"Yes! And..."

In my current pretty-awesome job, I not only throw down chamber-style with some really nice friends, but I work in a New York City public school classroom on a weekly basis. Now this is gonna sound like some Pollyana-BS, but working with students at my high school has been a joyful privilege and life-affirming gift. (No, seriously). Of course there are ups and downs in any school setting, but the students at my school are so full of personality, energy, and earnestness that I end each teaching day with face muscles sore from smiling. This can sometimes cause problems given I use those same muscles to play my horn, but it seems it just can't be helped.

Anyway, I'd like to share a particularly fun activity from a few weeks ago that reminded me of the power of collective energy. This semester, I've been focusing on improvisation in most of my lessons. Because many of my ninth-grade students are beginners on their instruments, I often use improv games or exercises that use just the voice or body percussion. On this day, I asked the students to think about how they can create a musical pattern using only the sound of their name. I started off by saying my name (“Ms. Weiner!”) in as many different ways as I could think of: quick and whispered, loud and yodel-like, very percussive, really slow, etc. Then each student had to share his or her musical name with the class. As in any class of diverse personalities, some students stood up and belted out their name, others looked at the floor and said it as quietly as they could, and some were in between. I then put the students into groups of 4-5 to create a musical composition using the names of everyone in their group. The only restriction was they could use no other words but their names, but anything else was fair game. 

After about five minutes of chaotic brainstorming and quite a lot of giggling, I asked each group to share their piece with the class. I was crossing my fingers, as I'm learning teachers often do, that the students would create something complex enough to spark a discussion about music composition, like how different tempos and pitches can be layered. However, I was blown away by the improvised creativity of these name compositions. One group started out by passing a single name around the group until it reached its loudest volume- then they started saying it backwards. Another group created an ostinato (vocabulary word!) using just a pair of names as a foundation with the other three “soloing” on top of that. And finally, one group actually created a narrative, with the inflection of each person's name depicting a different emotion and interacting with each other just as they would as people. Even the more introverted students were able to contribute to the final product since background voices are just as vital as soloists in music. And the extroverted, shout-to-the-rooftop students, of which there were quite a number in this class, had a field day with this.

"Oh, I'm sorry Ms. Weiner, were you standing at the front of the classroom cuz you wanted to say something?"

 It got me thinking about an improvisation workshop that I did in December with SNL's Rachel Dratch. She emphasized through a whole series of silly, hilarious games that the fundamental rule of improv is to say, “Yes! And...” This means you always accept your teammate's idea and build upon it to create a scene, and is surprisingly difficult when you're actually performing in front of people. Of course the students in my class were saying “Yes! And...” to each other within their groups while they were coming up with their name compositions. But they were also saying “Yes! And...” to me as a teacher. I was just hoping they wouldn't be too embarrassed to say their name in a funny way in front of their peers, but they accepted my premise and ran with it in an inspiring, dare I say moving, way. And that made me feel pretty gosh-darn special and creative too!

Now if I could only get the trombone players to stop throwing their mouthpieces.

Since then, I've used the sounds of their names to teach syncopated rhythms, to introduce the idea of counterpoint, and even to help the clarinet players articulate better. Not only does this make them feel like they are the stars of the lesson, but it reminds me how astoundingly creative they are as individuals and as a class.  Gold star for me and for them!