Spontaneity and a Task Completed

First, task completed:

Some of you know I've been writing a little cantata based on Chowan's quality enhancement plan. The plan was devised to address findings of SACS, which is the accrediting organization for our school. The cantata (or jingleata, as I'm calling it) is to be performed as part of a presentation explaining our plan. A jingleata, by the way, is a cantata made of jingles or a jingle-qualitied cantata. I made up the term, and perhaps the genre.

The scores are now in the hands of the performers and out mine! It was a fun project. It's always nice to have a composition assignment. But it's also really nice to be able to move on to something else.


Now about spontaneity:

On Sunday, after the sermon, Kathy pointed at her watch and gave me the signal to stretch the offertory meditation. It was only 11:45, and our service is scheduled to go to noon - and we're also on the radio until then. So I stretched.

I started by filling up at least a minute, maybe two, with introduction. Then I played a version of "There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this Place" with lots of hesitations between phrases. I embellished that a bit, got a little blusey or soulful, then added a coda using a favorite effect of mine - sort of a random ring imitation on the piano.

Because of the extra time, I explored improvisational aspects that I wouldn't often use in church. I basically explored a variety of things I could do with the tune until it seemed like it gone on for long enough (musically speaking).

The surprising thing about all this is that I belive I had more positive comments about this offertory than any other thing I've played at the church in Ahoskie. I'm not sure if that's because of the different energy of more extended improvisation, because of what I improvised, or maybe it's because people really like the tune.

My friend, Charles Winstead, commented about the accumulation of layers as I improvised. I usually think of layers happening simultaneously, but in this case, they were happening one after the other, as in a theme and variations. I like that thought, because it explains something of the process of the cumulative impact of a theme and variations, and gives me food for thought as someone who makes up music sometimes!