Outside influences on your improv
It’s surely impossible not to draw on your real life in some way when you improvise. Everything you have ever experienced is at your disposal when you play characters on stage. You might not ever know what experience or part of your life your brain might be drawing from, but your entire life is at your brain’s disposal when you take to the stage to make up a show.
It therefore follows that the life you lead will inform the sort of improv you do. The broader your experiences, the broader your references. This made me wonder what hobbies, jobs or life choices had impacted people’s work the most. It also made me wonder what had impacted my improv.
It took me a long time to come to any sort of conclusion but I’m pretty certain the one thing that has helped my improv the most has been singing in a choir. I have been singing since I was eight years old and although this has helped me with musical improv, it has actually helped me with all improv.
Singing and music has given me a sense of structure and timing. Most music has a structure and it often builds up, gathers speed, rests and then builds again. Music has motifs and refrains that get repeated and verses that help flesh things out. Music harnesses emotions and takes you on a journey. The audience reacts and feels.
The performing of music over a period of decades has helped me develop a sense of what an audience might react to, and I know this transfers into my improv. Whether I’m playing a slower-burn duo show or a game-heavy show, I know my musical training kicks in to a degree. It’s hard to explain something that, more than anything, is a sense - a feeling. I can feel a game happening and the rhythm of a scene. I can feel a need to slow things down or speed things up. I’m certain this comes from music.
In “Life Skills Becoming Improv Skills” the Improv Chronicle Podcast talks to people who have had their improv impacted by a wide range of life experience, from puppet making to parenting and from sales to sprinting. What outside activity has influenced your improv?
