[The Rev. Skip] Walker may be one of the few priests to release an album, Tina’s Contemplation: A Reflection on the Genius of Tina Brooks (2022), that made it to No. 25 on the music charts. Walker is a firm believer in using improvisation in music and to enliven the church.Havens, Christine. “‘I’ve Heard There Was a Secret Chord’”. The Living Church, 1 April 2025.
Labels: improvisation, Jazz
I know that everyone in the world has probably seen this video of Jacob Collier describing "negative harmony", but I just stumbled upon it.
Maybe I'm just overly excited about the return of the Netflix show Stranger Things, but I can't help but think about negative harmony as being the harmony of the upside down.
I think the concept is utterly fascinating, and I think I need to apply this to organ improvisation post haste!
Labels: improvisation, music theory
I have a great affinity for Eero Saarinen ever since I first set foot in North Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana. And perhaps this can be partially explained in that we share a birthday. Saarinen was born on this date in 1910.
“Experimentation can present great dangers, but there would be greater danger if we didn’t try to explore at all.”
I can only assume he was talking about organ improvisation.
Labels: improvisation, Saarinen
There is a surprising passage in recently published book Slow Church that ties together improvisation, Tina Fey, N. T. Wright, the Rev. Sam Wells and the Church, which is just marvelous.
Readers of the Blog at Sinden.org know that we are somewhat preoccupied with the notion of improvisation from a musical perspective, yet we concede that actors also improvise.
Musicians and actors alike can surely relate to the Slow Church authors' statement about improvisation "one can never tell the turns it will take or where it will end up".
Also useful for musicians are Tina Fey's rules for improvisation in her memoir Bossypants, paraphrased by the authors.
- Always agree with your improv partner. (Musicians could take agreement literally in ensemble improvisation. Organists might read agreement as "congruence".)
- Don't just say yes, say "YES, AND." It's your responsibility to contribute.
- "THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, only opportunities." The authors of Slow Church reappropriate this as "an allusion to God's eschatological reconciliation of all things."
The authors then couple this to N. T. Wright's history of creation as a drama in five acts (from his Scripture and the Authority of God).
The five acts are
- Creation
- The Fall
- Israel
- Jesus
- The Church
"The implications," write the authors of Slow Church, "are profound, if for no other reason that it undermines our cultural impulse to be consumers and spectators rather than faithful participants in the unwritten fifth act of God's play."
Then follows a characteristically obtuse quotation from Wright about continuity with previous acts, but also that "such continuity also implies discontinuity, a moment where genuinely new things can and do happen."
I have to say that I am particularly drawn to this idea of implied discontinuity. And I think this may be the kernel of what makes good art. If something is totally expected it isn't art, it's muzak.
Rant Especially for Organists: Just think of the endless heap of vapid hymn preludes with which organists and -- sadly -- congregations are familiar. You know the type. They're published by Augsburg Fortress or someone like that. They don't say anything. They don't innovate. Full of parallel sixths. Most organists could improvise something more interesting. They're just background noise for the liturgy. Background noise with a comfortable, recognizable tune. Is this art? Is this the best we can do? Is this really worthy of our worship? Okay, rant over.
After this, we must concede the usefulness of seeing improvisation from a theatrical perspective. The authors quote Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics by the Rev. Sam Wells.
Improvisation in the theatre is a practice through which actors develop trust in themselves and one another in order that they may conduct unscripted dramas without fear.
The Church as "a community of trust"; "learning to improvise the scriptural plotline".
We are the actors – and musicians, for music always has a role in good drama – creating the Fifth Act: The Church.
No wonder that Apple ad line from the 1989 film Dead Poets Society resonates with us.
". . . that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse."
"What will your verse be?"
Labels: improvisation, N. T. Wright, Sam Wells, Slow Church, Tina Fey
I first heard Robert Glasper when we were both students at Houston's High School for Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA) about ten years ago.
Since then, he's gone on to make a name for himself and was the subject of this article in the Washington Post in 2012: "Pianist finds the right notes between hip-hop and jazz".
