BAY AREA VOCAL IMPROVISATION & COMMUNITY MUSIC
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What Shall We Do Without Us?

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May 2017

​I read on the internet to gather some of this info. I love my iphone, I enjoy facebook, and I work on my computer a lot of the time. Now some of my music is scanned into my computer and youtube is a good ol’ friend. Yah, all this technology is super helpful with
my process as a musician fo sho!
 
But I don’t have to tell you that we are crazy knee deep into technology in a way that sometimes keeps us from connections with others. The level of entertainment, curiosity fulfillment, and time wasting available online is beyond measurable. The gift of this for me is that I massively value sitting in front of a friend eating a meal or sharing a cup of tea. I am happy when I am in a dance class and I get to laugh and connect with others. When I am in nature being with the silence and natural sounds, I feel my cup is full. And I am elated when I get to be in a circle singing with others!
 
No mater what has happened that day, that week, I get a massive recharge. My endorphins start to dance and the happy thang comes over me. Because I am getting to look in your eyes, feel the spirit of your song, or dance and laugh with you.
 
So, checking out your connections on facebook is fun, but have you thought about the neural connections you are reinforcing in your brain when you are making music?
 
“It’s really hard to come up with an experience similar to that” as an education intervention, said Gottfried Schlaug, the director of the Music and Neuroimaging Laboratory at Harvard Medical School. Not only does it require attention and coordination of multiple senses, but it often triggers emotions, involves cooperation with other people, and provides immediate feedback to the student on progress, he said. Music, on its own, has also been shown to trigger the reward area of the brain, he noted. [1]
 
So, my dears…it appears that coming together to do activities with other humans is becoming one of the basic needs for nervous system regulation and perhaps the survival of our relationships.
 
Stay with us, we are here…
 
Art by Kenneth Patchen

[1] Published in Print: Education Week
November 25, 2013
Studies Highlight Brain Benefits From Music Training
Vol. 33, Issue 13, Page 6

 

flying...

7/28/2016

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Classically trained musicians engage in tireless hours of training and practice to play or sing music beautiful to our ears, honoring timeless composers. More than once, I’ve heard these musicians say that if they are asked to get off the page and improvise, they are lost. Interestingly, hundreds of years ago, improvising over a theme in a piece of classical music was a common practice.

There’s a river between the shore of the notes on the page and the freedom of improvisation. How do you get across?

Improvisation without form can be interesting, unconventional, and a wonderful way to express ourselves. However, after a while, without the ground of form, this kind of improvisation is limited. In the same way that darkness needs light to define itself, or yin is the partner to yang, we need form, a container from which to begin. Accomplished Jazz musicians are never far from theory. It’s the automatic identification of what key they are in that allows them to fly, to depart from the specified notes and begin to pLaY elsewhere.

Creating new intervals and including notes from other scales is the risky remedy for predictability that keeps music alive. It has taken me over 20 years as a singer to get to the point where I can hear a song for a brief moment and jump right in. I can’t tell you what an incredible feeling it is to be able to do this...It truly feels like flying…

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