For Love Or Money

What keeps you coming back, one show after another?

As improvisers, we have access to a bunch of different kinds of work. Rookie shows, pro shows, pub venues, corporate gigs, festivals, teaching gigs, school shows... They're all different, and each of them gives you something you need. You'd like to think so, anyway.

There was a time when I'd put my hand up to do every gig I could. I find now I don't have time to do all of the things I might like to do; any gig has to compete with family and career.

I find the work I say yes to usually falls in to one of three categories.

For the love

Every working improviser that I can think of is primarily motivated by one thing - the love of it. Improv is amazingly fun and rewarding. Plus you can share it with your non-improviser friends.

If I say yes to a gig for the love of it, it's going to be one of those shows that I just know will leave me with a buzz. One of those shows I'll recount in excruciatingly painful detail to my wife afterwards.

For the money

Sometimes gigs will show up that pay quite decent money, such as corporate work or private parties. Generally it's very important for shows like this to succeed - you have a client spending decent amounts of money on the show, and you want to make sure they aren't disappointed. So the running order is going to capitalise on things that are impressive, or involve the audience, but aren't terribly risky or challenging to the improvisers.

I find the money for these gigs tends to be inversely proportional to the artistic desirability of the show. It is nice to catch up with fellow performers, and on a good night get a nice meal out of it, but mostly these are about paying the rent.

For the growth

Some shows are primarily about building something. It might be that you're working on your own skills and getting more show experience.

When you're just getting started, you learn an awful lot from doing one show after the next, being brilliant, making awful messes, and generally learning your craft.

A related form of development is building a company. You might be helping a show along because it is a vehicle for new folks to join the group, or a way to get the show out there and publicised.

Two out of three ain't bad

If you're lucky, you'll find work that ticks more than one box. If you find you're part of a recurring professional show that pays well and that you really love, fantastic! I've had a series of long-form shows lately that I'm super keen for, where I've had to study styles of music from particular periods or genres and really push myself.

Really, if you love doing improv, you can't go wrong.

Photo by David D. Muir

Starting in your home chord

You want to give a singer as much guidance as you can when they're kicking off a song.

When you're firing up the beginning of an improvised song, you can make some choices that can help or hinder your singer. A rule I nearly always stick to is to start in the home chord when the singer comes in. If I'm vamping around, I'll start the vamp on the home chord, and I'll use a progression that still points its way home again. I like to give a strong implication that I'll be returning to that home chord when the time comes.

I've collected a bunch of examples to illustrate progressively more difficult starting points.

My Freeze Ray from Dr Horrible, and Five For Fighting's The Riddle, are examples of songs with a nice, simple, repeating vamp. The repeated phrase starts on the home chord each time, which in an improvised song would lead the singer in very neatly.

Two songs that stay well away from the home chord are Lisa Loeb's Fools Like Me, and Sara Bareilles' Love Song. Fools Like Me does start on the home chord, but the bass is playing a third, so it's sort of flirting around that home chord to make it feel a little off balance. (Not that it's a bad thing, I love it in that song.) The song doesn't hit its home chord until about 44 seconds in. Similarly, Love Song's vamp starts away from the home chord, and tromps around until it lands nicely just before the phrase ends.

For both of those songs, if you're already familiar with the progression, it's easy to pick how the vocal will start. The first time you hear them, though, you might feel a little off balance.

An extreme example is Crash Test Dummies' Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm. The intro doesn't give a clue as to what key the song might be in, and the verse starts waaay over there in a weird spot. (This song stumps me; I can hear most songs and understand how they're put together, but the intro to Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm defies that skill.) Don't get me wrong, I love the song... I just can't imagine pulling anything like that off for an improvised show.

Photo by Zen

Hiding Behind the Fourth Wall

I have some pet peeves when it comes to how folks interact with the musician during a show.

I am privileged to work with some magnificent improvisers, folks who can weave together drama, comedy, adventure or whimsy as they see fit, and draw the audience in. Of course, the audience understands intellectually that there are folks on stage making stuff up, but audiences have a tremendous ability to suspend disbelief and allow a story to get in to their heads and hearts.

One of my pet peeves is when someone in a story based scene breaks the fourth wall and turns to the audience to address them as the actor, rather than the character... Perhaps the scene was rocking along in a certain direction, and a new offer jumps out and takes it somewhere else. The Elizabethan fop character with the wonderful accent turns to the audience, rolls their eyes, and (in their normal voice) says "Well, I wasn't expecting that!" It's a bit of a cheap laugh, at the expense of the momentum of the story. I suspect it also builds rapport between the actor and the audience ("us"), at the expense of the other actors ("them").

Most of the time, the music isn't part of the story; the characters can't hear that soundtrack to their lives. So I find it awkward when suddenly one of the characters can hear that music, and they react to it, or start talking to me about it. They shouldn't be able to hear the music, or see me! It's a little like the faux horror films where the characters know they're about to be tracked down by the maniac because the scary music starts.

Or, worse than that... for some reason if folks can't remember the musician's name, they'll address them as "Mister Music". As in "Ready, Mister Music!" Eeek. With a name like that, I'm sure I should have some kind of red-orange velvet suit and top hat, big floppy shoes, and balloon animals.

