La Folía

June 17, 2014 by Improviser

La Folía is one of the oldest European musical themes. Several sources report that Jean-Baptiste Lully was the first composer to formalize the standard chord progression and melodic line, though it’s origins are probably much earlier. With a standard chord progression and common melody line, it has been the theme for many sets of variations and may have first developed as a compositional or improvisational method for creating melodies in the minor mode.

See a list of other free themes here.

Video:
Gunnar Idenstam – Improvisation on La Folia – Oscar´s Church, Stockholm, Sweden

Going Classical – The Beatles

June 16, 2014 by Improviser

The Beatles were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool in 1960. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the greatest and most influential act of the rock era. According to the RIAA, the Beatles are the best-selling band in the United States, with 177 million certified units. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazine’s list of the all-time most successful “Hot 100” artists, and as of 2014, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with twenty.

Not only because of their popularity, but also because of their compositional style, the music of the Beatles has been taken and transformed into the realm of traditional classical music. Pianist John Bayless provided my first encounter with this crossover combination:

Bach Meets the Beatles
Labeled as improvisations, I couldn’t help but wonder how much these performances had been practiced and developed before they were recorded. Regardless of the level of preparation, the combination of popular melody and classical style became a fascination of mine that continues to this day. I even worked up my own composition of a TV theme and Vierne: Louis Vierne Meets ‘The Munsters’!

Now that I’ve seen the performance of Penny Lane in the style of Bach by John Bayless at the Newport Music Festival, I am convinced that if they started as improvisations, John Bayless has played them enough that they have become compositions. He promises a score to “A Hard Day’s Night’ coming soon on his website and there are videos of others playing the piece now on YouTube.

So, even if we won’t be playing Michelle, any time soon at church, there are times in concert when organists do improvise on Beatles tunes:

Evert Groen – Improvisation(Sonate) on ‘Obladi-Oblada’ – Saalkirche, Ingelheim am Rhein

Evert Groen – Improvisation on ‘Hey Jude’ – Wirges Cathedral, Germany

Bert Rebergen – Improvisation on Rock & Roll/Yellow Submarine/Yesterday – Sionskerk Veenendaal

or even simply play Michael Jackson:
Albinas Prizgintas – Billie Jean by Michael Jackson – Trinity Episcopal Church, New Orleans

Now that we’ve had a little fun listening to others explore the Beatles and other pop tunes, is there something we can do to apply any of this to the hymns and chants that we are more likely to face on Sunday morning? What does John Bayless do to the Beatles’ tunes to transform them into the style of Bach? What elements of his performances can we identify as belonging to Bach? Are there textures or forms that we can identify and apply to other themes? I believe that listening to others improvise gives us a new window on both style and the creative process.

I once took a multiple day workshop from Thierry Escaich where he demonstrated the styles of many composers. What amazed me most was that regardless of whether he was playing in the style of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, or Cochereau, he always sounded like Escaich! It was a lesson not simply in the style of the composer, but the improviser as well! (If you will be at the AGO National Convention in Boston, you can here Escaich both perform and teach. He is someone not to miss!)

After listening to others and asking questions about what we hear, the nest step is always to go out and try it. Maybe you won’t be asked to improvise on the greatest hits from the Billboard 100 this week, but I would encourage you to look “outside the box” for inspiration. How many different ways can you treat the same theme? Which styles are you comfortable with? Which would you like to learn? Have some fun and expand your horizons!

May your summer be filled with listening fun!

Glenn

PS If you’d like to hear a fabulous catalog of 20th century popular piano styles, check out Scott Bradlee’s version of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star!

Recent additions to organimprovisation.com:
I have decided to review a book or CD every Saturday. As one of the essential library items for any organist improviser, the first up is Improvising: How to Master the Art by Gerre Hancock.

