Connection with BCC-The I2 Blues

I really enjoyed the connection with Bergen Community College the other night, and for many reasons. It was exciting to see them and to hear about their new facility, which I would love to visit! It was also exciting to meet another PhD student and get a feel for the exciting teaching he is doing.

But my favorite part of the evening was the improvisation. I was feeling vocally exhausted and was more than happy to leave the singing to someone else. Also, I was worried that I may have had broken thumb, and so frankly, I wasn't looking forward to the connection. But once we got them up on the screen, it was a lot of fun!

I enjoyed working the camera in the first part of the connection, but once I had a chance to try out the mini-keyboard, that was a lot of fun. It was the perfect size keyboard as I was only able to play with my left hand, and as I'm not really much of a pianist anyway, I felt quite honored to get to play with those present.

I felt that the improvs with BCC were by far the most successful of the semester. I think the main reason for this was the structure offered to us by Ron Mazurek. The nature of the structural directives did two things: 1. it clarified tonal area and style, within which the players were free to play, and 2. it made listening and interacting necessary acts in the improvisation, not only by both sides of the connection, but even within the separate ensembles. This aspect in particular has been missing from past improvs, most noticable of course in the connection a few weeks back where part of the class was in Nonken's studio. This exercise was not only fun and rewarding, but also necessary in order to fully experience the positive and negative implications of the technology.

On the positive end, the idea that we were able to create such a clever and fun "blues" piece from across the Hudson was truly remarkable. It was a lot of fun to participate and to watch the interaction, especially between the singers. They listened carefully to each other's texts and even improvised together, instead of just taking turns. Although I didn't actively participate in the singing, I was venture to say that their experience would be similar to the experience Michael from UCI and I had doing our spoken word improvisation, in which, during the process, the mind completely forgot about the distance and technology as the mind was so focussed on the acts of listening and creating.

Also, the set-up of the room was really great. As Dr. Gilbert said, we really were able to transform the space, and I do think that is only the beginning of the potential to transform the space in that classroom into something interesting and unusual. Once the chairs are out of the way, the room becomes a wide open space, a blank palette, and the more we few it this way, rather than focussing on its limitations, the more successful we will be in its successful (hence, creative) transformation.

The limitations, or course, lay in the problems with the sound, but thankfully technical gurus on each end were able to deal with the problems as they arose. With each set-up, I think we can expect to find new challenges, since each set-up is, in a sense, an experiment. I think the experiment with Bergen was quite successful in many respects, including this one.

It was also exciting to see UCI on the second screen, although unfortunately we didn't have much of a chance to interact with them. In considering this connection, I would say that is the only reason to sing the blues.