I wish we could all just as there's no
substitute for love
- brakes
wish my words could heal the hearts just
like
and they more men a cliche out oh we are
[Music]
improvisation improvisation can help us
to unlock our best selves but it can be
scary to even think about incorporating
improvising into our lives especially as
educators isn't good planning the secret
to success
well yes but sometimes when we overthink
our over-prepare we end up talking
ourselves right out of what is natural
and uniquely interesting about ourselves
what if you have gifts and abilities
that have been lying dormant because you
haven't allowed yourself to explore them
for fear of doing it wrong of making a
mistake dr. Charles Jhelum is a
neuroscientist musician and surgeon he's
a busy guy and he has spent much of his
career studying creativity and
improvising specifically he says
although people don't often associate
creativity with science actually the two
are inseparable to come up with new
theories to test you need to be able to
think creatively I'll share more about
his work later so what is improvising in
my world as a musician the simplest
definition is that it is to make up
something on the spot without previous
preparation or written down music when I
was studying jazz at Humber College in
Toronto we spent a lot of time learning
how to improvise or rather developing
the skills needed to improvise so we
spent countless hours practicing
different scales and modes and chord
progressions and grooves and the study
never really ends like still studying to
this day but we do the work so that we
can be free to take risks because when
you're improvising with other people the
most important thing is listening is
being able to stay in the moment we need
to trust that our fellow band mates will
go with that they'll say yes to our
ideas and we in turn must do the same
for them when I was at school learning
how to
or scat as it's called for vocalist at
that uh it didn't that I found it
terrifying I couldn't get over the idea
of making a mistake in front of other
people
so the hardest part was and is turning
down the volume on the critic within the
experience has taught me that the less
you worry about making a mistake the
more likely you are to experience a
moment that feels transcendent so then
there's also Improv Theater or improv
and it's similar in that most or all of
it is unscripted or unplanned the
principles that help guide improv are
known as the four C's creativity
collaboration critical thinking and
communication today improv as you
probably know is used for team building
and trust exercises as a way to combat
social anxiety and more viola Spolin is
often called the mother of improv and
many of the theatre techniques and games
that she devised in the 30s and 40s are
still used today there is so much I
could tell you about her incredible life
and work but what I want to focus in on
is her philosophy which was that improv
is a means to help individuals overcome
the approval disapproval syndrome she
said blocked them from their own natural
creativity in an effort to please others
I can relate can you relate so improv it
frees us from the confines of our own
self-conscious evaluative and repetitive
stories and we experience the energetic
emergence of the intuitive and that's
what makes transformation possible when
I am improvising or jamming with friends
especially if we're starting from
scratch with AI which I like to do it
feels like a fire initially there's this
spark this idea it could be a cool
groove chord changes little riff
something that ignites the rest of us
and sets us off on a different course
and each person brings all that they are
and have experienced to the moment and
the magic happens when the spark gives
way to a wildfire infused by our wild
abandon and freedom from judgment the
delicate balance
of the fires ferocity and its
unpredictability versus the deep trust
and listening that's required is what
delivers the gold in my life as a
musician and music educator improvising
has come to be a really important part
of the way I approach most things except
for this talk some of the best
performances and songs I've written have
come about when I've dared to say yes to
the moment sometimes I say things say
yes to things that feel a little beyond
my comfort level or depth but they've
ended up being richly rewarding and I've
learned over time that needing to
control everything isn't always the best
approach loosening that grip can help
yield some of the best outcomes it's
about being open to the isness of the
present going with it being in the flow
and it can teach us to make decisions
with conviction to listen before
responding to laugh at ourselves to get
better at taking cues and these are all
great skills to home not just for
artists but for everyone if we can treat
more of our interactions as an
invitation to discover something to
reveal what's beneath the surface then
we're less likely to lead with ego and
were more likely to connect on a deeper
level as people as facilitators as
educators remember dr. Lim the
neuroscientist musician he designed
sophisticated ways of attempting to
study improvising using functional MRIs
