Notes on improvisation

Improvisation is become my main source of expression nowadays. I work closely with an improvised comedy troupe in Brighton called The Maydays.  I am solely in charge of providing the music for anything that might happen on stage; songs, dramatic scenes, sound effects or general silliness! This has provided me with such an amazing base to work from. Their sense of comedy, timing and freedom to go wherever the mood takes us means that I can really explore some more interesting musical avenues that are not really accessible when sight-reading or straight accompanying.

We tend to be so obsessed about recording everything now, yet some of the most precious experiences have come from creating something and then just letting it go.  Relying on my memories to appreciate experiences, rather than through the false lens or recording forces me to appreciate the act of creation itself.  You cannot retract what you do when improvising, there is no filtering or reviewing or criticising process other than that which happens in the present.  Often I will find myself playing something utterly different to what I expected, or even what I started to play.

Improvising has also taught me to clear my mind of the babble of the head voice that likes to say, “This is going to be rubbish”, or “Bet you can’t come up with anything good”.  I find now that I can wait for the right moment to play and then just start playing.  Sometimes a theme will develop from one note, from a rhythm or from the performers on stage.  Often the verse of a song will be utterly different the second time round, but since when did all verses need to sound the same?

I am fortunate in that I have perfect or absolute pitch which is the ability to recognise notes just from hearing them.  This means that I can play pretty much anything that is in my head, allowing me to concentrate more on the creation process rather than the performance.  However, I have worked with many of my students on improvisation and have a few tips for those wanting to improvise better…

Do It!

Improvisation improves with practise just like anything else.  Often I hear my students say that they “can’t” improvise and so they do not try.  Anyone can improvise, after all we do it when we talk to people, sing in the shower, in fact we are improvising all the time.  There does not have to be any pretext, ceremony or hesitation, just sit at the piano or pick up your instrument and make some noise.  Improvisation is exploration and does not have to sound nice or make sense.  The more you play, the more you will find out what works for you and what doesn’t.

Structure

With music, I find it enormously helpful to work within some kind of structure or constraint.  For example a simple chord sequence like C-am-D-G.  Once familiar with the basic feel of the chords, perhaps with the left hand, the right hand can begin to explore scales that might work well with those chords. As for the melody if there happens to be one, try working with just one or two notes and build an idea from there.  A motif is simply an idea that is repeated and developed and it can be breathtakingly simple.  Take the famous start or Beethovens 5th..da da da dum!  This simple little rhythmic idea is propogated throughout the symphony, and you can bet that Beethoven spent hours at his piano exploring this idea (in fact he became rather obsessed with it!).  If you allow yourself to be free you will soon find that ideas start to appear from everywhere.

“‘Tis a gift to be simple”

One of the hardest skills when improvising is to listen to the sound you are making.  Sounds silly but I often find myself trying to fill spaces in the music or over-complicating things when, if I actually stop to listen, I find that the simple ideas are the best.  Listen to one note, two notes together, the lowest note on a piano, find moods and emotions in the small details, and the rest will fall into place much more easily.  Love can be suggested by a slightly spread octave up high, villains by a random sequence of low octaves.  Ticking clocks, heartbeats, birds and trains can all be found in very simple ideas.  When I am on stage with the improvisers it is rare to come storming in with a very strong idea.  I would have to be sure I was making an intelligent choice.  Better to make an offer, a suggestion and then grow with the performer into something more substantial.

Improvisation has no limits, it is not constrained by a musical score or a script.  By its very nature it sometimes fails spectacularly and I have learned from  The Maydays to embrace those moments with as much commitment as the magical moments when everyone comes together.  This is not an art form for the faint-hearted or for the possessive, it relies on trust and freedom, and the rewards are massive.

To find out more about improvisation check out  The Maydays website, we offer courses in comedy and music.  Give it a go, it might just be the best thing you ever did.