Untitled Document

	Improvisation Workshop
	Presentation Work in improvisation workshop. Book and DVD
Bs.As, Argentina, 2005	presentation I created these workshops in 1996, after ten years of experience teaching piano, improvisation, theory and composition. In terms of group classes I had only presented a few clinics for musicians, but always from a more traditional standpoint as is typical in these cases. By traditional I refer to a “vertical” approach: one demonstrates things, the audience listens and then asks questions. This seems to me a fine approach in some situations, but in my case I felt that I could offer more by doing this differently. At that point I was already thinking a lot about the questions other musicians would ask with regard to improvisation: what notes to play over which chord progression, or how to use chords and scales, to name just a couple of examples. Practically, observations were centered on harmony, which represented a great contrast with my way of looking at music and specifically improvisation. While harmony is certainly fundamental to our study, what is most important in music is the message, and what one wants to say, independent of the context in which we find ourselves and what we are playing. I believe that music is the manifestation of all that we are as human beings. Study and preparation give us tools to express what It is we want to say, but how is it that I play the melody to a ballad, how do I accompany a chacarera, or how I play a solo that makes sense and is coherent in a particular tune? There’s no doubt that harmony is important, but it is just one resource among many other issues that I must attend to. Musical discourse depends on the choice of “what to play and what not to play” and the way of doing so. It occurred to me that the best way to learn this is by playing, since it is often difficult for musicians to integrate theory and practice. In this way, I began to put together a method of study that was an outgrowth of my own work as a professional musician dedicated to improvisation, and of the lessons that I had been teaching for years. I needed to create a space where one could play in an atmosphere of confidence and seriousness, strengthening the commitment to play and the attitude with which one approaches his or her instrument. The main objective is for musicians who are already improvising to continue developing their musical message, and for musicians who have not yet begun to improvise to do so, each one within their own “musical world.” Along with the technical, formal and conceptual aspects of improvisation there are key issues that need to be worked on (we can call them “expressive means”). commitment, humility, concentration, discipline and practice, the capacity to listen, the attitude with which to face mistakes, silence, play, emotion, dynamics, training and technique, patience, limits and frustrations, form, work and day-to-day life, and coherence. These values are effectively practiced and solidified through constant stimulation. The use of the voice as another instrument, and of percussion instruments in my own musical practice are invaluable and thus naturally have been included in the improvisation workshop. This work has been conceived for any instrument, and for musicians who come from any stylistic background. The sessions comprise two different parts: the first using the voice and percussion instruments, and the second using the musicians’ own primary instruments. These activities have been designed for any combination of instruments and are adapted depending on the instrumentation of the participants. All musicians both accompany and play soloistic interventions, and sing what they play. That is, everything that we play we must somehow reproduce vocally at the same time. The guidelines for these activities are based in one of the following basic aspects: rhythm, harmony, melody, and expressive means. Attention is directed toward one of these points, even though we use all of them simultaneously, and from this comes the need for integrity in our musical discourse, since it is fundamental not only what we play, but also how we play it. The activities of the workshop are a great study that aims at developing how we react when facing our “mistakes,” understanding these as new and unexpected circumstances that ought to be faced and resolved, and not only as “incorrect” executions of an intent. We can’t really speak of rules, or a technique for being creative, but we can speak of a life of commitment that awakens and strengthens our own creativity. Finallly, reflecting on the necessity of becoming conscious of the importance that “our playing” has in reference to the world around us, since our music is a concrete manifestation (in form and content) of our own position in facing life. The project is completed with original texts or transcriptions taken from other sources. These texts are read and commented on, in the hope of reflecting on and deepening our understanding of the themes they reference. This workshop has been presented at: • “First Latin American Seminar on Music Education” (FLADEM – Buenos Aires, 1999). • “Fourth Latin American Conference on Music Education” (Escuela Superior de Música, Universidad Autónoma de México, Mexico City 2003). • Various cities in Mexico: Mexico City, Saltillo, Hermosillo, Monterrey, San Luis Potosí and Guadalajara. • As a masterclass as part of the “Viva Monterrey Third Internacional Meeting for Jazz and Music” (Monterrey, México) • “Third Festival for Internacional Day of Music” (Hermosillo, Sonora, México 2005) as keynote activivty.. • “Fourth Festival for Internacional Day of Music” (Hermosillo, Sonora, México 2006) as keynote activivty.. • “First Latin American Congreso on Institucional Training in Popular Music” (Universidad Nacional de Villa María, Córdoba, Argentina) • Independently in Buenos Aires and other cities in Argentina. • The workshop has run as a private lesson continuously since 1996. • Since September 2004 it has formed part of the official curriculum for the Conservatorio Provincial Julián Aguirre (Buenos Aires, Argentina), under the course name “Improvisation techniques.” I have been carrying out this work in my studio every week and with different groups made up of musicians from a wide variety of backgrounds. They come from all walks of life, and they have different objectives, needs, and characteristics. What is most important is that they all share the space and activities by playing in a common musical language that lets each individual make progress while still respecting their unique essence. In the Conservatorio Julián Aguirre (Buenos Aires, Argentina) the class is given in the second to last year of the program of study, where I work with musicians who have been studying classical music for years. The experience is fascinating because we are able to explore improvisation within the idiom of classical and contemporary art music. In the tours (within Argentina and abroad), the purpose of the improvisation workshop, combined with concerts, become a great opportunity to take further these reflections on art and its social message in these times, and the possibility of sharing perspectives with musicians from different places is fundamentally enriching.



