Robin at ComedySportz Musical Improv, Class #2

Notes from my Monday night musical improv class taught by James Bailey at ComedySportz. I'm half way through the 4-week course. Sixteen of us warmed up singing as a group: SING A SONG. (The Carpenters first sang this on Sesame Street, before making it a hit record, words and music by Joe Raposo.) Then we did scat (la la la) where the soloist becomes whoever is holding a roll of toilet paper. Safety tip: maintain eye contact before throwing the roll. Glad we weren't dodging wrenches like in DODGEBALL.

We continued to work on 7-5 rotating quartet combinations from last week. Maybe due to the Santa Anna's, everyone (well, me at least) sounded stuffy and off-key. James said if you take a wrong note to "own it". That is, hold it and repeat it so our accompanist (the great Bob Remstein) can shift keys to match it. In other words, let the keyboards rescue you instead of making a mistake obvious by hunting for the note. Bob pointed out that fast music tempo suggests slow words and vice versa, to avoid matching the beat note for note. James said that whatever is "offered" to "take it". James revealed and demonstrated his emergency rhyme of "do" and "you".

We did scat in groups of three where one singer sang "la" slow, another sang "dah" moving, and the third sang "bah" intermittently (that was me). In the midst of this James gave us the offer that we're all in France. We had to switch mid-song from scat to words as improv. James said, "The ability to listen for what's missing is very important." In other words, don't copy what others are doing and fall into PIRATES OF PENZANCE. James warned us to avoid "the 1-note song" and said "to give yourself some more notes" by going up and climbing back down the register. He said "find all the spots in your voice" and to "give yourself permission to get off the note."

We learned to sing duets this week. All as improv and with suggestions off the cuff for topic. A superheroes suggestion became the story of feeble supers Captain Apathy and Loose Change. A cute suggestion was feral cats who share an alley. James demonstrated how songs that tell a story don't have to rhyme. My duet suggestion was Hansel and Gretal. I sang with enthusiasm, "I am Hansel, and I am handsome!", which got a laugh. We learned to work more together with partners in a duet, to avoid becoming two soloists.

"Create the chorus first," was our final suggestion of the evening. The offer was toys. James gave us a simple chorus: "Gotta have my toys, yeah! Gotta have my toys," which was a lot of fun. Singing in a circle, one singer at a time would step out to improv two bars then we'd all sing the chorus. James said to keep the chorus simple so everyone, including the audience, can remember and sing along with it. As always, James used examples of funny goofs and smooth recoveries in his own singing experiences to put us at ease.