Anyone who\u00a0frequents venues where\u00a0musicians improvise has probably noticed this:\u00a0when they improvise,\u00a0 most accomplished musicians keep their eyes closed\u00a0during much of their\u00a0improvision.\u00a0As a\u00a0performer who\u00a0spends at least 50% of my time on stage improvising,\u00a0I have really found over my years of playing that if I keep my eyes open when\u00a0soloing, my solos\u00a0sound vastly different than when\u00a0I keep my\u00a0eyes closed.<\/p>\n
With my eyes open, I am by nature\u00a0a rhythmic player. If anyone is familiar with the\u00a0book the\u00a0Jimmy Dorsey Saxophone Method: A School of Rhythmic Saxophone Playing,\u00a0<\/em>that was edited by Jay Arnold, my\u00a0solos that I play with open eyes, tend to sound like\u00a0I am a disciple of that book.\u00a0(Which by the way, I am not.)\u00a0With eyes closed, my solos take on much more melodic lines. The shape and\u00a0flow, as well as the\u00a0tension building and release stages are completely different.<\/p>\n Other than my sound being the same, an audience member not watching, but only hearing me play with both my eyes open and closed, would think that they were listening to\u00a02 different sax players. I don’t know if this\u00a0extreme is true for\u00a0all musicians who improvise, since I’ve never asked anyone about it, but it is somewhat intriguing.<\/p>\n People that know me, know that in\u00a0November ’06 I\u00a0developed a\u00a0very nasty set of neurological problems. Now 18 months later, while the\u00a0neurologists have a number of answers, most still elude them, including an actual diagnoses.\u00a0However through extensive testing\u00a0with the\u00a0computerized dynamic posturography testing unit\u00a0at Vancouver General Hospital, my doctors have discovered that one of the things that I have is a\u00a0mismatch between\u00a0my vestibular and visual\u00a0systems. This means\u00a0that either my vestibular and visual system are providing sensory information that isn’t\u00a0correlated, or that either the visual or vestibular system isn’t providing\u00a0any sensory\u00a0information at all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n So how\u00a0does this relate to music you’re\u00a0asking yourself? Well,\u00a0the problem for me is that I can’t stand up with my eyes closed. I fall over.\u00a0So you can see where I’m going with this now…As a player whose improvisational style varies vastly depending on whether or not my eyes are open, having to play with my eyes open,\u00a0fundamentally changes\u00a0my playing and\u00a0the way I interact with the music, and by extension the way I feel the music I play.<\/p>\n I think most musicians will tell you that when they’re playing, they enter “a zone” of sorts, where nothing\u00a0extraneous gets in, and where they are totally\u00a0enveloped in the\u00a0feeling of the music that they are playing.\u00a0I believe that\u00a0closing one’s eyes while improvising allows the musician to temporarily separate themselves from their surroundings, and create an original composition (an improvisation)\u00a0through only the feel of the music,\u00a0before stepping back into the\u00a0bigger group of\u00a0the band and stage surroundings again. Without the ability to remove\u00a0oneself from the “noise” of the surroundings, the musician’s ability to play by “feel” is impaired, and a musician is forced\u00a0to fall back on the patterns\u00a0that are the most comfortable, but not necessarily the most\u00a0suitable for the situation. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In Part 2 I’m going provide an overview of what the researchers at John Hopkins found when they used a functional magnetic resonance imaging unit to study what went\u00a0on inside the brains of jazz pianists who were\u00a0improvising.<\/p>\n My intention was to write all the posts in this series and get them up within a few days of each other. I’m not really sure if that’s possible, as I’m struggling quite a bit at the moment through a type of\u00a0mental fog. But in the meantime, I thought I’d get this one up to start with while I work on the rest.<\/p>\n