Musical Improv Class

I recently took an 8 week musical improvisation class from Improv Boston. Everyone else had a strong improv background, so it was pretty intense. The teacher, Adam Brooks, dropped a lot of science. Also, you get 5 free passes to see Improv Boston shows. Classmates were really friendly and very involved in other aspects of the theater. In short, I would recommend the class.

The class was structured around a few different activities:

Warmups:

Vocal Exercises- some basic warmups/tongue twisters. Difficult one: "The blue black bug bled blue black blood, the other blue bug bled brown" sung to the tune of the battle hymn of the republic.

Shay Shay Coolay- This warmup was pretty basic. Stand in a circle. One person says "shay shay coolay" with a motion. Everyone repeats. Then the same person does a motion with some other noise. Everyone repeats. Another motion/sound. Repeat. Count off. Next person's turn.

Up my butt- Rhyming practice. Caller: "I've got a *" Everyone: "up my butt." Next caller: "I've got a (something that rhymes with *)" Everyone: "up my butt." And so on.

Signals(not sure on the name)- Probably my favorite of the warm ups. You point to someone and say a word, they do the same to someone else, saying a word that is related and form a category. This goes on till everyone has been pointed at and the last points back to the first person. After the first signal is sent through a few times, a new signal, category, and path are added from a different origin. It gets complicated.

Hardcore stuff:

IDS(Irish Drinking Song)- Given a topic, create 2 rhyming couplets.

Other forms:

Tagline Songs- AABA Pattern. All sections were 4 lines. The A's have the tagline as the 4th line. B is a 2 rhyming couplets without the tag, like the IDS.

Verse Chorus- Alternates between chorus and verse starting on chorus. The 3rd line of the chorus changes every time, but the rest stays the same.

Application of forms:

Duets/Solos- These were typically done with the tagline song pattern.

Full Cast- Verse chorus pattern with one person setting the chorus and always singing the variable third line of it (the rest of the cast sings 1,2,4) alternating with verses which are mini solos.

Mini Musicals- Combo of the first two bits with a persistent narrative throughout.

Generating content:

We worked on duets from a lounge singer perspective from just a suggested word. We also worked on finding a song through a scene. The two cues for the song to begin in the latter were when one person expressed a strong urge for something or when a clear theme or especially tag line was presented and landed on by the performers.

We didn't get too much into a taxonomy of musical numbers, but it was helpful that Adam pointed out the "I wish/I want" type as an easy target for solos.

Lessons Learned

Improv is a skill that takes work. I sucked going in, and I sucked a little less/knew why I sucked afterward. Basically, I would say that I'm in the conscious incompetence phase as far as the musical side of improv, and in the unconscious incompetence phase as far as normal improv ability. Damn if I had any trouble harmonizing in the groups though :)

Another lesson learned- Jumping in is hard. Start a scene or a song with a strong choice. Stick with it and pay attention. With so many great players around it was easy to play off of them, but really tough to make a strong competitive choice of my own. I think that I worried a little too much that it wouldn't be as convincing or as important, so I might as well wait for them to hand me something.

This was wrong in two ways.

First off, it's unfair to make the other person do all the work in setting up the story. Secondly, 9 times out of 10, the two players will end up creating somewhat inconsistent situations. A lot of the fun is untangling the mess.

The main problem with it was that the scenes had less conflict and interest than scenes where people made strong and most likely inconsistent choices. I found myself playing the role of the guy who is interested in something or the guy who isn't quite sure. Those are not interesting characters.

Also, I had a brief existential contemplation after the last class when I wondered... Is that me? Am I always this passive, just waiting to see what reality hands me? Do I go through life with nothing to offer anyone? And then I thought, nope, I'm just not that good at improv.

It's an interesting thing to learn about. I'd to revisit it at some point, but next I'd like to try the stand up comedy class.