APPLY HERE FOR THE WINTER 2024 IMPROVISATION WORKSHOP, January 13,14,15, 2024
IMPROVISATION WORKSHOP: IN-PERSON and ONLINE VERSIONS
Bobby Previte leads an, immersive, genre-free four-day workshop on free improvisation for student, amateur, and professional musicians.
"Bobby Previte is in a category of one in his ability to communicate the mysterious and transformational power of improvised music with passion, wit, and humor. This workshop offers musicians a remarkable opportunity to confront and dismantle the preconceptions and assumptions that can so easily sabotage the process of spontaneous music making. Previte illuminates a world of boundless creative possibility, empowering musicians to reinvent themselves in each and every moment. Previte offers musicians a catalyzing experience, teaching us how to deliver wholehearted and unapologetic music from the heart."
"Bobby strips away your illusions and creates an environment of talented musicians who mutually support each other in building a better version of themselves as players and as creative artists. it is transformational."
"It was the highlight of my summer ...thank you!"
"I loved the feeling of coming into Hudson Hall each day—I felt removed from the rest of the world, and there was a great energy."
"It was such a pleasure to be around musicians from all different ages and levels of experience in and around music."
"The workshop is fun, but tough. It's deep. It's not for slackers. Anyone who wants to learn, and puts in the work, will come away with an existential breakthrough in their playing."
"Bobby is an incredible teacher, passionate and engaging. He brings a wealth of experience and a fantastic set of ancillary materials to the class. It's safe to say I was riveted from the beginning to the end, and it's unlikely musicians would be able to get this information and vision anywhere else. Highly recommended."
“Bobby is a great resource of knowledge about contemporary music. His analysis of pieces of music that illustrated different aspects was very helpful in providing a lens through which to inform our own music. Plus all those cool road stories!”
“The workshop was demanding in the best kind of way. It’s common to listen to a great teacher express their philosophy and then leave the workshop inspired by the potential of applying their ideas in your own life. However, in this workshop, almost every concept was followed with an assignment to explore it ourselves right away. And then the following session began with winsome but direct feedback to help refine the takeaway from the experience.”
“The workshop has succeeded in broadening my horizons as a musician. Thank you for the wisdom and the cool stories, Bobby!”
“Creatives need audiences, and there's no better one than your peers in a mutually supportive environment under the watchful eyes and ears of master musician and teacher Bobby Previte.”
“The combination of non-judgement, and the repudiation of mere virtuosity as a goal was massive for me, I thank you not just for that, but for your generosity of spirit and the breadth of your vision. And your stories rock.”
“Bobby has a wonderful ability to distill complicated ideas into actionable and attainable goals. “
“I would characterize this experience as a deeply empathetic collaboration. The results were fun magic. Also it made me a better driver. Each evening I drove home ready to respond to whatever other drivers threw my way.”
Watch excerpts from the in-person 2019 workshop at the Hudson Opera House in Hudson, NY
Subjects studied focus on creating music through the process of playing improvisations structured around, and limited by, certain criteria—density, form, dynamics, tempo, silence, register, and orchestration. In addition, through playing the group will investigate the nature of judgement, emotion, technique, role, and the genesis of the “idea germ” in the making of music. Group members must have a basic level of proficiency on a conventional or unconventional musical instrument. Ability to read and write music is not required, nor is previous experience in improvisation. Instead, we seek the serious-minded who can commit to a rigorous and intensive four days of playing and study.
At the conclusion of the course, each participant will each write multiple one-minute “scores for improvisation” using the concepts they have studied in the workshop. The group then presents these scores in a final workshop concert. Making their own scores empowers the participants to consider the music in it’s entirety-not just their individual roles in it. They must not only conceive the scores, they also must write them out and then communicate to the group how they want their scores played. This involves skills usually not taught in workshops of this kind. Scores can (and have) ranged from the very complex to the extremely conceptual. This is one of the must satisfying parts of the workshop for the participants.
