Improv class

I have certainly learned a lot from all the different music in class. There are a wide range of musical styles and ideas that just seem to flourish in a class like this. Much like electro-acoustic class, I have been introduced to new ways of thinking about music. Chaos is a genre in these two classes that fascinates me the most. Students in music classes traditionally are taught about structure, music theory, and rhythm. Chaos contains all these facets of music, but it stretches them to uncertain boundaries that in many cases can not be duplicated again. I think that uncertainty is at the heart of improvising. Improv means to make it up on the spot; someone might have an idea of what the outcome might be, however a performer never knows until the moment has passed and the music is played. I embrace uncertainty in life, living in the moment allows one to enjoy it and not worry about the past or future (even though it is good to think these things when necessary). I feel that after this class I will be more apt to let go and not be restricted by structure; if I hit a wrong note in a song I will embrace it and work with the note rather than try to fix it by returning to tones that bind one to a particular scale. I feel that my performances last week with the funk group, and the one with Ben, Graham, and Nate are examples of both these styles. The funk group was restricted to a key, and when a wrong note was played it was abrupt and obviously not wanted. I feel that with more practice a poor performance could have been avoided because the four people in the group are great musicians. It also could have been better had we embraced the wrong notes and played off each other more. The other major problem was tuning. I should have tuned the guitars before class to the sax; they were not in tune with one another. However this is all in hein-sight, I should be living in the moment. My other performance was in the moment, with no restrictions, full of uncertainty. I have no idea how it sounded now, but I think we accomplished what we wanted to. In music it is uncertain how a performance will go, that is why I like to embrace the good and the bad to learn from both.