Day 4. Part 2: The Performance

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There is something amazing in how people can get together before a concert performance. Just before the beginning we were all sitting close to each other, lauging and playing word games... 

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Despite having made Trinity House Services mad for putting some posters where they shouldn't have been, we even managed to have audience not entirely consisted of participants! For those who were not there, here are some bits of the performance.

The concert started off with some conducted improvisation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-Hrj00urM&feature=youtu.be 

I think we finally got used to each other as a group and even sounded quite monolythe. Personally, I enjoyed enormously playing the prepared piano within this odd orchestra and the way its bells spice up the sound, allowing one to listen at the same time. Having some experience from playing Cage's sonatas and exploring it also helped to see the prepared piano as a special instrument and not just a piano that someone has been cruel to :

The second number I took part in was improvisation for guitar (Pier), flute (Ben) and piano (me) on audience suggestions. It was the one we three underestimated most, as we didn't play together in this combination during the week. So it was our first time and our suggestions were... more than odd - hear for yourselves! -  https://soundcloud.com/claresimmonds/audience-alex-ben-paolo

Consequently, I played in was a rather sinister arrangement of 'Ring a-ring a-roses' for two voices (Grace and Tom), harp (Francesca) and prepared piano - I must say it was very different from what we did on Tuesday. And also, pay attention to the clock, as it strikes midnight in the beginning. https://soundcloud.com/claresimmonds/ring-a-ring-roses 

Finally, some more Conducted improvisation with everyone in - to finish the concert and our Colab Project with. And.... that was it. Hope you enjoyed!

Day 4. Part One: the morning before

After the Cells last night, which as a matter of fact had some almost amazing resemblance to what I initially imagined to be our Corridor, I felt quite creative and restless and came up with an improvised poster for our performance:

It was a bit worrying as we didn't have a fixed program for it yet, however Douglas was amazingly calm as always, and we constructed one quite quickly:

The final version of the programme looked like this:

We did some more conducted improv with the whole group and then went to practice with our groups-print off programmes and posters-practice piano-relax-count crows.

Day 3

On day 3 we had another session with Martin Speake. This time we looked at jazz improvisation.
First, he introduced us to basic jazz harmony:

Then he talked about jazz standards in general and played us different versions of the song 'Somewhere over the rainbow'. It was amazing how different they sound, still being the same song.

By the way, personally this is my favourite - non-jazz, however - version:

Then, Clare sat at the piano to play the melody of the song and we harmonised it:

After learning enough about jazz harmony (if only!!!!!)  - or at least about 'Over the rainbow's' harmony - we all had a go at playing it.

I was in a group with two singers, a guitar and flute. Gosh, I never felt more lost in my entire life! I felt like when I was 2 years old and my favourite game was to open something I knew to be a music score and try to 'play it' on the piano, getting really angry at the same time as it didn't sound quite right. Or like talking a foreign language (or talking cat) by trying to imitate the sounds. I did get some of the chords right though. 

'The important thing is to start well and to end well' And to make it sound OK in between!

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In the afternoon it was time to think about our performance that would have to be on the following day, instead on the Friday. We experimented with some poetry-and-singing-on-the-go:

The amazing thing was how Danae had already written 'Under the rain' when Tom and Grace, who didn't see the white board started singing 'Beneath the rain'. That's what happens when people tune in to each other. 

After that we did more soundpainting with Diego:

  

This time we learnt about a few more signs, f.e. the 'copy, paste' or 'imitate'. Edward (who is a composer) and I tried conducting ourselves, the former a bit more successfully than the latter. My conducting kind of fell apart but it was a good experience and I felt all the responsibility that comes with the power, but also the amazing possibilities that come with that. 

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In the evening I went to the Bastard Assignments: Cells CoLab performance in Deptford Old Police Station. It was really good. And I made pranks on my friends:

Day 2

On the second day of our Colab project we had a morning session with Martin Speake. He and Douglas Finch performed some improvisations for us and then we talked about different ways to draw ideas from word suggestions and depict them in improvisation.

'Improvisation is the most natural thing to do for humans. We do it every time we talk.' 

(Martin Speake)

Then we had to write three word suggestions on bits of paper and we spent the rest of the morning improvising on them. Some of them were: 'Trills, tempest, 3/4' , 'Grasshopper, canon, sunshine', 'clouds, sleep, guilty conscience'. Yes, as random as that.

