SHR6E011C~001 HER23085617 Portfolio & Video Documentary

by

Hermiston,Isla (STUDENT)

Introduction

This reflective essay explores my learning journey week by week, analysing how the resources, practical sessions, and improvisational exercises have improved my understanding and development of practice. Throughout this module, the aim has been to develop my improvisation skills not only in the weekly practical lessons but also given resources. These resources enabled me to research technique, exploration of language, and creative decisions. My initial expectations when taking this module were to be put completely out of my comfort zone and improve on my skills even with my lack of previous experience of improvisation. 

The collaborative context of this module was that I was surrounded by other musicians from different pathways and was able to collaborate with them. This included other vocalists, further enabling me to develop my creative ideas in an improvisation as a group. The key aims of this reflection are to look back on my learning process from start to finish, to use the given resources to explore different aspects of my improvisation, and to reflect on how I can incorporate the skills I’ve learnt throughout the module into my vocal practice and performance. This essay will explain how I navigated the process, any challenges that I came across, and the impact on my wider musical practice.

Initial Position & Early Weeks

Starting out in this module, I lacked confidence with improvisation. I had experience with improvisation in terms of formulating riffs and phrases during my practice and the more free-flowing parts of my performances. The improvisation style that we were challenged to involve ourselves in was completely different to anything I had ever done before which made me hesitant but very interested. At the start of the module, I wasn’t very eager to join the group improvisation and had a hard time immersing myself in the atmosphere. This may have been due to my fear of spontaneity; I felt unable to put myself out there and try something different. When I did join in towards the beginning, it was quiet and not very improvised; I felt I was relying on material that I had used in other performances or riffs that I tend to reuse whenever I improvise. Realising all of these challenges were helpful in establishing a starting point. In my video documentary, the first video is after the first couple of practical sessions. I was unsure on how to express myself and find a direction for my improvisation and in this clip it is made apparent that I rely too much on prelearned material. 

The first few practical sessions were very useful for my development as they introduced me to fundamental improvisation concepts in relation to collaboration. One of the key skills needed for group improvisation is listening and responding. This means feeding off of everyone’s ideas so that the improvisation has motifs and feels cohesive. An example of this would be the instrumentalists starting with a sparse texture with a slow tempo, I would respond to this by using breathy tones and minimal melodic ideas. Another technique I was introduced to was call and response. This is important for improvisation because you need to be listening to what the other musicians are doing the entire time in order to flow easily from motif to motif. This technique exercises the non-verbal communication and trust between the musicians, which is an important foundation to a strong improvisation in an ensemble. Though I wasn’t able to fully test these techniques in the first few weeks, it was very important to learn and practise them. 

One resource that we were given that I was interested in early on was playing vertically versus horizontally. Playing vertically in improvisation involves outlining every chord as it is played, highlighting the harmony. Playing horizontally focuses on melodic flow across chord changes; this could be through use of scales and motifs. Improvisation needs both approaches in order to be successful. The distinction between horizontal and vertical approaches to improvisation highlights the balance between melodic continuity and chord-based harmonic awareness, a concept explored in contemporary jazz pedagogy (Levy & Waters, 2025). This helped my understanding of improvisation because I realised that there is no right answer and it is all about listening. 

Development of Improvisational Language & Techniques

In the following weeks, when I was slightly more accustomed to improvising in a group setting, I improved significantly. I managed to explore my vocal technique while developing my improvisation from tentative and imitative responses to deliberate and creative musical ideas that added to the group without it sounding clumsy. One technique that I focused on was rhythmic displacement. I honed this skill in the practical sessions and understood how shifting the time of a motif in an improvisation can make it unpredictable and exciting. For example, I used motifs that the group had established earlier in the improvisation and sang it on an unexpected beat giving an opportunity to transition to a different section or feel. I really explored the different tones of my voice to further develop my vocal techniques. I took a liking to vocal fry and distortion as it is something I use in my performances; however, I used it in a very different way in this module. For example, if the double bass player was using low and scratchy sounds with their bow I would almost recreate that sound by accessing the fry in my voice. Also, I found that I can change my tone to alter the emotion in my improvisation by experimenting with different timbres and textures. The importance of silence and space is also something I found interesting as I realised I need to give musicians space to develop their own motifs. Focusing on all of these aspects of improvisation in these weeks really helped me develop my confidence. I was able to bring my newly practised skills into the practical sessions and found that I was more spontaneous with my improvisation. 

Though I made mistakes, I had come a long way from the early weeks when I didn’t feel encouraged to engage in group improvisation. The other vocalist in the group really helped me understand the importance of space. For example, when she wanted to develop a motif, I would listen to the way she interpreted the direction of the improvisation and maybe add a harmony line. I felt challenged by the group but, unlike the early weeks, didn’t feel intimidated and sometimes felt that I could lead. 

