IMPROVISATION


Improvisation
Creating sound 'in the moment' should be one of the most basic musical skills, and yet improvisation is very rarely taught or encouraged for singers of any kind. We want to remedy this.

We have included improvisation in almost all of our concerts to date; aiming to show that improvisation within an ensemble singing setting is a joyful and accessible art form.
Improvisation within vocal music can take many forms:
- Written scores that contain aleatoric elements, such as Meredith Monk's Panda Chant
- Graphic scores which use lines and images which the singer conveys through sound
- Modular improvisation, such as Bobby McFerrin's Circle Songs, in which singers build up large structures through small, repetitive building blocks
- Tonal group improvisation, based around a melody which is reharmonised by the full group
- Free improvisation, either tonal or atonal
In 2019, we ran our first public improvisation workshop in Pickering, Yorkshire, where 80 participants improvised around a ground bass, reharmonised 'Skye Boat Song' and used modular improvisation and extended vocal techniques to create a new piece. 

The feedback was wonderful from the singers (no prior experience of singing needed!) and we now aim to be much more ambitious with our scope in this area.

In April 2021, we'll spend five working days developing Echo’s skills in group improvisation and leadership, alongside running three improvisation workshops for the public. These initial workshops will take place in Green Lanes, Hackney, and will be free for the public to attend.

We will record snippets of what we have learnt each day in an online ‘journal’ of our work which will be used to share our improvisation work with an online audience and other singers and practitioners.
Bobby McFerrin's 'Circle Song No.5' in performance in Birmingham

This project will develop the improvisation and leadership skills of our core singers, so that Echo are able to run a larger scale set of improvisation workshops in a number of UK cities, with a plan for 40 workshops from 2021-22.
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