112 Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians Glacier Music One player. Find a resonant space (i.e. very large room) and play very long notes (wind players: an entire breath) with much space in between. Repeat using several short notes; listen as the notes mix and layer in the “wet” space. Experiment with long crescendi and decresendi. Gregorian chant is one possibility for style. Ifa large room is not available, use an electronic device with digital reverb, microphone, and amp to artificially create the extended reverb. Variation: Use a digital delay, which will create a series of diminishing echoes of short melodic fragments. Play, Listen. Repeat. Variation for brass: Have someone depress the sustain pedal of a grand piano (or use a brick or other heavy weight), With the lid open, play a short series of (loud) tones on the strings. Listen to the soft echo chord it creates. Repeat. Try different combinations of scales and arpeggios, and vary the length. Son of Glacier Music ‘Two to four players. Players play long, pulseless tones in C major. Move up or down to a new note by diatonic scale steps—no leaps. Leave a bit of space in between the long notes and listen to the chords created. Decide instinctively whether to ascend, descend, or stay the same. Variation 1: Try in other keys. Variation 2: Try with no set key. Variation 3: Try in minor. Variation 4: Have each player pick a different key. Variation 5: Have some other players play ostinati on percussion instruments to add a pulse. Variation 6: Use whole-and half-note values exclusively. Variation 7: Ina larger group, sit in a citcle. Have three or four players play the long tones; next to them sit three or four percussionists. Every thirty seconds the leader indicates a movement to the right. Drone Two-plus players. One or more players play a unison low note as a drone. Each player in turn should experiment playing a slow solo over the drone, noting the effect created by each scale step. Time permitting, try all the major scales over the drone (e.g., over a C drone, try the major scales of C, D>, D, Eb, E, etc.), but be very aware of what scale step you are on.PRRAAR AAA Melody Games Pulsed Drone plus players. Similar to Drone above, except one or more players play the drone as steady quarter given pitch. Player Two solos over it, only this time Player Two can have some fun playing with rhythm, e.g. syncopating against the steady beat n 1 Leave out some of the quarter notes; e.g. play quarters only on of these patterns: land 3 land 4 1,2 and 4 1, 3 and 4 2, and 3 2,3 and 4 Variation 2: Give the pulsed drone some kind of catchy/funky/jazzy/Latin rhythm. Rainbow Seales One player. Play any one-octave scale up and down (only!), but instead of playing it the usual colorless hange the note values, dynamics, way of straight eighth notes, add all kinds of variation: add accents, culation, and tempos add rests. In short: make music out of it—make the scale as musically interesting as possible. Variation Do the same with two players, playing both independently and in relation to each other (e.g., one player may lead and the other imitates, mirrors, or matches style; or both intermittently lead and follow). based upon sca! Free form expression/improvisation knowledge. ...Within a short period ies and of time your students will naturall nce success when playing free form m exper find the need for 6 tional possibilities. ale knowledge to expand their impro\ Edward 5. Lisk*! Seale Flavors One player. Classical musicians practice major and chromatic scales almost exclusively; the more adventuresome and ambitious among us may also occasionally dabble with the various minor scales; but once they are mastered, never venturing outside of them deprives us of continued musical and technical enrichment and personal development. If you are reasonably fluent in your major scales, make a point of sampling those other scale “flavors” regularly (see “Patterns and Scales” in Resources, page x). Make an equal point in choosing your least familiar keys! Use regular warm-up or workout routines, substituting one of the scales below: bles of Musical Performance (Meredith Music Publishing, 1996): 57. U314 Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians Other scales to sample (numbers represent scale degrees): Pentatonic major: 1-23-56 Pentatonic minor: 1463-45-97 Blues: 1—53-4-#4-5-57 Whole tone scales: 1-2-3-44-45.57 Diminished scales: 1. Whole-half: 1-2-34-45->64°7 (=6) 7 2. Half-whole : 1-253-344-5647 Dorian: 1-2-53-4-5-6-57 Phrygian: 1-42-43-4-5.5657 Lydian: 1-2-3-44-5-6-7 Dominant 7th (Mixolydian): 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 Lydian Dominant: 1-2-3-44-5-657 Locrian: 1-b2-b3-4.b5-b657 Spanish Phrygian (Also known as the Klezmer Ahava Raba scale or the fifth mode of the harmonic ‘minor scale.) 12-3-4-55647 Klezmer (Misheberekh; also known as the fourth mode of the harmonic ‘minor scale.): 1-2-b3-#4-5-6-57 Altered (Superlocrian): 14243-4455 5647 Ideas: Apply your “new” scale to any game in the book... Doily Arkady One player. Russian hornist Arkady Shilkloper is one of the most creative musicians on the planet. When asked how he warms up, he simply says he “plays music”; he investigates simultaneously music, technique, and his needs as a player. He finds a rhythmic or melodic fragment and follows it where it leads, mindful of what the current state of his embouchure needs to warm up. The author of this book named this procedure “Daily Arkady” in honor of this brilliant musician. A Daily Arkady is a refreshing and highly effective integration of technique and musicality, and is different every time. D.A.s may focus on a certain area if desired: the chord (or chord progression) D.A., the rhythmic DAs the style D.A., the scale D.A., the arpeggio D.A., the extended techniques D.A. However, most days the best idea is to be alert, aware, adventurous, and let loose.PPP rrr rr hapter 15: Melody Games Document Your Practice! Do not forget to record your improvisations both alone and croups. Listening to what you played provides excellent feedback on what worked ind what didn’t so that you can learn and improve each time. You may also happen to come up with something that you would like to preserve, revise, and polish to make into a written ¢ intrusive at first, but if you record everything, it will composition later. The recorder mai soon become a normal part of the process. While you might not want to save everything you record, if you don't record everything, those spontaneous gems will be gone forever. Serial Composition Four-plus players. Player One improvises a short phrase then passes it to Player Two, who continues t and hands it off to Player Three, and so on. Players may decide on key and/or style ahead of time— or not, Players may use nods or other physical gestures to help pass the line along and connect it seamlessly. Players should ty to maintain the style and elaborate upon strong ideas; distinct melodie motifs should be continued and developed. See similar games in Aural Games as well. One-Measure Melody Invention Three-plus players. This is a variation of “One-Measure Rhythm Invention [Rhythm Games|” (page x), which should be played before this one so that players are comfortable with inventing rhythms Form a circle. Establish a beat in moderate 4/4 tempo (count off, tap toes, assign one or two players to play percussion, ete.) Basic Play The group decides on a three-note rhychm (e.g. long-short-short). Each player in tum invents a one-measure melody using the agreed-upon rhythm. Variation 1 When the group is comfortable with Basic Play, they should then improvise the rhythm and the melody. At first, the player may repeat the measure several times for the sake of comfort. Later, the pulse must continue unbroken from player to player as each invents a new one-measure three-note rhythm plus, melody, Advanced players may make the game more challenging by gradually increasing the tempo each time around (a metronome or other rhythm source may be handy here). Variation 2: Basic Play again, but this time with four notes. Variation 3 Like Variation | (invented rhythms and melody), but with four note: Card Melody One to four players. Take twelve 3X5-inch note cards and write a note of the chromatic scale on each. Shuffle. Deal each player one card. The players play simultaneously, each soloing (and occasionally resting) using the ‘card’ note. Repeat the game; this time each player gets two cards and may use only these two notes in their solo. Listen to the other players; relate to them somehow. Repeat for three and four cards (only for three players) 15