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At lunchtime I was feeling a bit antisocial and as I didn't really form a new group in the morning, I decided to 'slack off' and go practice. The corridor assigned to our project was blissfully empty. Not exactly a corridor of improvisation, really. More like a corridor of absent musicians improvising on John Cage's 4'33. 

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In the afternoon session - surprise! - we did more improvisation. One I enjoyed taking part in a lot was a improvisation on 'Ring a ring a roses', with two singers (Grace and Tom), a harp (Francesca) and me on prepared piano. I didn't know it was a popular nursery song but to me it sounded quite Victorian and somewhat sinister (without being actually creepy), and we all kind of had that idea. 

At some point someone suggested that we should all sing together. It was perhaps the most intense and touching moment in the whole project, because it felt like we all, singers and pianists, friends and vague acquaintances, for that moment became one. 

Day 1

As my project was not until the second week of Colab, I spent most of week one locked away in a practice room, doing reductive analysis of Chopin. Many of my friends were busy doing their projects and although it was good to have all the practice time in the world, I felt like I was missing on the fun and was looking forward to starting Colab myself.

At last, the day came. When I reached the McKerras room almost everyone was already there, sat in a circle. I grabbed the nearest free chair and looked around. Some people I knew, but others I had never met before. Semi-confused smiles were being sent and received across the room. Our mentor, Douglas Finch, welcomed us and gave us brief information about the project we were about to be involved on. We decided to divide into groups of 3 or 4 people to start off with. We wrote our names on bits of paper and each group was chosen randomly. I was grouped with Danae (soprano) and Francesca (harp). Shortly after, Douglas threw us in the deep water: the newly-formed ensembles were to improvise something on the go. Each performance was followed by a short discussion and we were encouraged to share any thoughts and ideas that we might have. Group improvisation with people you never played before, especially with people with little experience in improvisation – or none at all – certainly was a challenge. I felt quite nervous when it was our turn. Danae quickly came up with an improvised poem. Something nice and dreamy about stars and roads. I remember hitting a chord on the piano and a terrible moment that lasted a lifetime when I was waiting for the singer to give me an idea how to continue. Then the adrenaline rush came and time disappeared. I don't remember much, apart from that I became quite relaxed and really enjoyed it. Afterwards, Francesca said, 'I followed the piano'. Oddly enough, I must have appeared to have known what I was doing.  

After all of us have performed, we agreed to go and practice with our groups and meet again at half two. 

Moving the huge harp to the second floor didn't kill our enthusiasm. Danae, Francesca and I decided to come up with a new improvised piece. 

At first, Francesca and I played some random improvisations on piano and harp while Danae was writing some lyrics. Playing with a harp was a new thing to me and we were trying to discover what worked and what didn't for the combination. 

When Danae was ready with her poem we decided to try it out. Our first go sounded like this: 

We discussed ideas of structure and emotion, our harmonic preferences - some of them were quite different from each other, but we finally agreed on some general parameters to stick to. The second go was a bit different and more complex:

After lunchtime we performed it in front of the whole group:

'But it didn't feel improvised, it felt like a composition!'

Was it? Fair enough. I realise that we fell in the trap of over-planning it so there was not much room for spontaneity left. But is that a bad thing? Or a good thing? And what is improvisation itself - is it the opposite of composition, or the essence of it? Where is the border between improvised and not-fully-composed? To answer those questions Douglas talked about different improvisation formats as in a up-going chart - starting from absolutely composed pieces with almost 0% of improvisation, then Chopin Nocturnes, Indian music, jazz standards, and so on.

To finish day one we had a session on conducted group improvisation with Diego Ghymers. He introduced us to the techniques and signs he is using with his Soundpainting orchestra. I had seen their performance at the Hackney Cut last October and I wanted to try it myself ever since...

'Who is in charge?'

Maybe because I'm not used to being conducted, it felt awkward in the beginning: as if I had no ears of my own and had only eyes on the ready to respond to the 'puppeteer's` wishes. Apparently others felt the same way and it led to an interesting (and quite heated) debate on the role of personal responsibility. People - not only in orchestras, but generally in life - tend to get away from taking responsibility when someone else's in charge, forgetting that they have a free choice. 

'They may tell you what to do. But everything they don't tell you to do is up to you.'

(Diego Ghymers) 

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After that I went to see the Gamelan project performance. It was a nice ending to a long and busy day!