Transcript Improvisation and Wellness

To Teach Is to Serve
Improvisation and Wellness
Thomas Mastroianni
Wellness
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Whole Body Wellness
Well Attitudes and Habits
Stress and Wellness
Wellness and Improvisation
Psychological Wellness
Teaching Improvisation
Whole Body Wellness
• Exercise
• Diet
• Pacing
Well Attitudes and Habits
• Play as though you have composed the
piece.
• Improvise the ideas using the composer’s
suggestions.
• Form a spontaneity attitude and habit.
Wellness and Pacing
• Take regular breaks
• Insert easy music making into your routine
• Improvise
Stress and Wellness
• Balance adrenalin
• Befriend improvisation
Psychological
Wellness
The Brain
Brain Areas
Conscious Understanding
Sylvian fissure
Frontal
lobe
Parietal
lobe
Temporal
lobe
Occipital
lobe
Cerebrum
Signal relay and screening
• Cerebellum stored patterned
responses,
screening
• Brain stem synaptic areas for
signal relay and
screening
Reflex Activity
• Neural Wiring - Genetic
(Visual, Auditory, Motor)
• Subcortical Reflex Activity / Symbols
• Survival Reflexes and Anxiety / Excess
• Indirect Control of Reflexes / Symbols
Improvisation promotes trust in the reflex
Understanding/Execution/Wellness
Understanding aids ideation
Understanding guides choice of
responses in improvisation
Imagry -- muscles respond to imagry
Feldenkreis exercise.
Elimination of excess aids wellness
Improvisation
• Conversation vs. Speech Making
• Ideas vs. Symbols
• Semantic Memory vs. Episodic Memory
Dealing with Problems
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Diagnosis
Analysis
Remedy suggestion
Including improvisation in the
treatment
PEDAGOGIC PSYCHOLOGY
How do you teach technique?
How do you teach improvisation?
Confidence vs criticism
Noble effort vs calm success
Musical expression as improvisation
and confidence
Improvisation Routine
Scales, arpeggios, patterns, chords
Alternate ways to play scales, chords, etc.
Modeling
Dance types
Texture types
Feelings
Nature images
Time signature
Bar structure
Improvisation Routine
• Bar Structure and chord pattern
I/V/I/V/ I
• I / VI / II / V / I
• Add melody
• Change accompaniment
• Change Key