Last Thursday 11th November we met again with the physiotherapist and stage director Carles Expósito to take another step in this adventure that aims to explore new dimensions in chamber music. As in the previous session, the main focus of our work was on listening; but on this occasion the activities were carried out without instruments.
There would be no music without tempo and without a rhythm to organise it: the notes would feel lost without them. The rhythmic feeling of the group is essential to flow in the same direction, to draw the phrases with cohesion and to achieve an ensemble sonority. That's why on this occasion we have put into practice various exercises featuring rhythm through body percussion and monosyllables.
We began by performing different rhythms on different parts of the body, which we could change at any time for another partner. The exercise consisted in that, if you coincided with someone else, you both had to play the pattern on a dynamic piano. We found that it was quite difficult to maintain concentration and remember the different rhythms, and when we closed our eyes it became clear how important it was to listen to our partners to know what we should do at any given moment.
To add some work on communication, we varied this exercise by adding facial gestures to tell another partner to imitate you. In reality, it is not necessary to make a big gesture to communicate an intention, and we realised that a subtle movement is more than enough. But we did not only do body percussion, but also used monosyllables and associated gestures, which turned out to be a very interesting tool to work on our objectives.
Here is a short video as an example of the work done in the session. What better way to work than with enthusiasm and joy?
