (2012). Ella Fitzgerald : One note Samba (scat singing) 1969. [online]. Available from:< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbL9vr4Q2LU>. [Accessed 25/12/2014].
