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.