On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a class named Aural skills Improv. This is a class in the music repotoire that helps build those vocal listening to music relation skills not all of us are born with, to hear intervals and see rhythms better. In Aural IV (Improvisation) obviously the class explores improvisation. Today we were to improvise on this poem;
The first soft snow!
Enough to bend the leaves
of the Jonquil low.
-Basho Matsuo (1644-1694)
My improvisation lab is composed of a bassoon (thats me!) a vibraphone, a cello, and a violin. Interesting group but we're all pretty great musicians and mellow people so we blend together really well. We chose this poem and decided to interpret it as such:
The first soft snow! = Winter (C pentatonic)
Enough to bend the leaves = seasonal depression weight (A minor)
of the Jonquil low = Spring arriving (F major)
As you see we predetermined keys per each portion and line of the poem creating a form for our improv to follow and make it easy for us to determine three separate parts.
And let me tell you it was such an amazing improv! It sounded like a professionally composed piece but way better because we were each our best musician creating what we knew how to create to the best of our playing. One cannot play how I imagine something to sound better than I. After we finished the class had to guess what our ideas of the poem were that we were trying to impersonate. And they guessed adjectives such as, soft and light, maybe even happy for the winter portion. Once we revealed that it was in fact about winter a girl in the class loudly and humorously exclaimed that it was true! So incredibly true and it must have hit a chord within her because it brought tears to her eyes.
This is exactly what I want to get out of playing, the idea of reminding someone of a memory so fond that it brings tears to their eyes from happiness. It was such a cool thing to witness.
Emily
Don't practice too hard,
Hours = 2 hr 40min ensemble
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