Organists:

Themes:

Newsletter Issue 8 – 2014 06 16
See the complete list of past newsletter issues here.
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Ubi caritas

June 15, 2014 by Improviser

Ubi caritas is a Gregorian chant hymn used as either one of the antiphons for the washing of feet or the offertory procession at the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The text translates as: “Where true charity is, there is God.” Maurice Duruflé wrote a choral setting using the Gregorian melody and the words of the refrain and the first stanza. More recently, University of Aberdeen professor Paul Mealor composed a setting which was included in the ceremony at the 2011 Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

Videos:
Michel Chapuis – Improvisation sur “Ubi Caritas” – Cathédrale Saint-Vincent, Saint-Malo
Gilles Leclerc – Improvisations on Ubi Caritas – St. Francis of Assisi Church, Ottawa, Canada
Tom Trenney – Improvisation on ‘UBI CARITAS’ – First Plymouth Church, Lincoln Nebraska

Gerre Hancock – Improvising: How to Master the Art

June 14, 2014 by Improviser

Gerre Hancock
Improvising: How to Master the Art
Oxford University Press

As one of the most highly regarded American improvisers of the late twentieth century, Gerre Hancock has left us a wonderful treasure in his book Improvising: How to Master the Art. I remember as an undergraduate student anticipating its release, anxiously waiting to see what this master would put down on paper as the way to learn American improvisation. While there were some smaller volumes (by Jan Bender and Michele Johns), the referential text for improvisation when I was a student was still the Cours Complet D’improvisation a l’orgue by Marcel Dupré. While offering lots of guidance, the Dupré was written for French students who normally have many years of harmony and counterpoint studies either already under their belt or in parallel process which typical American students lack. This makes the Dupré a very challenging place to start for most Americans. Gerre Hancock provides a wonderful bridge for those aspiring to follow the Dupré method but without the advanced theoretical background.

After an introduction where he offers two axioms of the art of improvising – 1)Never stop and 2)Salvation is never more than half a step away – Hancock begins with scales. Beginning with one voice, the student is encourage to make an interesting melody out of an ascending and descending scale. Slowly the texture is increased up to four voices. Numerous examples are given in a multitude of styles, however there is always one voice that is the scale. Whereas Dupré expects a student to practice proper voice leading and keep a strict even rhythm to the scales, Hancock encourages variety. This does not mean rhythmic instability as one of the recommendations at the end of the first chapter is for the student to count the time signature aloud while playing.

Chapter two moves on into phrases, starting again with only one voice and building up to a four voice texture. Having mastered scales and phrases, the student begins work on transitions in chapter three (“The Interlude”). Chapter four lays the foundation for variations as Hancock leads the student through re-voicing and re-harmonizing hymns. Chapter five (“The Ornamented Hymn”) begins to move the student away from strict statements of the hymn tune, preparing for “The Hymn Prelude” of chapter six where the student is given several forms to combine and apply the work of the previous chapters on phrases, interludes and ornamentation.

Beginning at chapter seven, Hancock moves the student from a given melody to forms that can be used with freer themes, beginning with Song Form, moving through Sonata Form (chapter 8) to Toccata (chapter 9). At chapter 10, he begins to introduce contrapuntal ideas through study of the canon. More complicated imitative structures are studied in chapter 11 (“The Duo and the Trio”) before arriving at the ultimate improvisational achievement- the fugue (chapter 12).

Overall, I find this book to be very logical in the progression through the material covered. While tonal language is implied throughout the course of study, the primary instruction in this book is in coherence through form and thematic development. It can be followed using a very simple or very complex harmonic language, i.e. in whatever language the student is most comfortable. If you are looking for instruction in harmony or a specific style, this is not the place to go, but if you wish to develop your improvisational form, this is an excellent workbook. Each chapter is filled with concrete recommendations for practice. It begins simply enough that anyone with basic music theory knowledge can follow, but it provides enough substance that even those with several years of harmony and counterpoint studies can still follow and learn.