Score by Juanma Trujillo
Score by Ethan Helm
Score by Fabian Rucker
Score by Bradford Ray Bailey
Score by Leonor Falcon
Other Instructional Formats
MASTERCLASS LECTURE/DEMONSTRATION
The lecture is multi-disciplinary, and for all levels of student and professional musicians, artists, and the interested general public. The event consists of a lecture, a question and answer period, and, if time permits, a demonstration, through recorded music, of many of the concepts discussed in the lecture.
These include: possible goals and directions of a life in music, and of musical education; the different techniques needed to reach those different goals; the folly of goals, practicing regimens, the idea of practice being music and not "something else"; the attainment of one’s own sound and voice in music and the enjoyment of same; the relevance of other disciplines to the musician; the use and misuse of imitation; the seductive power of beauty and it’s dangers; detachment as a state of grace; the un-setting of one’s mind; the stages of hearing-how to hear, how to listen; the importance of context; the power of expectation; the surprising freedom in limitation; risk taking; true free thinking; and meditations on John Cage, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Miles Davis, The Band, William Faulkner, Alfred Hitchcock, Antonio Gaudi, Led Zeppelin, Gregory Bateson, Joe Montana, Constantin Stanislavski, George Balanchine, Johannes Vermeer, Yvonne Rainer, Mies van der Rohe, Brunelleschi’s Dome, and Napoleon.
Bobby Previte has held masterclasses and led workshops at Princeton University, The Eastman School of Music, New York University, The New School, Bard College, Cornish College of the Arts, The School of Jazz at Perth, The University of Buffalo, Istanbul Conservatory, The Walker Art Center, Purchase College, and the Lucerne School of Music, among many others.
MASTERCLASS/RESIDENCY INCORPORATING “BLUEPRINTS”
Residencies of at least one full day can incorporate the work BLUEPRINTS as a teaching vehicle. BLUEPRINTS is a live piece investigating the nexus between notated and improvised music, and has been performed regularly by a rotating ensemble since 2017.BLUEPRINTS uses fragments of Previte’s 40 years of compositions along with the use of “conduction” techniques to create a living, spontaneous, ever-changing and surprising music. NOTE - the optional incorporation of BLUEPRINTS into the residency does require proficiency in reading music.
MILES DAVIS – BITCHES BREW WORKSHOP
In 1999 Previte started what was to become a weekly gig at the old Knitting Factory in New York, leading a band doing the music of an surrounding Miles Davis’s seminal 1970’s masterpiece “Bitches Brew.” Now, armed with the charts that he transcribed from that great record, Previte travels to locations around the world, rehearses musicians and directs them in a concert performance.
The Bitches Brew workshop has been held in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, the Cheltenham Jazz Festival/Birmingham Conservatoire, UK, Seattle, WA, Hudson NY, Buffalo NY, and New York City.
The musicians who experience playing this brilliant, visionary work are transformed overnight; many remark that playing this music is cathartic and life-changing. Previte’s Bitches Brew Project is the perfect vehicle for teaching musicians patience, thoughtfulness, deep listening, and above of all, how to banish fear from their playing.
TERMINALS – PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE WORKSHOP
Bobby Previte brings his five part, 75 minute percussion tour-de-force TERMINALS QUARTETS to university and professional ensembles. Using an large array of instruments, these works are a perfect vehicle for students as they require not only exacting reading and performing skills but also some degree of improvisation, an awareness of feel, and theatrical presence. Mr.Previte is available to coach percussion ensembles in this workshop. TERMINALS QUARTETS has been performed at the 2015 PASIC Conference and at Tanglewood under the direction of George Nickson.
Purchase LP or CD from CANTELOUPE MUSIC. Purchase the score for TERMINALS QUARTETS at BACHOVICH MUSIC
PRIVATE LESSONS
By appointment in Previte’s New York City or upstate studio email: concertmaster@bobbyprevite.com