notesdontmatter

Week 12 Improvisation Workshop 26-10-06:

David Harris and the power of 7/8:

The diminishing group of would be improvisers were treated to some one on six tuition from David Harris this week. A suggestion of a drum loop in 7/8 was the order of the day here. The first attempt was a dismal failure, as no one seemed to be able to hold time with the subtle high hats emanating from jakes computer. With a little tweaking, he managed to give us some rock solid 7/8 foundation by breaking the bar into two distinct sections; one phrase of 4/4, and one phrase of ¾, accented accordingly. With some straightforward chord stabbing from Harris on the piano, we soon got the hang of it. This went on for a while at a reasonable tempo and some interesting results sprang forth. It wasn’t until Jake dropped the tempo back to around half that it started to really funk along. I’m usually shy about improvising in odd time signatures, but this approach seemed to alleviate some of my reservedness.

David’s live musical input was often of the avant-garde variety, spilling numerous clusters of discordant notes from the piano, and also giving us the root chord or note from time to time, which helped a lot with my personal contribution to the mix. I found David’s approach encouraged me to explore some odd scales and play at little off centre from time to time. I find this approach fun in small doses, but it doesn’t take long before I instinctively regress to what I know and love, that being minor, Phrygian and pentatonic scales – plus dive bombs of course.

The group as a whole seemed to be less inspired than last week, perhaps due to the fact that exams and assignments are beginning to close in. I’m looking forward to the performance regardless, and I believe everything will come together on the night.


Reference:

Stephen Whittington and David Harris. ‘Improvisation workshop’. Workshop presented at Studio 5, 5th Floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide, 26th October, 2006.

posted by David J Dowling @ 3:44 PM