Noodling Around: Unleashing Creativity Through Musical Improvisation
What is musical improvisation?
1) To invent, compose, or perform without preparation. 2) To play (music) or sing extemporaneously, especially by inventing variations on a melody or creating new melodies.
Simply put, it is 'music made at the moment' - the experience begins and ends in real-time.
Learning to play a musical instrument is a wonderful, enriching experience. Many articles and studies have been written on the benefits of learning to play a musical instrument from a young age. However, sometimes, the training can teach consistency but not necessarily creativity in the individual. Improvisation is all about the performer's creativity, and developing this creativity will have many benefits for the rest of their music-making. Essentially, good improvisational skills will promote confidence in all performances.
At Percussion Play, we passionately advocate improvisation. Our instruments are specifically designed to encourage and nurture the improvisational spirit in all who encounter them.
When you spend time creating and thinking up music, music-making becomes more alive, more free, and more connected to your soul. It becomes less and less about being 'correct,' avoiding mistakes, and all that other intimidating, inhibiting stuff. Instead of worrying about the possibility of mistakes, relax, listen, learn, and have fun exploring the melodic and rhythmic possibilities. Listen carefully for your own feedback; you'll soon discover what does and doesn't work well. Experiment with different rhythms: make some notes shorter or longer and the tempo slower or faster. You don't need to worry about making "melodic gaffes" with the pentatonic scale since everything you do will sound fairly good, so you can relax and play with the notes differently. While you're playing, depart from any predetermined ideas and respond to the moment, use your mood, or what you are feeling or seeing to shape the music. Use the music to express your emotions; I can slide one of my favorite quotes in here 'Music is what feelings sound like.' (Author Unknown). Love it!
It's always remarkable to see what young children can do when introduced to musical improvisation. It offers children and children with special needs the opportunity to become acquainted with the fun of music-making, and it can be an exciting exploration. The social experience of music-making, having fun with friends, and being able to experiment creatively through music, truly connecting with each other, and genuinely expressing themselves is magic. Oh, just so you know, "improvisation" is a formal, stuffy term. Messing around, or playing random things, generally with other people, or by yourself is called jamming (I knew this) and the verb to improvise, or jam on an instrument is to 'noodle', as in 'I stood by the xylophone noodling.' (I didn't know this, but I like it!).
At Percussion Play, we believe everyone can be expressive with music, and because it's an incredibly flexible, responsive, and very personal form of music-making, musical improvisation can be liberating and even healing. However, like most things, improvisation is an acquired skill that can be improved with practice. And remember, all compositions started as improvised pieces, it's just we weren't privy to the process or the exploration, we've only been presented with the end result.
Nature makes for such good inspiration. After the heat of summer, as the leaves start to change and you finally get to break out your favorite scarf, why not make the most of this new season and try to capture the moods and colors of this transitional time by doing a little noodling in your outdoor musical park, playground, or garden?
