Parameter Exercises
Based on concepts directly related to music moving freely within a large universe of sound, these exercises both stimulate the musical appetite to explore “that which I have not tried yet” and at the same time train the perception of what is going on in the complex sound. Each one is important and has its special impact on the music. You do not need to practice them in the sequence given below. Density influences group dynamics in a special radical way and may be taken first, for instance, with an advanced group. And working with pulse — no pulse may solve a basic problem many beginners have.
Practice improvisations focusing on one parameter/one aspect at a time and striving to explore it through intuitive changes.
Pitches:
- registers: use during the improvisation all the space between highest and lowest (an “orchestral” sound may result).
- other uses of pitch:
1) Imagine (silently, in your fantasies) fluctuations in loudness for approximately 15 seconds. Then sing or play music with fluctuations in pitches according to this imagination for approximately 20 seconds. Thus, the fantasies about loudness fluctuations in the imaginary music are transformed into pitch fluctuations in the real music. Let these pitch fluctuations be the most important thing in this music. Repeat the process. This works well if the teacher times the various segments and gives signals for pausing and playing. The purpose is to move past habitual melodic ideas.
2) Improvise while focusing on movements up-down, a terminology that I propose to use instead of the word "melody," the employment of which will probably result in a different musical product, although the two instructions are identical. Again, expansion of habitual melodic ideas is the point.
One (1) may be done with other parameter combinations and two (2) with another parameter other than pitch. In this case, find out for yourself…
Durations:
1) Vary between many sizes of split-seconds to very long (10 seconds and maybe much more). In order to sound long, sounds must be static! To make long, sustained tones and sounds possible, this may be trained first. For pianos, xylophones and other percussion, tremolo and similar techniques are most important to be familiar with, so as not to exclude the possibility of playing long sounds.
2) Use sound materials analogous to "points," "dots," or other brief sounds lasting only split-seconds, or no more than two seconds each. After this, participants report how they experienced the kind of musical communication which took place.
This may be done with a series of improvisations, especially in the event that the first one does not illustrate the possibilities of a musical "stream of consciousness" – the teacher could make suggestive comments if necessary to make this happen. Other possible titles for improvisations here could be "table tennis" or "popcorn." A recording of popcorn popping may be listened to!
3) Right Durations
This activity brings participants' attention to the collective feeling for the durations of sounds and pauses, helping the individual to limit the amount of his/her activity. It also highlights how the feeling for durations changes in a "seismographic" manner. The verbal instructions for improvisation in this piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen are as follows:
Play a tone. Play it until you feel you should stop. Play another tone. Play it until you feel you should stop. But whether you play or pause, listen to the others all the time.
Play preferably when someone listens.
Do not rehearse.
The last two sentences may be omitted when the instructions are read to a group. However, it is safer to write it (on a blackboard, for example) than reading it as no one should be in doubt about the text.
These suggestions are certainly most easily implemented with instruments capable of offering sustained tones, such as wind and bowed string instruments and of course voices. Pianos and percussion instruments will have to employ tremolo and similar techniques – avoid wrestling with this problem unless musicians have enough training for doing it easily and keep to the other sound sources or other exercises! If the room produces reverberation, this may lengthen all sounds considerably. If this is the case, participants should take responsibility for the lengthening of sound duration; it should not be considered "something we have no control over."
Timbres:
Vary between
1) Tone — noise (find appropriate instrumental techniques; with voices, experiment with consonants)
2) Hard — soft (try to distinguish this from loud —- soft)
Dynamics:
1) Create interesting sound-patterns by making individual variations in dynamics, fast and slow.
2) Collectively, try to make only sudden changes of dynamic levels together. This is the so-called “terrace dynamics” of the baroque period. As ever in this context, no conductor of course. Try to achieve an effective approximation by paying close attention to each others’ playing.
Density:
This parameter is strategic for the group dynamics.
It is pragmatically defined here as how many parts are sounding at the same time (polyphonic density). Play, and let density vary intuitively. This is a collective task that can only be realized through listening and willingness to take initiative or pause for a while according to the perceived need of the musical totality.
Aim for a complete equality of the density “values” from zero (nobody playing) to maximum (all playing) over time – and also for this to happen in spontaneous ways. You may imagine a measuring instrument showing this variation… So that you will hear many combination sizes and variations of them, sometimes a solo, and they may have greatly varying length, etc. Even if this ideal may be extremely difficult to reach or even approach, every step forward may benefit the playing afterwards. Clearly, it is indeed a fundamental resource of an ensemble that you can experience such different sub-groupings apart from the tutti.
Pulse — no pulse:
This parameter is strategic for the integration of traditionally-pulsed music idioms with non-pulsed, freely flowing ones. The conflict between those can be a major block to free improvising, especially for beginners. But with the experience that a successful going in and out of pulse according to the group’s inspiration is possible, this can radically change.
Play, focus on the allowing of free changes between shared pulse and no pulse at all (or, at least, no shared one). Intermediary stages between the extremes comprise such ones with individual but different pulses, as well as those where pulse is difficult to hear but could be suspected to exist somewhere underlying. They are, of course, interesting in their own right. Changes may happen variously often and with various speeds, but do not think they can only be few and slow. Spontaneous, collective joining in on a new pulsed idea may occur in split-seconds when the inspiration is right, and once you have become aware, collective “enough is enough” feelings occur with spontaneity, too (although creative conflicts and negotiations are not excluded). The teacher may encourage many and fast changes, for an advanced variation.
Preparatory exercise: clap hands together (or, sitting, clap your legs for a more quiet version) with a pulse. Just the naked pulse, no subdivisions! Go on ensuring that the pulse is really felt with a collective beat, springy and precise. Then gradually let it decay by allowing tempi gradually to deviate and fluctuate into slightly slower or faster ones. After some time of disintegration and a maximum of unpredictability, go slowly back again.
