Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

As you might imagine, I'm very busy this summer, what with wedding planning and all. But when I found out about a two-day musical improv workshop with ComedySportz, I signed up.

The first three- session took place Sunday.

I expected that I might see some people from my previous classes, and I was right. The first friendly face I recognized was Fran, who was in my beginner's class more than a year ago. I'd recently seen her perform with her intermediate class the same day my advanced class gave their performance.

Then I noticed Jen, who had taken the advanced class with me. Later on, J.T., also from my advanced class, walked in. Those were the only people I knew, but by the end of the class I felt like I knew the others a lot better, too.

There was quite a crew. Some of them had come up from an improv group in Delaware whose name I forget. There was Amy, who reminded me a lot of Amy Sedaris, especially in her facial expressions. This makes it easy to remember her name. Also from the improv group was Mark, a tall guy with a shaved head and moustache, wearing a tangerine button-down shirt and cargo shorts. Rich has a buzz cut and is about average height, stocky build with glasses. And I also think Helen is from that group. She's a petite woman with wild dark curly hair and glasses. Her friend Mary Ann might also be a group member. She is thin and athletic, above average height with short graying hair.

Also attending were Cheri, who took the intermediate class with Fran. She's square-jawed with dark wire-rim glasses and a brunette shag hair cut. Also from Fran's class was Layla, a Raphaelite brunette who had her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She told us that she's a classically trained singer, which soon became apparent.

Two people had the same name as people I took classes with before. Unlike the Colleen I know, this Colleen has shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair and glasses and is in her 40s or 50s. Finally, there's Carol, who is a petite, quiet woman with short, curly medium brown hair and glasses.

Our instructor was Dave, the same instructor I had for both my beginning and advanced classes. He told us that he is the executive director of ComedySportz in Philly. I'm not sure when he took over those duties, but I'm happy for him; I'm sure he'll do a great job.

He introduced the keyboardist, Doug, who was a soft-spoken guy with sandy blonde hair in a blue polo shirt. He reminded me of a lot of the music majors I knew in college. While he seemed a gentle spirit, he did have a sense of humor, as evidenced by some musical rifts and sound effects he threw in as jokes.

We went around the room and introduced ourselves, then got up on stage and did a name game and some warmup exercises, first for our body and then for our voices, accompanied by Doug.

Dave had us start with a very simple song, which was singing the Pledge of Allegiance to a melody he taught us. We lined up in two lines and paired up to sing one refrain of it, as we danced downstair. I was paired up with Mark, and we sang it as if it was the high point of a musical, singing right in each other's faces as we got into it. People laughed.

Another moment that made people laugh was when Mark and Amy paired up and started freak dancing to it. The juxtaposition of acting sexy to the patriotic song had us all laughing.

Then I think we did a very simple game, Da Doo Run Run, which is basically singing a song to the melody of the pop song. This is almost more of a rhyming game, because you don't have to make up the melody. You start with someone's name, like Bob. The first person sings, "I met him on a Monday and his name was Bob." And everyone sings, "Da doo run run run, da doo run run." The second person has to sing a line that rhymes, such as "He told me that he was a bookie for the Mob." And everyone sings, "Da doo run run run, da doo run run."

The third person gets the hardest task, rhyming three times: "And he liked to rob, places of their cobs. And he was a snob." And everyone sings, "Da doo run run run, da doo run run."

The game is played elimination style, with people called out as they make a mistake. This happens frequently to the person who has to rhyme three times, because that's tricky. Now, you're not supposed to think too far ahead in improv, and if you're trying to connect with the other people ahead, it's rough going. I suppose you could think of some possible rhymes and keep them in your head, but Dave says that you should just trust yourself and you'll come up with something.

We did this in a group of six and then a group of seven. Some people did better at it than others, but I had a little trouble with it, mostly because I'd get hung up on rhyming. Dave tells me they used to perform this at ComedySportz Philly, but they don't anymore because the audiences don't really like it. He suggests that they're sitting in the audience thinking up rhymes and think that the game is easier than it is. Take it from me: it's different when you're on-stage, especially if you're trying to connect it to what the other people sing.

Then we all got onstage and did an Irish drinking game which had a refrain everyone sings together. Basically, it was just an A-B-C-B rhyme scheme, although Dave told us we could play a little loose with that. If you accidentally rhymed the first two lines, then you could also rhyme the last two lines to each other.

There was also a set melody for this one, more or less. We went around the circle making up names based on topics Dave or Doug would give us. Most of the songs ended up being about drinking in some way, eventually. I can't remember too many of them, but I remember Rich made everyone laugh by coming up with a line about going home and drinking gin, right before the chorus.

Next we played Sing for Your Supper. This involved four people on stage, and you had to create a song on a topic, with a melody you'd determine to the accompaniment. The songs had a definite structure: A verse with an A-B-C-B rhyme scheme, which would take you back to the first person, who'd create the chorus, which was just a line that gets repeated by everybody. The next person in line would do a hook, which came in the middle of the chorus, and then you'd sing the chorus line again.

The third person in line begins the second verse, and the song ended with a rousing refrain of the chorus. After we'd done that a couple time, we changed it up, adding a bridge after the second repetition of the chorus, with a third verse following. Some really good stuff came out of this game.