This article is the source of the quotation that appeared in my post from yesterday ("Glasper, Robert - music in the present"). Here it is in full:
“I think everybody stopped trying to outdo each other and everybody started paying homage,” he says. “I love all my jazz masters and my elders that came before me, but I always say that people have killed the living to praise the dead. It’s like, ‘Yo, I’m here.’”
Reading it in full gave me more food for thought, especially about music in the church.
It's very easy to "pay homage" to all the great music of the past. And in fact I think many music lists of many churches fail to move past the expected and the very familiar.
While the "Yo, I'm here" sentiment has limited value in the liturgy, there is something to be said for forging a way ahead that pays homage to the past but also moves the conversation forward.
Music can't remain static. The repertoire should not remain the same. If the Holy Spirit is still in operation today then fresh voices must be given airtime.
Finding a balance between the established canon and new voices should be a struggle in jazz just as it should be in church music. The two should be held in creative tension.
We in the church can learn a lot from jazz, a form of music whose very being thrives on fast-paced real-time creativity, conversation, and improvisation.
The modern "symphonic" approach to church music, first found in the music of Charles Villiers Stanford and then redefined by Herbert Howells, continues to provide a foundation for much of the sacred music being written now.
So, the ultimate tension is that "paying homage" is itself a way forward.
Labels: Howells, HSPVA, improvisation, Jazz, Robert Glasper, Stanford
I was excited and honored to take part in the Yale Congregations Project in New Haven, Connecticut 21-26 June along with my colleague Melanie and my friend Brian. We comprised the team from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. I tweeted during the seminar, too, using the hashtag #YaleCP.
The day began with a very different kind of Morning Prayer service. The chairs were cleared away from the hard wood floor of Marquand Chapel at the Yale Divinity School, and in their place we found a large labyrinth, various prayer stations around the room, a smaller "chapel" area for meditation, and 17th century King James Bible (from the rare books library, on loan for our service).
There were various ways to present our prayer concerns in writing as part of the stations, there was a bowl of water, there was an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Shells were available as tokens to carry on one's pilgrimage through the labyrinth. There was colored cloth. There were many candles. This was a very rich service, and there was much to engage with. This non-verbal approach to our daily prayer was a striking change from the other liturgies we celebrated together, and the music was also radically different.
Much of the music was provided by an iPad app that allowed all present to create the music that was heard in the chapel. A clarinetist skillfully wove long improvised lines into the texture of the sounds of the app, and gradually this acoustic improvisation came to the fore. It was a beautiful, seamless transition, one that embodied the kind of experience that the service created: a richness of image, symbol, and prayer finding a calm, collected (and collective) center.
#YaleCP labyrinth service https://t.co/TKsd3tzJhr
— David Sinden (@sinden) June 25, 2013
We continued centering ourselves in four plenary sessions -- the most we had understaken in a single day -- that focused on Tyson House, St. Olaf, First UCC of Northfield, and Colbert Presbyterian.
Tyson House wants to -- without being anything but humble about it -- share their tremendous gifts in liturgy and music with their supporting Episcopal and Lutheran congregations and the wider church. This project is incredibly exciting to me given the very clear vision and intentionality of this community.
St. Olaf wants to focus on liminal architectural space outside their Chapel, and together we explored the myriad ways that this could be undertaken. The conversation flowed freely, and many specific suggestions were offered.
To add to the fun, Melanie, Brian, and I took part in a video interview about the Congregations Project during the lunch hour. We're going to be church rockstars, just you wait!
First United Church, Northfield is seeking, in Bach's words, a "well-regulated church music" for their congregation. They're identifying a certain tenor that works well, and they're striving for more of the same. This context is a bit challenging to me because the attention span of the children is, to some degree, used as a barometer of their success, and this kind of high-energy worship production would be exhausting to me after a while.
Colbert Presbyterian is also focused on students, but not as a campus ministry, so their challenges are somewhat different than that of a Tyson House or a St. Olaf. But there was a great desire to reach out and engage these students in their full life of liturgy, and together we explored how to move in this direction.
A potpourri of diverse music at Evening Prayer brought what was a very busy and very wordy day to a close.
