The Four C’s: Convincing

Last week I introduced the qualities I call the Four C’s of Improvisation: a successful improvisation is competent, convincing, coherent and colorful. Last week I explored the area of competency, discussing knowledge of the organ, technical skills and musical formation. This week, we’ll look at how we can be convincing while living in the moment and being open to a future that of unknown possibilities.

Rhythm

Good public speaking requires fluidity. Words just roll off the tongue of good speakers. No hesitations. No ums or uhs. Even in conversation, unless we get interrupted, our thoughts generally flow from start to finish if we know what we intend to say. To be convincing, I believe improvisers must maintain the same rhythmic flow as good speakers. Any hesitancy makes our statement weaker. What’s the surest way to know a performer has made a mistake while playing a piece of repertoire? A disruption in the rhythm! (And no, rests are not necessarily a disruption in the rhythm. Plenty of good pieces make ample use of them.)

Thinking

When learning a written composition, we usually practice slowly, especially the difficult passages. This enables us to take the necessary time to read the music and find the notes without disrupting the flow. We need to do the same when improvising. One of the lessons I learned from Naji Hakim was “Never improvise faster than you can think.” If our rhythm hesitates, perhaps we are playing too quickly and need to slow our hands and feet down so that our brain can catch up. One of the surest ways to run into problems is to let our hands and feet wander aimlessly over the keyboard. While we might manage to be rhythmic, chances are our coherence may go out the window.

Conviction

There is no better way to be convincing than to play what we play with conviction. One of my favorite British entertainers is Derren Brown. On one of his TV series, he went to the track and through primarily a strong sense of conviction was able to collect winnings from losing bets. He even teaches someone else to do the same thing. (Watch the clip here.) On a visit to New York, he pays for food and jewelry with paper! While he employs a few other tricks, if he had any doubts or hesitation about what he was doing, his chance of success would drop precipitously. If we can make musical statements with as much conviction as Derren Brown uses words, lots of other details can be ignored while still providing an enjoyable experience to the listener.

To be convincing, we must improvise rhythmically, no faster than we can think and with conviction. The first two of these also help in being coherent, our topic for next week.

For this week, may all your improvs be convincing!

Glenn Osborne


 
Recent additions to organimprovisation.com:

Artists:

Themes:


 
Newsletter Issue 3 – 2014 05 12
See the complete list of past newsletter issues here.
Sign up to receive future issues using the box to the right on this page.

Gereon Krahforst

GereonKrahforstCropWebsite:
http://www.gereonkrahforst.org

Gereon Krahforst was born in 1973 in Bonn, Germany. He studied composition, church music, piano, and music theory at the university for music in Cologne, musicology at the University of Cologne and received his diploma and masters degree in organ in Frankfurt. He has studied privately with Markus Karas, John Birley (before the university studies), and then with Clemens Ganz, and Daniel Roth. During and after those studies, he participated in masterclasses with Marie-Claire Alain, Thierry Escaich, Peter Planyavsky, Jon Laukvik (ancient music), Guy Bovet, Wolfgang Seifen, Tomasz A. Nowak, Franz Lehrndorfer and many others. Other significant mentors are Petr Eben and professional friendships with Jean Guillou, Marie-Louise Langlais and Stephen Tharp.

At the age of 26, he was appointed director of music and organist at the Minster basilica in Moenchengladbach, Germany, and at age 27, he worked as director of music at the Cathedral of Minden, Germany. At the age of 29, he was appointed cathedral organist at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Paderborn and lecturer (Gregorian Chant) at the theological seminary of Paderborn. In 2004, he was appointed lecturer and instructor of organ at the University of Music in Hannover. In 2011, he moved to Spain where he was organist at the Incarnation Church of the world-famous town Marbella at the Costa del Sol in Andalucia, playing the nationally significant “Órgano del Sol Mayor”; since August 2012, he has been cathedral organist and associate director of music at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

Videos:
Improvises a free piece in the style of Robert Schumann – Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis
Gereon Krahforst – Improvisation on the Paderborn’s Libori Hymn tune – Klais Organ in the Cathedral of Cologne