On the subject of Carrying a Tune

I sing constantly. My XM gets a workout as I am always looking for a song to sing. Until this weekend, the sound of loud music always covered up my singing, and I thought it was best that people not hear my warbling. Well, I may have to reassess that situation.

Under the incredible direction of Doug (improv teacher extraordinaire) and Amanda (have pink guitar, will travel), the Jet City Musical Improv workshop took place this past weekend, and I was one of the participants.

On the surface, this workshop was just another piece in my giant improv education pie, but little did I know how tasty it was going to be.

On Saturday, the group of 10 students began their foray into the musical improvisational arts by learning how to commit to a chorus. Rules include keep it simple and make it catchy.

Under the suggestion of Werewolves, my chorus was inspired by a meek person in a haunted mansion. "Why must I be so scared in this house, I am as frightened as a little mouse." Okay, it's not Lennon and McCartney, but it was my first effort, and it felt cool. What was even more interesting was that I actually was singing. My voice broke into spoken word singing, but it began with actual hitting the right note singing. I was amazed.

Others were more amazing than I was including some students from the UW who sounded and looked like they were just out of theatre class.

I was happy to be joined by some of my improv troupe and was loving their work as well.

Next up, we had to create entire songs... verse then chorus. Off the suggestion of Checkers, I went into a song about how I loved a soft furry puppy named Checkers, then I proceeded to kill him off in a horrible accident in a parking lot when I had to rhyme with something. The class laughed hysterically and then Doug imagined me taking it to a whole darker level with the dog causing a fatal accident killing the person driving the car and we all went - yikes, but knew it was the right way to go in improv.

Other classmate's songs included subject matters like Hover Monkeys, Corsets, Square Dancing in Gym Class and evil girlfriends (the nastiest song of the day.)

Snow fell on Seattle Saturday night into Sunday morning putting our class into jeopardy (singing the thirty second timing song here - nothing as genius as the woman who had the perfect timing song for cooking top ramen when her timer was broken, but I digress.) However, 9 of us traversed the icy roads and made it to class, and thankfully we did, because day 2 put an exponential spin on the class.

We began with some warmups that included Hot Spot. The premise here is that one person takes center stage in the circle and sings a song to which the others can join in. However, the warmup takes two shapes. One is to see who is willing to take the spotlight or hot spot and put themselves out front. Second is to see the judgement of the others on when they choose to tag in and take the spotlight for themselves.

After a couple of people sang, I tagged in and started into the one song I absolutely knew I knew... Amy Winehouse's Rehab. I went full force into performance mode, and for the first time with this song, I actually heard myself singing it, and it wasn't that bad, bordering on good. Later, I broke into Rapper's Delight in a full force fast pace making eye contact with many in the circle. We were all in a great mood after the circle... and ready for what was to come.

It was time for Duets!!! I got to work with Will Li (no relations to the Letterman band member.) He was one of the UW Collective - the university improv group. He was something right out of a musical, with a great voice and pitch. Our suggestion was bath house... but we took it in a different direction with the power of the bath house to make one awesome. I got the chorus in which "The steam gives us courage... the heat will make us strong." I know it doesn't rhyme, but it sounded good.

Beth and I did a duet as well... but for some reason I can't remember my verse.

Our class danced and learned the diamond which can lead to improvised choreography for a big production number. Pretty cool.

The highlight duet by John and Beth was off the suggestion of Chuck Norris. It was a strange mix of a love song and a story of domestic abuse in the number "Karate on my Body." Hilarious. Really, it was.

And Sarah's Checker is my Plan... about the evil mastermind who replaced people's eyes with Checkers.

Finally, we did scenes and played SING IT where we had to break into song when prompted or when it felt right. My scene with Will and Beth was set on the transporter deck of the Enterprise. I was apparently beaming up people and turning them into mutant squirrels. When I finally brought a human onto the ship, I offered her an acorn, which she said she didn't like. That meant "I did something right!" Of course, that created the song "I did something right, that became "you did something wrong" when the red light came on leading to self destruction. Oh, the joy of failing.

So, now my obsession with singing has taking a whole new level, which happily, now has a direction. Class was incredible, and my interest for the process peaked.

Weather permitting, we will all get on stage on Wednesday and try out our new performing skills. I'll let you know how it goes.

Good night fellow singers!

Yours truly,
Johnny Blogger