A few more quick words, ones heard throughout the day:
“We know more than we can tell” –Michael Polanyi #YaleCP
— David Sinden (@sinden) June 25, 2013
“There is a logic of imagination as well as a logic of concepts” – T. S. Eliot #YaleCP
— David Sinden (@sinden) June 25, 2013
If you want to be a believer there is a cross. #YaleCP
— David Sinden (@sinden) June 25, 2013
I, for one, was glad for a leisurely dinner, a quick trip to the used bookstore, and then a quiet night in to recharge for Day 6, the final day of the seminar.
But I want to offer a word about that quick trip to the used bookstore, because it seems that in New Haven everything conspires to make you think all the time.
One of the plenaries this day, and I hate to admit that I can't remember which one, referenced a line from Thornton Wilder's Our Town, a play I'm crazy about. The line is from the end of the play when Emily Webb is recounting all the things that she loved about her life in Grover's Corners:
"Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?"
Shelling out a few coins for a well-loved copy of this profound drama, and spending a bit of time with it before bed was the icing on the cake.
Labels: church music, improvisation, labyrinth, liturgy, Thornton Wilder, Yale Congregations Project
This week I am excited and honored to be taking part in the Yale Congregations Project in New Haven, Connecticut 21-26 June along with my colleague Melanie and my friend Brian. We comprise the team from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. I'm tweeting, too, using the hashtag #YaleCP.
This morning was particularly intense, as I had previously agreed to play a very unfamiliar organ for our morning chapel service, and we were to give our plenary presentation immediately afterward.
I gave myself a bit of a head start and figured out how to improvise my way through a prelude and lead "Praise, my soul, the God of heaven" and a canticle paraphrase from the organ. Ben Brody of Colbert Presbyterian Church was the other keyboard player for the service, and he had a wicked clever take on "O sing to the Lord" which also goes in my bag of tricks now.
Immediately following this, we had our plenary session. The session was a lively, and thoughtful one: exactly the kind of thing we've come to expect here. Following our plenary was a very revealing role play that introduced the project from Holy Family Catholic Community. Suffice it to say that multi-cultural issues are not easy to navigate!
In the afternoon I helped in the planning for tomorrow's Evening Prayer service and also snuck back into the setup for a contemplative space for tomorrow's Morning Prayer (labyrinth, cushions, candles, etc.), and perused the Divinity School bookstore.
Following this, I was fortunate to have a nice long time to work with John Ferguson on improvisation at the organ. We worked on the Pasi organ (pictured). This was very enriching. I also got in a bit of time on the mean-tone Taylor & Boody before leaving the Institute of Sacred Music this afternoon.
Our evening was spent at the very hospitable Dixwell Avenue Christian Church here in New Haven. The final plenary of the day was followed by a hymn festival featuring hymns and songs in the African-American tradition.
I also want to point you to some other blogs that I've picked up along the way.
- "Front Porch Testimonies" - Amanda Weber on telling our stories like we used to on our front porches. (Made me think of St. Paul's, Richmond's desire to have music on our portico - our front porch)
- MissionRVA - the blog of our Downtown Missioner
- "Telling the Story" at the official Congregations Project Blog.
Labels: church music, improvisation, liturgy, Yale Congregations Project
It occurs to me that perhaps I might offer a window on what it is to be a church musician in Holy Week. And perhaps a few other thoughts too.
This evening at the parish where I serve, we offered "Poetry and Music: Meditations for Holy Week." The Reverend the Rector chose several poems, and I set them to music, mostly at the spur of the moment. This is the third year we have done this.
As I entered this service/poetry reading/concert (what is this thing that we do, exactly?) I had several things in mind. First, something the pianist Jeremy Denk said about the last Beethoven piano sonata, Op. 111 when he performed it here on Saturday evening. He talked about how the second movement is a variation set, but that the theme eventually disappears, and that eventually "the answers overwhelm the question."
That phrase looms large in my consciousness this week. What is this thing that we do, Holy Week? There's darkness, a few candles, there's foot washing, altar stripping, moaning and groaning, more candles, more darkness, washing people in water, and suddenly it's Easter.
There was a question in here somewhere. Maybe it was "what is truth" or something like that. But the question we ask in Holy Week – if we let it – can and should be overwhelmed by the answers.
