About a year ago I was looking to try something different, mainly for pleasure, but also to get a boost when I felt like my sense of invention and imagination was waning. I still consider myself a musician first and foremost, and I play and write when I can, but I was going through a pretty barren patch of creativity and felt like pushing myself to try something new. Anyway I came across some local weekly Improv (aka Improvised Theatre) sessions run by Matt Sparkes and thought, “well why not?!”
Improvised (i.e. made up on the spot) music-making is familiar to me and is an essential part of my Music Therapy practice. But this kind of Improv, in the world of theatre, drama and comedy (a couple of spurious cameo appearances in school plays aside) was a whole new world. And doing it in a new setting with a group of strangers added another level too.
Inadvertently arriving half an hour late to the first session was not the best start. I was greeted by half a dozen people in full flow of what I’d describe as quite an eccentric (euphemism) and unconventional (understatement) interactive game. Are they in pain?! Do I need to call for medical assistance? Is this the right place? It was very much a stick or twist moment and I have to say it was tempting to turn around and calmly make my way to the exit.
Thankfully, I introduced myself, joined in with the next activity and have been going to sessions periodically for over 12 months now. I really love it and find the process incredibly cathartic. One friend who’s been doing Improv for years firmly believes it should be prescribed by the NHS as an adult mental health provision. And the more I’ve been involved in these Improv sessions, the more I’ve drawn parallels with certain aspects of Music Therapy.
I guess there’s a natural overlap between improvisation in different art forms, but in my eyes the overlaps go deeper than that. So I figured I should really try to unpick my experiences a bit and put some thoughts down in writing. Here’s a snapshot of three themes that I think connect Improv (Improvised Theatre) and Music Therapy.
‘Yes, and?’
One of the fundamental tenets of Improv is taking a position of acceptance and celebration for the people that you’re working with. In short, saying “Yes!” It’s not always easy, and really pushes you to abandon (or at least manage) your preconceptions and judgements, but it’s crucial to staying in the moment and working collaboratively. In the Improv workshops I’ve been going to, we do this in both literal and figurative ways.
So, for example, we could make up a group story where, whatever the person before you says, your follow up has to start with “Yes, and…” It’s a concrete affirmation of what the previous person has just said and a way of encouraging you to use it as the basis for what you next say. In other words, whatever you previously had in mind for the story may need to go out of the window; all you can, and should, focus on is what that person just said, acknowledging it and then following up based on your spontaneous instinct for the narrative.
Let’s say person 1 starts with “once upon a time a man walked into the woods,” I might be thinking “right, um, bears, picnics, camping etc.” but then person 2 follows with “yes, and he took his chainsaw and felled each tree as per the manager’s instructions.” And person 3 adds “yes, and the new space would house a VR gaming centre for octogenarians.” I’m up next and those thoughts about bears, picnics and camping suddenly don’t really seem applicable now. Out the window they go. I stick with the “yes, and” rules and, somewhat grasping at straws, try to make up something related to what has just been said.
In a less explicit, but nonetheless important manner, the process of “Yes anding” can come up in any kind of improvised scene when someone does or says anything. It’s this same idea of validating and accepting what your scene partner does and integrating it into what happens next. It may well mean abandoning your own direction of travel or changing your preconceived sense of identity (I thought I was this character’s friend but they’ve just called me their wife, so I guess I’m their wife now…), but it will likely only enrich the possibilities for connection and keep the scene alive.
Fundamentally, part of what you’re trying to do in Improv is act more in service of your scene partner and for the scene rather than for yourself. Trying to let go of what you cognitively think is funny, interesting or clever and allow yourself to respond in an intuitive and supportive manner. Of course at times it’s natural to overthink things, try to plan ahead and control a narrative, and I wouldn’t want to deny the anxiety sometimes present. But ultimately you’re in a better place if you can try to let go of that stuff and just trust your instincts.
In his book on improvisation, Stephen Nachmanovitch (himself an improvising violinist) wrote:
“I am not in the music business. I am not in the creativity business. I am in the surrender business […] Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude toward not-knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh.”
In my approach to Music Therapy, as I mentioned in a previous blog post (see section entitled ‘The Route’), I use improvisation in both micro and macro ways. I’m open to improvising in the minutiae of a verbal or musical dialogue, but also open to the broader therapeutic process moving in different directions. And this sense of needing to “cultivate a comfortable attitude toward not-knowing” plays a big part in both.
Within musical improvisations, for example, what I am aiming to do is channel my musical skills and experiences, whilst completely forgetting them all at the same time; trying to use my own musical history without letting it override or govern the direction of our joint music-making. That way I can say “yes, and” to what’s in front of me. The more I can focus on the emotive qualities of my client’s music-making and the less I can be entrenched in my own musical habits or ambitions, the more likely a client is to feel validated and accepted, and the richer our shared experience can be.
