This stage will involve your group playing a recording of the 10 bar ensemble arrangement I compiled from every students playing and recording of their section of it. At the same time, each player in your group will have a turn in improvising a ten bar solo over it. The improvisation solo's will be based on the notes in the C Hungarian Gypsy scale.
Complete the following steps
1 .Everyone in your group will need to make sure that they are still able to play the C Hungarian Gypsy scale. To do this, everyone will need to take out their hard copies of the PDFs that were provided for you on playing the C Hungarian Gypsy scale on your instrument. Using the instructions on the hard copies everyone will need to play the C Hungarian Gypsy scale on their instrument to re-familiarise themselves with the locations of the scales notes on their instrument. Once everyone in your group has done this your group may move onto 2.
2. Download and print the following PDF file. It contain 30 rectangles with 4 evenly spaced dots in each rectangle. The rectangles are numbered and each represent one bar.
I will provide your group with an audio file of the compiled recording of the 10 Bar Gypsy Ensemble Arrangement ( which when played will repeat it three times, each time one after the other. Play this recording. As it is being played listen to it and follow the file in time with the audio file.
* Test one another in your group to confirm that everyone in your group is able to follow the hard copy of the PDF above. Do this by having one group member follow the file individually, at a time and point to the dots in the file to indicate that they are following the beats in time with the sounding music. If after a few attempts, you are failing to complete step 2 of this part, nominate a group member to tell me that this is happening.
3. Everyone in your group will be playing the notes in the C Hungarian Gypsy scale to make up music on the spot. So, in other words each group member will need to play a mixture of the notes C, D, Eb, F#, G, Ab, and Bb on their instrument when their time comes to improvise. For now, everyone is too improvise on their instrument for 10 bars, one at a time. Once everyone has done this move onto step 4.
4. For this step everyone in your group will need to improvise by playing the notes of the C Hungarian Gypsy scale on their instrument over bar 1-10 or 11 to 20 or 21 to 30. Someone will need to play their improvisation solo on bars 1-10, another person will need to play their improvisation solo on bars 11 to 20 and another person will need to play their improvisation solo on bars 21 to 30. Once everyone has decided what bar set of 10 bars they will be playing on, they must colour those bars in with a light coloured highlighter on their hard copies of the PDF. After this no-one is to change what bars they will be playing their improvisation solo's on.
5. Play the audio file of the 10 Bar Gypsy Ensemble Arrangement I complied earlier, listen to it and follow the handout with the 30 rectangles. When you reach the highlighted section begin improvising for ten bars.
6. Repeat step 5 five times.
7. Nominate a group member to tell me that you have reached this point of the course. I will listen to your group repeat step 5 to make sure that that everyone is improvising by playing the notes found in the C Hungarian gypsy Hungarian scale on their instrument. Once I tell you that you are, move back to your computer and begin to work on your video blog.
Preparing for your video blog.
You will need to brainstorm your ideas about the following questions,
1. Was improvising over the 10 Bar Gypsy Ensemble Arrangement difficult of easy to do? If it was difficult to do, why do you think it was difficult? If it was easy to do, why do you think it was easy?
Click on the following link. It will open a page with an online brainstorming application that you will use for brainstorming your ideas.