I was grateful tonight that the Rector broke the "rubric" if we can be said to have such a thing for tonight's little happening, and included the following prose by Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude:
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
What wonderful reassurance for improvisation and for this life. "I have no idea where I am going."
But the answers come nonetheless.
Labels: Beethoven, church music, Holy Week, improvisation, Jeremy Denk, music, organ, poetry, Thomas Merton
While a fine hymn for the American Labor Day holiday, this hymn is also closely associated with St. Thomas Church, New York, and it is heard hear sung at the final Sunday of the tenure of the late Gerre Hancock, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, 2004. The concluding voluntary after the hymn is improvised.
Labels: Gerre Hancock, hymns, improvisation, St Thomas (New York)
I really like Keith Jarrett, and this may have to do with my parents' wedding.
They were married outside on a big rock, and despite this, they had organ music for their entrance: a cut from Jarrett's Hymns & Spheres.
The residue from this moment and my experience listening to his playing has made me a fan -- and more than that. I myself improvise now, and I can only aspire to have this beautiful, often genreless, pure, emotional approach to this art.
I have no idea, moment to moment, how to prepare for these things, either. What actually happens is so much in the moment, so much of a nanosecond. And I know a lot of people probably are skeptical about whether they really are always improvised. I myself feel skeptical, even though I know they were.
A fascinating interview with Jarrett on NPR about his newest album: Keith Jarrett: Alone in Rio and Ready to Fail
I've written about Jarrett here before: improvisation - art of and improvisation - Keith Jarrett
Labels: improvisation, Jarrett
Labels: church music, film, improvisation, organ music, poetry, St Paul's (Richmond)
I joyfully (and dulcily) present the following:
download [3.9 MB]
Labels: improvisation, organ
Organist Cameron Carpenter's CD "Revolutionary" is among those improv-tinged records that make up NPRs list of the best classical CDs of 2008.
Labels: improvisation, organists
Spend some time with the French master today:
I, for one, will be observing not just a day, but a year of Messiaen (mostly because I haven't learned enough yet).
Labels: improvisation, Messiaen
I viewed Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation earlier this month, and my editors have been hounding me for the few comments I promised, so here they are:
The Köln Concert was not supposed to be good. Keith Jarrett had not slept for two days, and the piano he wanted was nowhere to be found. The one on which he was to play had an overly-bright sound.
But what happened? Something cool. It was a great concert, albeit maybe a little different than standard Jarrett fare, and went on to be one of the best selling Jazz records ever.
Going from zero to zero. That's how Jarrett defines improvisation. His solo improvisations (different than his standards work with his trio) are not based on pre-existing material.
When performing the Mozart double concerto with Chick Corea in Japan, Jarrett chose to use composed cadenzas rather than create his own. His point being, again, that improvisation should not have a relationship to the printed page. It is separate from it.
The Art of Improvisation is a little bit more of a biopic than I would have preferred, but for someone who has improvised during his whole career, this is probably unavoidable. The film traces Jarrett's frantic, random keyboard gyrations in Stockholm, through his meticulous crafting of The Melody at Night with You from within the grips of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The film is also a presentation that is in line with Jarrett's philosophy of improvisation.
Jarrett refers to improvisation as an exercise that involves the whole person. He dismisses the idea that "music comes from music." That's like saying that "babies come from babies." It's just not true.
(Comments from the DVD viewing end here.)
Well, babies do come from babies. The babies from which they come, however, are just really old.
In the same sense then music does come from music, just not in the way we might want to think. Certainly music, hearing it, practicing it, performing it, is something that affects the whole person. If this same affected person then improvises, then his or her improvisation is then, in some sense, coming from music (but also literature, theology, culinary experiences, encounters with police, rodents, being stuck in traffic, getting rejection letters, alcohol, rubbing alcohol, model trains, full-size trains, small towns, full-size towns, sea shells, astronomy, etc.)
Improvisational Influence Tangent: Yes, I may have to use this new song as improvisation fodder on Sunday. But wait a minute, isn't Hasselhoff driving KITT on the wrong side?
Labels: improvisation, Jarrett
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