Invention vs Discovery
Another aspect of “yes anding” relates to the difference between invention and discovery. In some contexts these two words may seem synonymous, but in Improv they have very different meanings.
For example, when we’re in the middle of an improvised scene, although there may be some starter elements that may have to be invented (i.e. we might come up with a location, a name, a role or a first line etc.) we are really encouraged to work with what is already there, to discover what is in front of our very eyes. Often the scenes are in pairs, so we’re thinking about verbal and non-verbal cues that we can glean from our partner on a very intuitive level. This doesn’t rely on us trying to dig deep to find a quick gag, or think of an engaging storyline. Instead it’s about being really attentive, listening carefully and keeping an open mind.
Pretentious reference warning*** but it does make me think of Michelangelo’s concept (which I will likely do a disservice to) of discovering or releasing the figure within a block of stone, rather than inventing the figure from scratch.
On his website for ‘As If Improv,’ Matt describes the essence of Improv as “not about being the funniest or the most theatrical; it’s about being present, open, and willing to collaborate with others.”
These last three things; being present, open and willing to collaborate with others really chimes with me in terms of the therapist-client relationship in Music Therapy. And it’s a two way thing, essential to an effective therapeutic relationship for both parties. Whilst I have to constantly challenge myself to be open, present and collaborative as a therapist, it’s also my job to create an environment where the client feels safe enough to do those things too.
In my past experience as a client with different therapists, I know that ultimately I could only expect to make the most out of a therapy session if I was willing to be present to what I was genuinely feeling, open to sharing the difficult and uncomfortable stuff and willing to enter into some kind of working alliance with them. In therapy, just like in Improv, it’s hard. Extremely hard! And it takes repeated periods of courage. I get scared away from it all the time. But when relationships and environments allow it to be possible, it can offer an incredibly powerful opportunity for growth.
Meaning doesn’t have to be obvious (for an interaction to be meaningful)
Last night I was introduced to an Improv game called ‘Freeze Tag.’ Being a parent of young children and knowing how Improv often aims to bring out our innermost childlike and playful instincts, I fully expected us to be running around the room like berserk and tagging each other. But this was Freeze Tag with a twist. The game came in three different incarnations, the first of which was done entirely nonverbally through still, sculpture-esq poses:
We all formed a circle and one person would come into the middle and strike a pose. Someone else would then join them in the middle and hold a pose near them in a complimentary manner. This ‘complimentary manner’ could be anything, but as a simple example, if the first person was looking angry or threatening, the second person might strike a fearful, or combative look. A third person then came into the middle to replace the first person by tagging them and struck a pose which gave the second person’s pose a different spin. The next person came in to replace the second person and gave the third person’s pose an alternative twist. You get the picture. On the game went, with each combination of poses evolving naturally to evoke different stories, emotions and experiences.
Crucial elements of the game were trying to find speed, flow and spontaneity. And most importantly, we needed to support the person in the middle by joining them in some way. There was no necessity for the meaning of the combined poses to be explicit and we were encouraged to respond as instinctively as possible. It meant you could go in with a particular idea in mind of a story to tell, but equally you could go in and strike a pose purely based on instinct. The ‘complimentary’ element of your pose could simply be that you were holding your arm at the same angle, or that you looked in the same direction. What that ‘meant’ was very much open to interpretation.
When we talked about the game afterwards as a group, what emerged was that those observing the two people miming would come up with their own very different internal reading of what was happening. In one case, I had gone into the circle with a complete mind-blank and was struggling to know what to do, awkwardly adjusting my body to form what I felt was a very random pose. It later emerged that someone else had witnessed this as a very concrete and distinct interactive dialogue. Improv magic in action!
So how does this relate to Music Therapy again!? Well I think that it’s important within a Music Therapy session that there is space, particularly in live music-making, for instincts, gut-reactions and the unconscious to come to the fore. And in that process it may not always be immediately clear what is being communicated or expressed. This is ok. The fact of being in an authentic, live connection with one another may be the most powerful element of what is happening. This might be very unfamiliar territory for the client, so to support the process without trying to interpret it could be groundbreaking. In fact, that might be the entire point of the therapy. It’s so tempting as the therapist to muse out loud on what might be happening and that can sometimes be helpful, but sometimes it’s jumping the gun.
Inevitably there are a range of emotions, experiences and dynamics being expressed at any given point and it’s ok for them to be processed and understood at a later time. That could be later in the session in a reflective moment, after the session when writing notes or watching the session video back, in discussion during supervision, or even much further down the line when the narrative arc of the therapeutic work is becoming much clearer. The work of rationalising and hypothesising may need to be switched off at certain points in favour of offering something much more immediate and spontaneous.
The phrases “staying present” or “being present” are used so frequently these days, in so many settings, that I can find them pretty nauseating and patronising. Maybe it’s the way some people deliver them that winds me up. But the thing is, in Improv and Music Therapy, you really can’t get away from them. In both areas, the essence has to be focusing on the present, the here and now. The rest will follow.