Activating The Ear : Exploring the development of listening, interplay, and presence in improvised music through spoken games and musical exercises.

Abstract: Listening and presence are essential skills of co-creative group improvisation. The purpose of this project was to construct a series of spoken games and musical exercises with the goal of enhancing the players’ sense of interpersonal awareness in improvised music settings. The playing of these games encouraged the ear and mind to warm-up and tune in to both the musical intentions of the other players in the group, as well as the types of interaction and stimuli that might occur during improvised performance. By encouraging playfulness within the games, while simultaneously maintaining the freedom to diverge from these forms, environments of co-creation could be facilitated. These games and exercises have the flexibility to be used either as a warm-up during rehearsals, a primer for an improvised performance, or more directly as parts of compositions. In this, the project explores: how to create useful and challenging exercises, how adjusting the parameters of the challenge affected both the performers and the musical outcome, and finally, how to utilise these musical outcomes in a concert setting. As well as providing new approaches to musical direction and composition, the project has also led to personal growth in the form of noticeable developments in listening, presence, and interaction through utilising this approach in group improvisations.