Workshop Notes and Materials
4-Beat Phrase Improv
Create a 4-beat phrase. Everyone sing it until it’s familiar.
Group sings 4-beat phrase twice. Then one person creates a musical phrase by sing their name over 4 beats. Everyone repeats their phrase. The same person sings their name again, with new music, but still over 4 beats. Everyone repeats this new phrase. Group sings the original 4-beat phrase twice. Continue around the circle with each person creating two different 4-beat phrases for the group to sing.
Variation: Person one creates
Voicestra
From the work of Bobby McFerrin and his vocal orchestra –
Voicestra http://www.
and Rhiannon http://www.
VOICESTRA
Standing (done in septets, or octets, or quintets…)
Person 1 starts a short phrase that has rhythm and can be easily repeated – The Motor.
Person 2 copies their phrase, trying to exactly match the texture, rhythm, tone, pitch, expression, body language. Then Person 2 makes up a harmony to Person 1’s part, keeping the same exact rhythm but adding different notes that are “pleasing to the ear.”
Person 3 copies Person 2’s phrase, trying to exactly match the texture, rhythm, tone, pitch, expression, body language.
Then Person 3 makes up a new part that can be a harmony or a new interlocking part, trying to fill in spaces that are left in the already existing parts.
Person 4 copies Person 3 (or 2 or 1) to get a feel of the group’s groove. Then Person 4 makes up a new part, that can either be a harmony or new interlocking part.
Person 5 and 6 same as 4.
Person 7 steps in front of the group, listens carefully and delightedly to their groovy foundation, and improvises on top, inspired by their bed of sound, taking off on voyages as yet unknown. Person 7 can conduct the group, encouraging them to crescendo (get louder), decrescendo (get softer), and when ready, Person 7 ends the improv, which can be done either with a gradual fade, or an abrupt cutoff (or anything else that s/he can communicate to the group.
One By One
by Michael Stillwater
One By One
One by one everyone comes to remember
We’re healing the world one heart at a time
[gview file=”https://elisewitt.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/One-By-One.pdf” save=”0″]
Singing For Our Lives
by Holly Near
© Hereford Music
Singing For Our Lives
We are a gentle, angry people
And we are singing, singing for our lives
We are a gentle, angry people
And we are singing, singing for our lives
We are a land of many colors
We are gay and straight to gather
We are old and young together
We are a justice seeking people
etc…
[gview file=”https://elisewitt.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Singing-For-Our-Lives.pdf” save=”0″]
We Have Come Too Far
by Jane Sapp
Watch the fabulous movie about Jane’s work in the Springfield MA schools, building a choir with the kids, writing songs with them, and saving lives http://www.akeretfilms.com/JaneSapp.htm
We Have Come Too Far
We have come too far, we can’t turn around
We’ll flood the streets with justice
We are freedom bound
* Try with some people singing 1/2 time (Syracuse Community Choir)
This Healing
Traditional Zipper Song from the African American Tradition (church & Civil Rights Movement)
Zip in your own ideas of gratitude in place of (singing)
This Healing
Thank you for this singing
Thank you for this singing
Thank you for this singing
Thank you for this singing
This healing, this healing
This healing singing
This healing, this healing
This healing singing
Thank you for this ____________