Musical Improv 3: Earning Songs

Have you ever found yourself in an improv scene, the music starts, and you have no idea what to sing? It’s time to stop stumbling backwards into songs, and start earning them.

Musical Improv 3 is focused on one of the most important skills in a musical improviser’s tool belt: Earning songs within scenes.

In Musical Improv 1 and 2, we learned skills to help us improvise compelling, structured and musically interesting songs in a wide range of styles and genres. But how do we find those songs within an improv show?

Earning songs is about putting intentionality into our scene work and making choices within the scene that will get us to songs we WANT to sing. Songs should flow naturally from the scenes that generate them and if we have the right mindset and strategies, we’ll earn songs that feel organic and honest—with lyrics that come to us effortlessly.

Throughout this class, we’ll analyze the progression of any musical improv scene, from the very first initiation to the final note of the song. Each week, we’ll learn a new tool or approach for identifying the song within a scene, driving toward it, titling it and delivering on it.

Students will leave this class with several new skills including:

  • How to identify your song organically from within the scene; 

  • How to use the vocabulary of the scene to earn your song;

  • How to identify and sharpen your POV to earn songs; 

  • How to invest the choices you’ve already made to get to song more easily; 

  • How to title your song in a satisfying way;

  • How to deliver on the precise song you’ve earned.

This class culminates with a performance of a montage of improvised scenes and songs, where students show off their new skills by earning songs rooted in emotions, wants and points of view.

Details

Requirements:

Completion of at least two levels of musical improv classes and at least four levels of regular improv classes (or equivalent performance experience). This class will be mostly scene work; please do not register unless you have an understanding of the fundamentals of improv scene work. 

If you haven’t completed Musical Improv 2 at All Out Comedy and are interested in this course, you’ll need to send us an email to be considered—Do not register for this class unless you’ve received approval.

Dates: Tuesdays, 7:00pm-9:30pm, January 6-February 24 (20 Hours)

Location: All Out Comedy Theater, 2550 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA 94610

Registration: $379

Wellness: If you have symptoms of feeling sick the day of class, please stay home and contact your teacher.

All students will receive a student ID card during their session. This gives students access to watch as many shows for free while taking classes.

The Instructor: Jed Levine

Jed is an All Out Comedy instructor and mainstage cast member with over a decade of experience as a musical improviser, coach and teacher. You can find him performing improvised musicals twice a month with the team he co-created and coaches, Knockoff Broadway. He also coaches several independent musical improv teams and the All Out Comedy musical improv house team RiOt: An Improvised Rock Opera.

Jed is a graduate of the Second City Musical Improv Conservatory in Chicago and is an alumni of the critically-acclaimed musical improv company Baby Wants Candy. In the Bay Area, Jed has been a guest player for improvised musicals at BATS Improv and teaches musical improv at Leela in San Francisco where he coaches the musical improv P.I.E. team. Jed is the founder of Bay Area Musical Improv, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to creating opportunities for local musical improvisers, and a co-founder of the Bay Area Musical Improv Festival.

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