Bs.As, Argentina, 2005

Bs.As, Argentina, 2005	Work in Workshop “We can all improvise. In fact, when we speak we discover that, maybe, improvisation is the most natural musical form. When we speak we transmit an idea, a message, and we do it using the words we find most appropriate. Besides the choice of words, we pay attention to their intonation, attack, volume, inflection, and silences. It all depends on circumstance: who is listening to us, where we are, how we feel that day, as well as many other factors. With musical improvisation something very similar to this happens.” • ¿How must we prepare ourselves to improvise? How must we prepare for something that is going to happen, and that we do not know how it will be? We have a message to transmit and we have to choose the way we will do it. In this workshop we work with all the formal aspects of music, but seen from another place. As if we watch a room’s inside from another window or coming into the room through a new door. We use notes, figures, measures, intervals, chords, rhythms, dynamics, melodies, silence, etc. taking them with naturalness, knowing what we are playing, always from searching our own voice and trying to join mind and intellectual vision to emotion and heart so as to make it a single one. The sessions have two different sides:: the use of voice, clapping, percussion instruments, and the use of one’s own instrument. Everyone should both be an accompanist and have moments as a soloist. We always sing what we play, that is, everything that we play should be reproduced vocally in some way at the same time. The activities are designed for any instrumentation and are adapted depending on the instrumentation. The activities are structured on these four principal aspects: rhythm, harmony, melody and expressive resources. Attention is concentrated in one of these points but we are using all of them. They are combined, and concentrating in the principle of the activities the attention is distracted from reasonable sources (mainly theory and technique) that usually obstruct the music to flow. In fact, our attitude towards these reasonable sources is the problem. As we play, we are in action and our position towards things move and is more flexible. We embark on the rhythmic play with percussion instruments, clapping, our voices and our own instruments, connecting with music in the most natural way. We have to feel the rhythm in our body in order to be able to project it onto our instrument. When we play together and are working with the rhythms over we are going to play with there is no choice: we have to listen to everything that is happening. The music we play depends on what the others are playing, and at the same time we influence the rest. This happens in real time, from the very beginning of the work and we have to use our theoretical, practical and spiritual preparation. Musicians play music with different elements: singing, percussion instruments, clapping palms, with one’s own instrument, in group and as soloist, singing and accompanying and appear, then, new elements. In some moments we are sure and in sometimes we have to work hard. The point is to solve the obstacles with the elements we have. (Listening to the music played by other musicians is the same or more important that the music we play…) “It is not enough to know how to make, and where to place, little tricks,” he said. A hunter should live as hunter to get the most out of his life. In other wods, changes are difficult and happen slowly; sometimes a man will take years to convince himself of the necessity of changing. I took years, but maybe I wasn’t particularly good at hunting. I think for me the most difficult thing was really wanting to change”. (Castaneda, Carlos; “Viaje a Ixtlán ”; p. 119; Fondo de Cultura Económica; Bs. As. 1975 trans. Michael O'Brien).- The questions are answered after the workshop sessions and theoretical concepts are In the deeply commented. We also make reflections over very, very important conceptual concepts: to silence, to playing around, to emotion, dynamic, training and technique, patience, discipline and study, limits, entertainment, time, frustrations, applying oneself, form, love, mistakes, work and everyday life, coherence, listening, … The use of percussion instruments, palms and voice demonstrates the necessity of integration of all the faces that our message can show. Playing without stopping or playing the same instrument for a long period of time makes us look for new material so as not to repeat ourselves. Our attitude and search make us find the different possibilities we can find. We have to play with the applying oneself and being humble as much as we can. The activities also look for a different approach to mistakes. Mistakes represent great fear, mainly when we do not feel them naturally. Special training for this is very important to solve problems: our mistakes and other musicians’ mistakes. It doesn’t matter which internal or external circumstances happen, we have to be on behalf of music. What attitude do we take toward mistakes? Are they music? Playing is a ritual and improvising is not just playing whatever comes to your mind: it consists of playing something that occurs to us and that first we hear in our head. When improvising, there is only the moment, everything is happening right now in real time. Our music should represent what we want to transmit and our music has to have sense, some direction. “Maybe I’ve invented something that already existed, but I’ve invented it, not chosen it. I’ve brought it to the outside (that is to say, I’ve invented it) because I’ve lived it. I’ve lived [seeing] how it was impossible for my intellect to improve a bad musical idea, and I’ve told myself that this couldn’t be mere chance, that there had to be an underlying law. Here is the law: the musical idea itself.” (SCHOENBERG, ARNOLD, “Tratado de armonía”, p. 488, Ed. Real Musical, España, 1974). trans. Michael O'Brien From the theoretical point of view, we work with the four aspects mentioned before: rhythm, harmony, melody and the other musical resources (silence, accentuation and articulation, volume, attack, heights, density, etc.). The activities are the result of the combination of these elements. We study the relationship TENSION AND RELEASE that naturally appears in music with integrity. The rhythmic aspect is essential. Feeling the rhythm in the body, feeling its dynamic, strengthen conscious of rhythm so as to be able to “float” over it. We also work with different Latin American rhythms and musical styles. As harmony is concerned, from the harmonic knowledge of the musicians that are attending the workshop (types of chords and scales, their classification and functionality, chords extensions, harmonic substitutions) we work in the applications in tonal harmony, modal harmony and atonality as well as the connection with the other musical resources. Harmony is sometime considered the most important element in improvisation, while managing the tension – release relationship depends on other elements too, as we explained before (such as silence, dynamics and expressive resources, for example). These are only some of the aspects that connect with art and life. “Our music” and “our instrument” are absolutely real and form part of us. From melody the work goes to set up the musical speech in musical motives (short phrases or ideas) and their development. Connecting melody with harmony we can not play “chord by chord”, we have to understand and listen how harmony goes, realizing tension and release periods choosing the notes depending on how we want to sound. The other musical resources are ESSENTIAL in music as our music will be profound depending on “how-to” express ourselves with what we want to play. Finally, making a reflection on the necessity of being conscious of how important is “our playing” towards the world around us, as our music is our real demonstration - in form and content – of our position in life. “Most of the people feel that a hard fist is the strength symbol. “I am powerful, because I have a strong fist. I can hit you. I can break a board in two pieces, I can break a brick”. But there is a great difference between energy and strength. Energy is not that external expression of a heavy, hard and forced fist. It is not also a weak and useless fist. The tai-chi fist is just in the middle, neither totally forced nor completely gentle. Is an empty, quiet fist ready to act.” Al Chung-liang Huang (“The essence of T’ai chi”) HERNAN RIOS