Original material — Quotations:
Explore using quotations — glimpses of well-known music pieces, or just well-known styles. Mix it with any other material — and leave spaces to make fast change possible. Caricatures and "dirty" playing is allowed! This parameter is strategic for integrating improvised playing with everything else in music…
Degrees of contrast:
1) vary degrees of contrast or similarity between individual parts/players,
2) vary degrees of contrast between sections in the improvisation (so that there arises both “rather similar”, “different”, “very different”, etc. sections),
3) vary the amount of continuity, that is, move freely on a continuum ranging from no sections at all, instead static character or only gradual change — and to having many collective, marked changes.
Practice these one at a time. Making such changes is of course, once again, a matter of collective intuition. Almost all the individual player can do is to pay attention and be ready to join in.
Ending
(from Tom Hall)
Learning how to hear and create endings is as important as any other part of improvising, for one simple reason — something has to end in order for something else to begin. This is true for every part of music, whether it’s a sound, a phrase, a part of an improvisation, an improvisation, or an entire performance.
We all understand endings, because our lives are full of beginnings and endings. This makes it easy to learn how to use the concept of endings in improvisation. All that’s needed is to stay aware of potential endings as they occur, and to be ready and willing to end at any time.
Once a group has developed the ability to recognize endings and make use of them, this becomes an important compositional tool. But in order to use this tool the group must develop the shared awareness that a potential for ending has occurred, and that someone has made the choice to end or to not end.
This simple exercise is great for developing awareness of endings. It can be done with any number of people, but I have found duets get the point across the fastest. It helps a lot to have an experienced “ender” listen for and point out potential endings.
Exercise
Start playing.
Stop at the first potential ending that occurs.
Once that’s been mastered, here’s a series of variations of increasing complexity!
Variation 1
Be aware of the first ending and choose whether or not you want to go on.
Variation 2
Be aware of the first ending and choose whether or not you want to go on. If you choose to go on, be aware of whether what you’re doing is a continuation of the 1st section or a new section.
Variation 3
Be aware of the first ending and choose whether or not you want to go on. If you choose to go on, be aware of whether what you’re doing is a continuation of the 1st section or a new section. If there is a third section, is it a continuation of the 1st section, a continuation of the 2nd section, or a 3rd new section?
Charlotte's Relay Race
Imagine standing in a circle and throwing a ball to each other. The one who has the ball soon throws it out into the middle of the circle where another person catches it. The ball may, however, also be taken from you.
Do the same thing in music: one at a time, play for a very short time and "throw the ball" again (that is, become silent). Conversely, the ball may be "taken" by someone else (that is, the other person plays and the first person must stop).
Here is a variation that allows more persons to "seize the ball" at the same time (that is, play simultaneously): Imagine that the ball, when played, may for a short time split up into several balls — how many and for how long may be agreed upon. With this variation, the exercise approaches a free improvisation while the quickly changing process of people contributing to the music is retained.
Multi-Exercise
Create two series of simple instructions written with a marker pen on sheets of paper and read instantly by the group. One could be of concrete instructions, like “looong tones”, “melodies”, “very individual dynamics”, etc. The other could be of a more suggesting kind, even also absurd or paradoxical, like “bubbling”, “like the sun”, “something you don’t like”, “boring”, etc. I recommend having the sheets ready in a numbered sequence in separate stacks, and to have one index sheet for the teacher showing all the instructions. Then you will be free to choose from section to section and to find the desired sheet quickly. I also recommend bringing a marker pen and some empty sheets — who knows whether you will be inspired to some new idea…
Instruct participants that at each section, they are shown (by finger signs) the number of people that are to play. Within 10 seconds, one should decide whether to participate this time or not — this should be possible with some care given to look and hear around. Sections last as long as the teacher thinks they should — and terminate when a sign is given, followed by a new hand-sign for the number of players and a new sheet.
Instrument-Storm
developed from an exercise by Inge Nygaard Pedersen
Choose one instrument and — rather than focusing outwardly on the group — attend to your instrument by exploring possible ways to contact it, such as how to touch, manipulate, and move it. Explore the variety of sounds it can produce. As individuals have been well engaged in doing this for some time, go on but direct your attention to all the sounds in the room and be aware of playing together. If time allows, let your attention alternate freely between an inward and outward focus.
Variations: 1) Use an instrument you are not familiar with. 2) Use an instrument you know well, but use it in new ways. 3) While playing, be active with your body and be aware of working hard and becoming tired (precautions may be taken in the form of warnings and even earplugs to prevent possible noise of harmful strength). After this, play while being completely at rest. 4) Utilize a material you do not use much (for instance, metal, skin, wood, etc). 5) Sit or stand without movement (not being stiff, but at rest). 6) Try dancing. 7) Try playing "nicely," "not nice," etc. 8) combine with directions of the kind focused upon in the other exercises.
Homage to Nils Harbo
See the recipe (enclosed [in the original]).
I now usually use it as a basic training in making different and contrasting kinds of musical sound, and use the individual concepts (staccato-legato etc.) for the whole group alternatingly. These words can be read aloud, thus avoiding the necessity of photocopying. As you see, the sound categories are then taken one by one, avoiding the thick texture of many at a time. The exercise functions very well as a preparation for parameter exercises but uses more well-known words.
This may be also be performed polyphonically ad lib or on one tone, with either few or many parameters set for each musician. Take care, however, that the sounds does not get too thick. It is also good for training of improvisation in jazz, rock, and other popular forms. It can be done with improvisation which follow scales, too.