TME Tuesday: Improvisation
Improvisation.
This word was the bane of my existence for many years. It started in junior high jazz band. My band director was a jazz fiend and had a reputation for turning out good jazz musicians, even at age 12. I was supposed to be one of those good jazz musicians, but improvising got in my way. We were taught the "rules" of improvisation and were expected to stay within those guidelines. I would step up to improvise and everything we had been told about "rules" would rush out of my head. I would choke. I'd get yelled at, and the clutch would happen again and again.
It happened all through high school as well.
When I went to college for a degree in music therapy, we talked a bit about improvisation, but the skill wasn't really encouraged in my practica. We were expected to write songs and then use them in sessions. It wasn't until my internship that I started to find my improvisation style, skill, and chops.
My internship supervisors, Sheryl Kelly, Angie Powell-Bollier, and Mary Goldenetz, were the first music therapists who required me to make music throughout my sessions. They pointed out that music organizes the brain and so we should have music going throughout our treatment. In order to do that and accommodate clients' immediate needs, there have to be some extemporaneous music experiences that happen naturally. That is improvisation. I finally had a realization that improvisation could be just making music to illustrate what was going on during the session.
Ta-daa! Can you hear the herald trumpeters signalling a major revelation? I certainly did and all the "rules" of improvisation that I had been told, yelled at about, and practiced all of a sudden made sense. The "rules" didn't have to be followed at all! I could do anything I wanted within the music environment. Blues scales? Only if I wanted to do so!
Are you wondering where the TME part of this comes in?
Here it is...
This is where thinking about those elements of music in all of the other TME Tuesday posts come in handy. This is where the savvy music therapist uses musical elements to support and urge clients towards their personal goals. The music therapist bases his or her decisions on the client's behavior, demeanor, and attention and matches the music to those decisions.
For me, improvisation is easily defined as using music to illustrate what the client is doing. Sometimes that is singing, sometimes playing the piano. Yesterday it was using the ukulele to support the ukulele playing of each client in turn. I used my two chords to support what they played - whatever that was.
In my experience, you can learn all the rules of music you want, but until you are ready to explore the world of music and all of the musical elements, you cannot be considered an improviser. You have to know the rules to be able to break the rules, AND you have to explain why you broke those rules in a client-centered manner for non MTs to understand. This is how we justify jobs as MTs, this is how we demonstrate that we are the "experts" when it comes to using music as a therapeutic tool.
Learn those elements of music. Understand how the elements can change. Learn about the effect of these changes on the elements on the brain. Understand that when you change a tempo, you are changing the physiology of all within hearing distance, and then go out there and boldly make music!
Boldly make music!
This word was the bane of my existence for many years. It started in junior high jazz band. My band director was a jazz fiend and had a reputation for turning out good jazz musicians, even at age 12. I was supposed to be one of those good jazz musicians, but improvising got in my way. We were taught the "rules" of improvisation and were expected to stay within those guidelines. I would step up to improvise and everything we had been told about "rules" would rush out of my head. I would choke. I'd get yelled at, and the clutch would happen again and again.
It happened all through high school as well.
When I went to college for a degree in music therapy, we talked a bit about improvisation, but the skill wasn't really encouraged in my practica. We were expected to write songs and then use them in sessions. It wasn't until my internship that I started to find my improvisation style, skill, and chops.
My internship supervisors, Sheryl Kelly, Angie Powell-Bollier, and Mary Goldenetz, were the first music therapists who required me to make music throughout my sessions. They pointed out that music organizes the brain and so we should have music going throughout our treatment. In order to do that and accommodate clients' immediate needs, there have to be some extemporaneous music experiences that happen naturally. That is improvisation. I finally had a realization that improvisation could be just making music to illustrate what was going on during the session.
Ta-daa! Can you hear the herald trumpeters signalling a major revelation? I certainly did and all the "rules" of improvisation that I had been told, yelled at about, and practiced all of a sudden made sense. The "rules" didn't have to be followed at all! I could do anything I wanted within the music environment. Blues scales? Only if I wanted to do so!
Are you wondering where the TME part of this comes in?
Here it is...
This is where thinking about those elements of music in all of the other TME Tuesday posts come in handy. This is where the savvy music therapist uses musical elements to support and urge clients towards their personal goals. The music therapist bases his or her decisions on the client's behavior, demeanor, and attention and matches the music to those decisions.
For me, improvisation is easily defined as using music to illustrate what the client is doing. Sometimes that is singing, sometimes playing the piano. Yesterday it was using the ukulele to support the ukulele playing of each client in turn. I used my two chords to support what they played - whatever that was.
In my experience, you can learn all the rules of music you want, but until you are ready to explore the world of music and all of the musical elements, you cannot be considered an improviser. You have to know the rules to be able to break the rules, AND you have to explain why you broke those rules in a client-centered manner for non MTs to understand. This is how we justify jobs as MTs, this is how we demonstrate that we are the "experts" when it comes to using music as a therapeutic tool.
Learn those elements of music. Understand how the elements can change. Learn about the effect of these changes on the elements on the brain. Understand that when you change a tempo, you are changing the physiology of all within hearing distance, and then go out there and boldly make music!
Boldly make music!
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