Pop Improvisations

Moon River

Deep Purple

The longer versions are listed alongside their numbered improvisations.

Pop Improvisations — Immersing in the Song

John Beaulieu ©2011 John Beaulieu

My approach to improvising popular music to repeatedly immerse myself in a song to discover what is there.

I begin with curiosity. Why do so many people love this song? What attracts them to it? What is present beyond a memorable melody, beautiful harmony, familiar lyrics, or its association with a particular time in their lives? Is there a deeper emotional pattern? Is there an elemental or archetypal quality that people recognize without necessarily being able to name?

I become an explorer. I may return repeatedly to the song over weeks or months. Each improvisation becomes another immersion. Sometimes I stay close to the familiar melody and harmony. At other times I move far away. I am listening for what the song may reveal when I remain with it long enough.

The exploration does not end when I leave the piano. I often keep a journal of my dreams, thoughts, images, feelings, memories, and experiences that arise during the period of immersion. These become part of my exploration. A dream may cause me to hear the song differently the following morning. Something that happens in my life may reveal an emotional quality in the music that I had not previously noticed. I return to the piano, enter the song again, and listen.

My Moon River improvisations are a good example. I began playing Moon River for my parents at parties around the time it was first released. Decades later, I became curious about why this apparently simple song continues to have such an extraordinary attraction. So, over a period of approximately six months, I “dove into Moon River.” I played it repeatedly, improvised upon it, moved away from it, returned to it, and paid attention to the dreams, memories, emotions, and associations that arose around the experience.

My question was: Why does Moon River continue to call people back?

From the perspective of the Energy Medicine system I work with, I began to experience Moon River through the archetype of the Water Element. Water flows. Water connects. Water is associated with bonding, attachment, memory, and emotional movement. We can float with its current. However Water imbalance become over-attachment in which we become immersed in past memories or feel as though we are drowning in our own sadness.

Seen in this way, Moon River becomes more than a beautiful popular song. For me, it becomes a Water journey and an invitation to float along and discover where the current takes us. But eventually we have to get out of Moon River. And sometimes getting out of the Water requires a little Fire.

Fortunately, the Sun always comes up.

John Beaulieu’s Three Improvisation Styles

Classical Improvisation — entering the composer’s emotional rhythm and gesture deeply enough that a conversation can emerge.

Pop Improvisation — entering a culturally familiar song and exploring the memories, emotions, associations, and elemental qualities that have accumulated around it.

Emergent Improvisation — deliberately reducing predetermination and entering Tangerine Space, where neither the musical language nor the destination is known beforehand.

What connects all three is listening and entering into relationship with sound.