Gerre Hancock was not only a master improviser, but also a master teacher. Improvising: How to Master the Art is indeed a masterwork of improvisation pedagogy and should be in any serious student’s library.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

June 13, 2014 by Improviser

A children’s song and nursery rhyme about a farmer named MacDonald and the various animals he keeps on his farm. Each verse of the song changes the name of the animal and its respective noise. In many versions, the song is cumulative, with the noises from all the earlier verses added to each subsequent verse. It appears to date from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century with several different variants and has subsequently been translated and adapted into many different languages including Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean.

See a list of other potential traditional song themes here.

Videos:
David Briggs – Prelude, Adagio and Variations on ‘Old MacDonald had a farm’ – Gloucester cathedral, Part I
David Briggs – Prelude, Adagio and Variations on ‘Old MacDonald had a farm’ – Gloucester cathedral, Part II
David Briggs – Prelude, Adagio and Variations on ‘Old MacDonald had a farm’ – Gloucester cathedral, Part III

Louis Vierne

June 12, 2014 by Improviser

Louis Vierne (1870 – 1937) is best known as a composer and organist at Notre Dame in Paris, France. He was born in Poitiers, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but was discoverd at an early age to have a gift for music: at age two, a pianist played him a Schubert lullaby and he promptly began to pick out the notes of the lullaby on the piano.
After completing school in the provinces, Louis Vierne entered the Paris Conservatory. From 1892, Vierne served as an assistant to the organist Charles-Marie Widor at the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Vierne subsequently became principal organist at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, a post he held from 1900 until his death (while performing a concert) in 1937. Though he held one of the most prestigious organ posts in France, the Notre-Dame organ was in a state of disrepair throughout much of his tenure. To raise money for its restoration, he undertook a concert tour of North America including a performance on the famous Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia. Some of his students include Augustin Barié, Edward Shippen Barnes, Lili Boulanger, Nadia Boulanger, Marcel Dupré, André Fleury, Gaston Litaize, Édouard Mignan, Alexander Schreiner, and Georges-Émile Tanguay.
Vierne made phonograph recordings of six works of Bach, three of his own compositions and three improvisations. Originally recorded by Odéon, they were reissued most recently by EMI in 1981 with two of the improvisations appearing again in 1994. Maurice Duruflé transcribed the improvisations as he had done with the recordings of Charles Tournemire.

Biography:

Louis Vierne: Organist of Notre Dame Cathedral
by Rollin Smith, Pendragon Press, 2009.

Vidoes:
Recorded in 1929, there is some noise in the audio on these video, but I believe they are worth sharing because it is Vierne himself improvising.

Louis Vierne – Marche Episcopale – Notre Dame, Paris
Louis Vierne – Meditation – Notre Dame, Paris
Louis Vierne – Cortege – Notre Dame, Paris

and while it isn’t an improvisation, there is a short video of Louis Vierne playing at Notre Dame here.

Firmin Decerf

June 11, 2014 by Improviser

Firmin Decerf is a laureate of the Lemmens Institute (Malines-Louvain) where he studied organ and educational theory of music. He also studied improvisation for two year in Paris and Nice with Pierre Cochereau. Professor emeritus of organ and improvisation at the IMEP (Institut Supérieur de Musique et de pédagogie Musicale) at Namur, he also is permanently titular of the Schumacher organ of the Saint-Pierre church in Bastogne. He has made several recordings dedicated to improvisations. You can hear him on Spotify.

Recordings:

Le chant de l’Abbaye de la Pierre-qui-Vire, Aurore de la Joie
Includes five organ improvisations

Videos:
Firmin Decerf – Esquisse Symphonique on the names LISZT and BACH – Baelen

Old Hundredth

June 10, 2014 by Improviser

Old Hundredth is a hymn tune in Long Meter from Pseaumes Octante Trois de David (1551) (the second edition of the Genevan Psalter) and is one of the best known melodies in all Christian musical traditions. The tune is usually attributed to the French composer Loys Bourgeois (c.1510 – c.1560). While first associated with Psalm 134 in the Genevan Psalter, the melody receives its current name from an association with the 100th Psalm, in a paraphrase by William Kethe entitled All People that on Earth do Dwell. Many other texts are also used with this melody, including a paraphrase of Psalm 117 by Isaac Watts as well as the text often referred to as the Doxology, written in 1674 by Thomas Ken, a clergyman in the Church of England:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

A version was sung at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, with harmonization and arrangement by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

See a list of other popular hymn and chorale themes here.