Maybe one of the reasons I hate it when folks break that fourth wall to talk to me is that I don't particularly want to be seen or heard by the audience. My job is to fill the scene with emotive music, not to be eye candy or provide witty banter (neither of which are within my repertoire). That's definitely a me-thing; I know plenty of impro musicians that are just as happy performing on-stage.

Of course, talking to the musician can work a treat if the scene is set up as a directed scene, where one of the actors is taking the role of director and occasionally halting the action on stage for a re-do or to suggest a change. If that's the reality you've set up for the audience, those starts and stops are part of it, and it all works really well.

I got to play a character for the first time, well, ever, in a show a few weeks ago. Jane Austen - By The Book was a wonderful Impro Mafia show directed by Natalie Bochenski. The basic premise was that Jane Austen herself (played by Natalie) invited the audience around to her place of an evening. I was a part of that reality, playing Mr Smiggins, the local vicar who was quite handy on the pianola. The audience was invited around to help Jane work on her new novel, while Smiggins provided musical inspiration for the story. As she wrote, the actors took to the stage, sometimes conversing with her but never to the audience. The effect was as if the audience and myself had a window in to the writer's mind. Natalie threw to me a couple of times to play a particular kind of music, and in this instance it really worked. (So long as I don't have to talk. Me no talkie.)

The same thing worked well in last week's A Place You Can go, where I, a musician at a venue, was playing the part of a musician at a venue, and one of the characters interacted with me. (What did they do? You should read that post to find out.)

Photo by Qskulls

A Place You Can Go

In a live performance, Joel Gilmore demonstrates floating a melody around the music.

Most of the time, in an improvised song, the singers follow the rhythm of the music very closely, with the phrasing of each line slotting in nicely to the beat of the music. Some musical styles really suit the singer being loose with the rhythm.

This is hard to explain, but easy to demonstrate. Fortunately this week we have an example :)

Improv the Musical

I was privileged to perform with the EDGE Improv folks for the final of their season of Improv the Musical. Directed by Louise Callanan, the show featured a variety of musical short-form in the first half, with a nice long-form musical in the second half.

The setup

Joel Gilmore stepped up to the stage for Lounge Singer, a game featuring a singer that hasn't made it big yet, and has to play in less salubrious venues. The MC gets a location from the audience, and the singer uses that as inspiration for the scene. In our case, our fearless MC Greg Duncan got "The Ipswich Mall".

The song A Place You Can Go builds on the reputation of The Ipswich Mall. While I vamp and Joel chats with his audience, the other players set the scene with suitable lowbrow stuff - the mother chasing her kid, the patron shouting obscenities, and so on.

(I've had the pleasure of doing a band gig in a bar in the Ipswich Mall once. There's a rule that when a fight breaks out, you keep on playing. That's really hard. I'm pretty sure we all stopped what we were doing and watched the fight, slackjawed. Live and learn I guess.)

Right at the point where Joel hints that he's about to start singing, one of the other players approached me and, facing away from the audience, demonstrated how one could mistake a piano player for a urinal. That's where you hear the audience go off. Straightaway, Joel takes his cue from that, and launches in to song.

The Song

Joel starts with a nice freeform melody in the key of the vamp. Until we establish the rhythm, the music sits underneath with gentle chords, until we finally strike out with a beat.

Hear that strange sound right as Joel hits the word "Place"? That's the sound of me grinning from ear to ear. This was only my second gig with Joel, and the first time I'd heard him sing. It is wonderful to realise the person on stage has an instrument like that!

As Joel works his way through the song, he knows exactly where the rhythm is; he's being quite careful sometimes to sit outside of it, or use syncopation. Sitting outside the beat lets him soar and really sustain some of those big notes.

Another benefit is that, because he's lagging the beat a fair amount, he can take his time to let the melody settle in to a good fit with the music. For example, as he sings "white and clean and yellow", "yellow" lags a bit, so Joel can drop it nicely in to that progression. That said, when Joel does sit on the beat, you can hear him correct really nicely to slide in to a note compatible with the chord.

Right at the end, as Joel sets up the big finish, you can hear me lose my nerve and drop the rhythm from the music for a bit, until I heard where he was going and it picked up again.

That last word? Joel held that beautifully, stretching it out, and setting up the final moment really nicely. (I've never heard that word sung before. Lovely.)

The whole way through the song, Joel felt confident enough to disengage from the rhythm for a while, then come back again, really playing with the timing. I think that adds such great colour and interest.

In the end, this didn't conform to most of the "rules" of a song - no repeating chorus, no verses. It left me with the impression that it could have been a snippet from a longer song.

I don't know if this always happens to me, I'll pay more attention in the future, but I distinctly recall that when we were doing this song I had other songs pop in to my head. Moon River came to mind right away, and I'm sure that minor 6th at the start came right out of that. Somewhere towards the end, around the time Joel sings and holds "At Ipswich", Non je ne regrette Rien appeared in my head. On reflection, Somewhere You Can Go and Non je ne regrette Rien seem to be quite similar.

Performing with the EDGE folks was a lot of fun. It was the first time I'd met many of the performers, and that's always exciting.