In my video documentary, the second video shows the process of me practicing my improvisation techniques. The second video is a recording of myself transcribing parts of instrumental solos and using my own vocabulary. This was an attempt to broaden my lyrical vocabulary so that I was less inclined to use melodic ideas that I was already familiar with. The resource that sparked my interest in these weeks was interaction between improvisers. In group improvisation, performers constantly respond to one another’s musical choices, creating a dynamic interplay that relies on real-time listening, adaptation, and mutual influence (Wilson & MacDonald, 2016). Researching this enabled me to understand the non-verbal conversations that improvising musicians have, bringing it into my own practice.

Challenges and Critical Reflection

Along this journey I encountered some challenges, not only in the early weeks but also during the process. Towards the end, even though I was confident and able to engage in the improvisation, I found myself struggling to match the harmony of the rhythm section. This came from a place of struggling to embrace the tonal ambiguity. This is something I have definitely improved but in order to develop this skill I will need to keep practicing with a frequently changing key. Throughout the entire process, I struggled with my confidence. Whether that was in the early weeks when I felt unable to engage or the later weeks when I would stay quiet if I was unsure on how to use my voice to add something valuable to the improvisation. This was addressed by encouragement from the group that no vocal addition is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. I will still need to do lots of collaborative improvisation to help my confidence but I have come a long way from the beginning. 

At the beginning, I felt almost a divide between the instrumentalists and the vocalists even though I know this was not the intention of the instrumentalists; I felt as if they were on the same page and I had to wait for an exact moment to participate. This was my overthinking coming into play. This has improved as the practical sessions have gone on but this is primarily a mental struggle that I will have to get past to develop. Practice was something that helped me realise these struggles but also try to work on my faults. Another thing that really helped me was the feedback from my tutor and peers. They could see when I was hesitant and would adjust to make me more comfortable. The comments from my tutor made me a lot more confident as he didn’t see anything I was doing as ‘wrong’, this made me more able to step outside of my comfort zone. 

I had a few moments where I felt my progress plateaued, for example there was one session where we tried something we hadn’t tried before with the tutor conducting us. For some reason, this made me feel like I was in the early weeks again where I had lost some confidence as I couldn’t really grasp the concept. A strategy that didn’t work for me was solo improvising in front of the group. I am much more comfortable doing it alone until I’m more confident. Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy can explain my lack of confidence in solo improvisation, as I seem to limit myself due to overthinking and doubts. (Bandura, 1997). 

Impact on Wider Musical Practice 

Improvisational practice that I have developed over this module has significantly impacted my wider musical practice. I have been a lot more experimental with my vocal techniques. For example, I have tried incorporating vocal fry in my lower register especially when mimicking instruments such as double bass. I have also gained a lot of confidence, not only in improvisation but also in collaboration. This is because I have more experience in creative risk-taking and decisions; all of this has really developed my performances. 

Another thing that this module has helped me develop is my songwriting. I have experimented with incorporating improvisation solos or improvisational language in my original songs. My writing style is blues and so it has been really interesting to play around with different ideas. This module has also significantly impacted my approach to vocal practice as I am more exploratory in ensemble and solo practice, bringing different ideas to my bands and my original songs. I realise that I am also less dependent on the exact melodies I have written and feel that I am able to play around with different ideas without the fear that it might sound wrong. 

Through my engagement in group improvisation, I have developed a range of transferable skills which are applicable to other areas of my vocal performance. I focused on active listening in my practice, as well as changes in texture in the ensemble, making my vocal improvisation more deliberate and sensitive. This gave me better awareness which, in turn, developed my adaptability enabling me to trust my own musical ideas in response to the other musicians rather than relying on pre-planned material. This has heightened my ensemble awareness, especially my judgement in whether to lead, support or leave space in the improvisation.

My musical identity has been influenced by all of these skills, changing my perspective from focusing on my own accuracy to a responsive perspective which includes listening to others and relying on the group to respond to me and carry the improvisation forward. Therefore, improvisation has become a fundamental part of my practice, performance and songwriting and has improved my confidence. 


Conclusion

To conclude, this reflective essay has explained how I’ve developed my improvisational practice throughout this module, highlighting the main learning moments from early experimentation to more confident and deliberate creative choices. Each week I was able to develop my technical skills and ensemble awareness making my responses to other musicians’ improvisation more expressive. My improvisational growth was supported by my practice methods, improvisation sessions, reflection week by week and resources given by my tutor. This means that improvisation is a great development tool for all areas of my vocal performance.

In the future, I will be able to apply the skills I have learnt in this module not only to improvisation but to other aspects of my singing, solo and collaborative. I have been inspired to study further improvisation techniques as I have seen it is a very useful skill for practice, confidence and creative risk-taking. Finally, I’ve found improvisation to be important for my growth as an artist, changing how I perform, listen, and respond. 

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