One group involving Mary Ann, J.T. and Rich did a song about sailing. It was a beautiful, lyrical song about sailing out on the water, and then Rich added the line about how "I can't stand anybody but me." And then the rest of the song became about being going sailing because of hating the rest of the world. And yet, it was still a beautiful, lyrical song about sailing, "Free, free, free out on the water."

I missed part of another song, because I was taking a bathroom break. It was called the Tuesday Night Bowling Blues, and they were singing about not being able to find their lucky shoes. So they were just going to drink some Miller Lite and not bowl all night.

Layla got in a really nice hook where the end, with some real bluesy vocals.

One of my absolute favorites was a song about dolphins. It started out about how beautiful dolphins were, how they're a magical gift from God. And then Mark ended the verse with, "I like how they look, I like how they smell but especially how they taste." The chorus was "I love dolphins," but the song became about eating them, such as chopping them up and putting them into cups and drinking them. When they got to the bridge, it was so funny. Mark was singing, "Come here little dolphin. I want to put you in my mouth." He really got into it. Another funny line he came up with was, "Oh, here comes some dolphin back up," as if he was regurgitating the dolphin he's been eating.

The first time I did it, without the bridge, our topic was a pool. I started it off, singing about, "Come join me at the community pool, and we'll have a great time." The next person was singing about about bring your beach ball and bring your towel. The third person sang, "But don't bring your snotty-nosed brat," and the fourth person sang something about how it was adults only.

So when it came back to me for the chorus, I came up with, "Adult swim, that's where it's at." Of course, we ran with that, singing about how freeing it was to swim without any kids around. "Towels are optional, if you know what I mean," I sang in the second verse. We had fun with it.

In my second time onstage, our topic was laundry. Helen started us out, singing about how she loves to do laundry and loves the smell of the bleach, how purifying it was. I sang, "It can hide all my sins." And the song became about washing away evidence of past wrongs. For example, I sang, "I never should have rubbed that banana split all over my blouse" and later, "They'll never know about that time I cut myself with a paper clip in the back room," while making a cutting motion over my forearm. I was in the C position, so I didn't have to rhyme with anyone. The refrain was, "I love the smell of the bleach in my laundry".

I always thought that musical improv would be a lot more difficult, but actually, since it is so structured, it makes it a bit easier. You know what your part is, and that's all you have to do. It's very similar to some of the games like Spelling Bee or Dr. Know-It-All where, as a group of four people, you each add a word to form sentences. In this case, you get to sing a whole line of a song. The hardest part of the games we've played so far is the rhyming, but unless you have to rhyme three words in quick succession, as in Da Doo Run Run, it's not really that difficult.

To end the class, we got together in a big circle again, singing songs of different genres, as a group. We stuck to the same kind of structure as we'd been using for Sing for Your Supper. We came up with some really great stuff.

One of the songs was a lounge style song about umbrellas, with the chorus of "Drip, drip, drip, listen to the rain." We sang it with a lot of innuendo about the singer trying to come on to someone, inviting them under their umbrella, nudge-nudge, wink-wink. "My umbrella goes up and down repeatedly," sang Mark. People got in some good lines, and we stuck to the really smarmy, loungey style. We joked that would be the first song off our album.

We did a doo-wop song that didn't go much of everywhere. It started out about vacations, but we kind of never got there because it was a song about wanting to get away but not being able to start the car. The refrain was "Shoop, shoop, I can't reach it." It kind of failed to start, just like the car in the song.

Another song we tried that didn't go much of anywhere was a country song about unemployment. Mark came up with a great chorus for this one: "You're fired! Get out of here!" The song was about a guy who gets fired and decides he didn't want that job anyway, so he goes to the Grand Ole Opry to play onstage. And of course, he sucks at it and gets fired!

As people became more comfortable with the structure of the song, they were concentrating more on the storytelling aspect of it, which led to funny results.

We finished off with a power ballad, which Dave explained is the sort of song all the metal groups do eventually, a rock ballad about big topics: big love and big loss. So we worked them both in. Doug gave us the topic of rain, since it was raining outside. We started off really sweet, about being kissed in the rain. But by the second and third lines, things were clearly going sour in the relationship. I was the fourth line, and I had to rhyme with life, so I came up with, "I'm sure you're not surprised to see me at the door with a knife."

The chorus was brilliant in its simplicity: "You broke my heart!" repeated four times, at the top of your lungs like Sam Kinison would sing it. A whole group of people screaming this was awesome!

The song continued with the lover planning all sorts of nasty things like slashing their former lover's tires, and people threw in hard rock mannerisms like sustained high notes or "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" rifts. When we finally finished singing the last round of the chorus, we put our all into it. Mark joked it could be the second song on our album, following the lounge song about the rain. Seems appropriate!

You know it was a great chorus, because everyone was humming it and singing it afterwards: "You broke my heart! You broke my heart!"

Overall, I had a great time and learned a lot. I was surprised to learn that musical improv was easier than I'd anticipated. A lot of credit goes to the other people in the class, though, who were a talented bunch. You can tell some of them do this on a regular basis. They were committed, fearless and had a lot of energy, which always amps up the results.

I'm looking forward to next week, when Dave tells us we're going to do some solo songs. Can't wait to try it!

More Musings from improv class:

Improv Class Musings Index

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

June 2007 Index

Musings Index

What do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):