Saturday, February 27, 2010

A different approach to music making

A couple days ago, Melissa and I attended a master class given by Parmela Attariwala on improvisation. This technique is usually only in the realm of popular music, especially jazz, but also blues, rock, and similar genres. However, this class focussed on improvisation in art music. It was fascinating! An entirely new way to approach performance. The main exercises that we did were mostly about completely ignoring the sound you're making and concentrating instead on the sounds your fellow performers are making. A pretty foreign concept to those of us who view sheet music and virtuosity as mother's milk. Aside from that, the improvisation is completely free. We had people playing their various instruments, people vocalizing, some took their instrument apart and played on individual parts, one even used his chair as an instrument! It was all about simply making a sound that reacts to what you hear. An area of music making that I really hope to explore in more depth later on!

-Eric

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