Bs.As, Argentina, 2005

Sonora, Mexico 2006



Sonora, Mexico 2006	Book and DVD THE BOOK: In 1998 I was invited to a conference on pedagogy and music education which took place in Buenos Aires, and that was the first time that I showed this project in one of these kind of meetings. It occurred to me to invite some of the musicians who were participating in the workshop in my studio and bring these musicians into the auditorium and do the first workshop session with an audience. The complementing texts, written by me or taken from other sources, are a fundamental part of this work, and so I compiled all the material I had developed up to that point and I organized it, offering it to whomever had an interest in learning more about the workshop. I put it together as a sort of book, with chapters that gave order to the content, even though it was very far from being a finished work. In fact, at that time it was not my intent to make a book at all… The thing is, that material and the texts from that workshop started to get around more and more, and I got a lot of encouragement to edit that material into a book, since apparently there was not yet this kind of material available in Spanish. It seemed like the kina of contribution I could make to help out other musicians, and thus the project began to take shape. Day-to-day activities were such that the project went forward, and at the same time I went along writing new texts, enriching the original material. What’s more, the workshop kept growing with the pasaje of time as a result of the new experiences both in my studio and beyond, in the conservatory and on tour. The book is based on the improvisation workshops, oriented toward musicians who are already familiar with the workshop and toward musicians who have never taken part. The practical part, therefore, has material for group study and also a focus on training for the individual musician. At the moment I am finishing the editing of this book, and I am quite excited about the results. It will be completed in December of 2007. THE DVD: With a lot of projects, it frequently happens that, despite having the details of the completed activity, one doesn’t have a complete idea of what really happens. Without a doubt, the best way of getting to know the work we do and experience it entirely is through doing it. Or seeing and hearing it… I have quite a lot of documentary material from tours and live presentations that I have done with film done especially. I am organizing all of this audiovisual material in order to publish a documentary/pedagogical DVD which I hope to have ready very soon.
Sonora, Mexico 2006
UNAM, Mexico 2006