so his subjects jazz musicians and
rappers were placed in the machine where
they performed a memorized piece versus
something improvised and regarding what
he saw during improvisation he says in
simplistic terms
it seems during spontaneous creative
modes that there is deactivation in the
dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex
I'll explain he's basically saying that
the parts of the brain that are
responsible for self-monitoring
self-awareness introspection are shut
off during improvisation which is a good
thing
because they can impede the goal of
creativity of free-flowing output the
parts of the brain that are thought to
turn on are related to language and are
self expressive and autobiographical he
says one area turns on but one big area
shuts off so that you're not inhibited
you're willing to make mistakes I find
his work fascinating because he's
attempting to prove with science what is
already intuitively known so short of
signing up for an improv class which we
should probably all do how can we learn
to be improvisational what does that
approach mean for people who are not
necessarily artists I'm going to take
the long way around when I was in my
late teens and early 20s I studied with
a performance coach named art Nevsky in
Toronto and he ran group classes to help
get people over the fear of performing
and much like viola Spolin he had made a
bunch of weird games and roles to play
that he would literally shout out to us
while we were performing our songs for
the others in the group stick your
tongue out be a diva like Celine Dion
and he meant do it now I see now that a
lot of those interruptions constant
interruptions served as a way to trick
our brains into staying
in the present we simply had no time to
get too self-absorbed in judgment he
would also urge us to try new things and
even the smallest way is to sort of
build up the muscle walk home on a
different route have your coffee from a
different mug brush your teeth with the
other hand you might notice new things
because your awareness is heightened
because you're doing it differently so
we can look for more of these moments we
can learn to say yes more I'll add that
allowing our curiosity and our childlike
fascinations to be in charge more often
is another good place to start we can
also listen deeply meet people where
they're at allow them to finish
before trying to interject and steer the
moment into something that makes us feel
more comfortable when we are vulnerable
we allow our humanity to peek through
like an indicator light going off to let
other know others know that it's gonna
be safe for them to show us theirs too
and I believe this is rich and fertile
ground for sharing and growing learning
so it's pretty evident by now that part
of improvisation is being in the moment
it's like when you're on a roller
coaster the way up it's filled with
anticipation anxiousness maybe dread
you're nervously trying to calculate as
you go up how while the drop is gonna
feel when you start to freefall on the
way down there's literally nowhere else
that exists but where you are right
whether you love it or hate it it's the
only thing that you're experiencing and
reacting to in that moment not what
you're gonna have for dinner not the
snappy retort you couldn't think I
yesterday that moment is all there is
which is part of what makes experiences
like that so thrilling one of my
favorite artists Bobby McFerrin has
taken improvising in in a vocal context
to incredible Heights several years ago
I was watching a video where he's being
interviewed and just kind of giving
advice to aspiring singers and he
challenged us to improvise for 10
minutes a day continuously for at least
21 days I decided to try the challenge
and it was challenging because I was
used to improvising in the context of
with other people other musicians he was
asking us to just play with our voices
in the air every day continuously with
no judgment and I did find it tricky to
just show up to the task at hand and not
try to judge if I was doing it right or
wrong eventually though it became
something that I loved and it ends up
feeling sort of like a meditation for me
to make time to play with my first
instrument my voice it has also become a
way for me to invite new songs into
existence have them reveal themselves I
like to use my looper pedal and my voice
to create
soundscapes and textures to then build
on and on my upcoming album love and
protests a lot of the songs were born
out of this play with my voice and my
looper I'd like to share a part of one
of them with you now and it's called
where we belong
[Music]
when you fall down
[Music]
when life feels too heavy when you come
undone you will have a place where you
all everyone's heart
stand on certain
we all have
[Music]
only way to sir
lay down
[Music]
I know
there are chosen in the song signs time
[Music]
when I feel
when the ball gets fun we don't have a
will we belong
because everyone's love
[Music]
we all have
only way to stop
lay down
[Music]
we lay down
right
[Music]
Oh
[Music]
I hope we can all explore our untapped
potential while straight to live a
little bit more freely thank you
[Applause]
[Music]