Improvising

Every time I start a piano lesson with a student, we make up a song. I start by playing some chords, and my student makes up a melody on the high keys. We also play a lot of duets. Playing music together teaches cooperation as well as fine tuning rhythm skills, creativity, and intuition. It is always my favorite part of the lesson.

All of my social interaction is surrounded by music these days. I spend most of my free time with musician friends, my songwriting partner, and my concert going companions. Collaborating with friends is becoming my favorite way to connect. Last week, a friend's original country song inspired me to dust off my banjo to see what I could do. It was so much fun! I get a high off of playing music with others. It feels magical. You start with silence, one person begins to play, and the musician who is following has to use her intuition to see what she can add. I use the word intuition quite seriously. When you improvise music, you have to become a little psychic. You are always just a mili-second into the future, predicting what will come next, but there are also scientific aspects to it. There are formulas in music. Certain chord progressions happen over and over again, and once you play for a while, your ear becomes used to knowing what may come next. I find improvising with others to be a good workout for my brain.  Like meditation, you must stay completely focused on each moment as it goes by. If you don't, you will either make a mistake or just play something totally boring, and I would rather hear a mistake than something boring. Improvisation teaches you how to work creatively with others.



Do you ever find yourself in a social setting where someone says something that makes you uncomfortable? What happens? It depends on many factors: the other personalities in the room, the physical environment, the conditions that brought you together, how much sleep everyone had the night before... 

I had a conversation the other day with a friend who said something that stuck with me. In terms of relationships, he said that most people do not act but react. We react to the way others treat us. We react to their tone of voice, their words, and their body language. If someone is nice to us, we are nice to them. If someone is a jerk, we are a jerk back. In music practice, if someone begins a song in a sad minor key, we all begin to feel the same mood as the leader and we all work to create an environment based on what we feel from each other. I have been an audience member at shows where a band member makes a mistake, and the other band members react with anger, as if the imperfection of this one person is reflecting their own musical skills. When I improvise with students and they hit a bad note, my first instinct is to just keep playing. There is no need to point it out, because chances are that the player already feels a little uncomfortable with realizing they are not perfect. If someone misses a beat, it may just be an opportunity to change the rhythm and merge into a totally different type of song. Improvisation is all about staying present and going with the flow.

When someone makes an inappropriate statement or treats me in a questionable manner, I have found that it's important to check in with myself and see what I can do to control the situation, just like music practice. If you are in a jam session, and someone messes up, getting angry will not save the song. You can save the song by improvising and using your own musical skills to take the song somewhere else, possibly somewhere completely unexpected. Isn't this true in life? You are late to an appointment because of a traffic jam. Frustrating, but what can you do? You can become all worked up, red faced with raised blood pressure, or you can just accept your fate and enjoy the song on the radio. You can improvise with what you actually have control over in that present moment.

Jazz Nerd

I have officially turned the page to a new chapter of my musically-obsessed life. JAZZ. Oh yes. Now imagine me listening to this with big, glossy eyes, and an intense look of concentration. A whole new world has been opened up!

I am not a Jazz musician. I want to crack up with laughter as I write that, because nothing could be further from the truth. Here's why:

Sometimes you have to move 3,000 miles away to see how good your music education was. My high school, Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, had a fantastic Jazz program and my college University of North Florida, had one of the best in the country, according to Downbeat magazine. Did I also mention I lived in the South for the longest part of my childhood? You know, that part of the country where Jazz was born? Still, I chose to focus on Rock, Folk, and World music. My attitude was "Let those Jazz nerds have their music. I don't understand it, so I don't care either way."

Don't get me wrong. I always loved me some Jazz playing in the background at Starbucks or a party, but I rarely got excited about the idea of going to a concert or listening to a new Blues album. I always felt like there was something I didn't hear that every other Jazz fan seemed to notice. Have you talked to a Jazz fan lately? They are more obsessed than John Cusack's Rock and Roll-obsessed character in the movie, "High Fidelity." I couldn't keep up! If you are ever in a conversation with Jazz Nerds, and you are not a fan, just prepare to be bored. The details they go into! The praise and worship! The astonishment that you don't get it!

So what did I do? I didn't get it, so I just acted like I didn't really like it. But how can I not like this stuff? There is so much to listen to. It's an A.D.D. musician's dream.

I think this obsession started when I began teaching my students how to jam on the Blues Scale. I was only teaching it, because it is a basic lesson that should be taught in any music class, but I was surprised at how amazingly fun it would be. What I hear in the blues jam with my students is how they personally hear music, and they're all different. What comes out of one student in a Jam (improvising session) is very different from another. Some students want to play sentimental music while others want to get up and dance. It's really quite fascinating to see their personalities come out with the help of Jazz.

I see it happening in my own life, too. As I learn more about Jazz in order to continue to feed this beautiful jazz-obsessed monster I have created in my lessons, I am also finding parts of my personality I had forgotten about. Something about these "Jazz" chords as I play them on the piano reveals feelings in me I once had as an idealistic, optimistic child. I find myself feeling like peace really is possible within us all. I know this, because when I play Jazz, or let myself get "hooked" while listening to a song, or when I immerse in a Jam session with another human being, be it child or adult, I feel a sense of "connection" with the rest of this world that I only really understood in theory before.

I write all this so you can see how ridiculous it is that I am now, JUST NOW, discovering that I can not only appreciate Jazz, but I feel an excited sense that I can understand it now. I remember a Jazz Nerd from my high school wandering into my place of employment at the time, which was a little bookstore in a shopping mall. He wanted to order some books on Jazz (of course) and proceded to bore me with all of his insights on Jazz and Philosophy and the Mysteries of the Universe. I politely discussed, but when he walked away, I will admit that my first thought was "God, these Jazz guys are SO out there!"

Well, funny how judgments can come back to you, I because now I have proudly crossed over to being a Jazz Nerd, but I promise that I will do my best as a teacher to explain it so you understand what I am talking about. Wait--- shouldn't make promises like that. If I've learned anything about being a Jazz fan from those who have come before me, it's this:

You have to experience Jazz yourself. It's a true inner journey. Let's start with some friendly Vocal Jazz. How about Nina Simone? 

Nina Simone - I wish I knew how it would feel to be free from Ambroise Kritz on Vimeo.