Videos:
Pierre Pincemaille: Improvisation sur “Noi canteremo gloria a Te” (aka OLD HUNDREDTH) – Chignolo d’Isola, Bergamo, Italy
Sietze de Vries – Improvisation on’The Old Hundredth’ – Martinikerk, Groningen

A Next Step to Harmony

June 9, 2014 by Improviser

Last week, we looked at Harmonizing: A Method to Encourage the Art of Improvising by Sietze de Vries. It focused primarily on basic chords in the same key as the melody. Today, I’d like to offer an idea on developing a tonal vocabulary more in the style of Jean Langlais.

Building Chords

Common practice harmony uses chords built by thirds. When choosing how to harmonize a melody note, it typically is the root, third or fifth of a chord. Eventually, we could consider the possibility that it is a seventh, ninth, or a non-chord tone, but we’ll keep it simple for now. Keeping only to major and minor triads, this will give us six options of how to harmonize a single melody note:

Using our chorale Lobt Gott den Herrn, ihr Heiden all from last week, our first step will be to harmonize the theme with one of the six chord types all the way through. Here is the first phrase with the melody as the root of a major triad:

Play through the entire chorale using each of the six types of chords one at a time (Root of a major chord, root of a minor chord, third of a major chord, and so forth). Enjoy the cross relations like the C# and C natural in the second measure above. Eventually, you can venture into diminished and augmented triads, or even seventh chords:

Once you can consistently apply one chord type to the melody, it’s time to start looking for different progressions that will provide the most interesting colors. If the melody note stays the same, be sure and change the type of chord (from root of a major chord to third of a major chord for example).

Lobt Gott den Herrn is a very stepwise melody. Be sure and practice with other themes that include mores skips (especially thirds!) in them so that you are very comfortable with the cross relations that develop from keeping the chord type consistent. You can practice this using only one hand at a time (Yes, you should do it with your left hand alone!), both hands playing the same notes, or eventually right hand chord with left hand (or pedal!) playing the root. This last one can become particularly tricky once you start changing chord types. Remember the instruction from Naji Hakim (a student of Langlais): “Never play faster thank you can think.”

Finally, add a little rhythm, a few manual or registration changes, and you are well on your way to creating a piece like the Pasticcio from Langlais’ Organ Book or the Dialogue sur les mixtures from Suite Brève.

Hoping your harmony is colorful!

Glenn Osborne

Recent additions to organimprovisation.com:
I’ve added a new section to the store with recordings of piano improvisations in classical styles. It includes recordings by Gabriela Montero, Ola Gjeilo, and my favorites by John Bayless on Happy Birthday and tunes by The Beatles.

Organists:

Themes:

Newsletter Issue 7 – 2014 06 09
See the complete list of past newsletter issues here.
Sign up to receive future issues using the box to the right on this page.

Twinkle, Twinkle

June 8, 2014 by Improviser

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” is a popular English lullaby. The lyrics are from an early 19th-century English poem, “The Star” by Jane Taylor. The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann. It is sung to the tune of the French melody “Ah! vous dirais-je, Maman”, which was first published in 1761 by François Bouin in La Vielleuse habileand. It was later arranged by Mozart for a famous set of variations. Many other texts for this melody exist in English, German, and even Vietnamese!

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Ah! Vous dirai-je Maman
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Papa veut que je raisonne
Comme une grande personne
Moi je dis que les bonbons
Valent mieux que la raison.