After mastering a unique form of music in India, a Ball State professor has added his own twist to the practice and now wants to teach students how they can too.
When music professor George Wolfe spent a year in New Delhi, India studying Indian music, he learned the country's unique approach to musical improvisation -- the term given when a musician composes and plays music on the spur of the moment.
From his experiences in India, Wolfe, who is also a professional saxophonist, created his latest book "Motivic Improvisation: A New Approach to Improvising in the Classical Style," along with a Play-Along Masterclass CD. Wolfe has presented master classes of this approach to universities around the world, including the Paris Conservatory, Klagenfurt Conservatory in Austria, Arizona State University and Indiana University.
"The National Association of Schools and Music (joined) all the music departments in the United States and came out with a document that asked schools of music to have more emphasis on improvisation," Wolfe said. "And in most departments the only place you'll get it is from jazz."
With his book, Wolfe wanted to find a way to provide short exercises as a learning tool to introduce his improvisation technique to musicians and composers in an easy, step-by-step approach.
In Wolfe's style, the musicians are given a set number of motives (or fragments of melodies) they can play. The musicians then take these melodies and are expected to elaborate on or develop them in their own improvisation style. For example, Wolfe said the musician can transpose the motive, play a variation on it or play the motive backwards. Such a method is similar in approach to East Indian improvised music, but Wolfe's method can use several motives while Indian music generally designates a single motive to be used.
In Wolfe's method book, a solo piece called "Solar Dreams," compiled by Wolfe and Jody Nagel, associate professor of music theory and composition, is an electronic composition that was composed for motivic improvisation.
In their electronic composition, Nagel sits down with a computer while Wolfe uses his saxophone. They motion to one another like a piano accompanist would with his soloist. Nagel uses a synthesizer, and the computer tells the synthesizer to make the sounds for specified lengths of time.
"The keys don't just type A's and B's anymore," Nagel said.
Wolfe's colleagues agree his new book is a useful tool to learn how to improvise music for any type of instrument.
"It points a way for musicians who may not have any experience working with improvisation," said Tom Walsh, a professor from the Indiana University School of Music. "A lot of people think improvisation is a very mystical, mysterious process.
"For someone with no experience, that can be very scary, so it sets up parameters for a musician to create improvisation. They don't feel like they have to invent something from nothing."
Nagel said he felt the book helped students learn to improvise logically.
"When people learn to improvise with jazz, they do it by getting thrown in the pool and told, 'You're the soloist.' It can be pretty hideous," Nagel said. "George's technique is very structured and leads you to be able to do it (on your own.) It's clearer than a lot of things I've seen."
Walsh said he felt the book encouraged musicians who have only operated with the written page to do something creative.
"The musician who uses this book goes back to other music and sees it differently. They start to think more like a composer," Walsh said. "It's not just training wheels. It helps musicians expand their horizons musically."
In his years of experience as a professional musician, Wolfe has received a reputation from his colleagues as being a very talented saxophonist.
Ball State music performance professor and French horn instructor Fred Ehnes nominated Wolfe for the 1997 Outstanding Creative Endeavor award (which he won) and said Wolfe is one of the greatest saxophonists he has ever heard.
"He has a beautiful sound," Ehnes said. "He's always interested in the effect of his music, rather than the technique. He's always trying to deliver a message when he plays, and I think he's very successful too."
Nagel is equally impressed by Wolfe's sound.
"He hits high notes without harshness; he has a beautiful tone; he's very skillful and he has a very good sense of rhythm -- never mechanical," Nagel said. "He turns the sax into a refined, artistic instrument, like violins or cellos. The sax hasn't found its way into symphonies, but I think (it's because) they haven't found George."
Wolfe has contributed a great deal to Ball State's music department by bringing a sense of cultural open-mindedness.
"George, of all of us in the music school, encompasses the broadest range of issues that go outside the normal range of music by including culture," Ehnes said. "He has done a number of talks on Indian religion. He's been all over the world. He's been a pioneer in improvisation with electronic music, involving the forms of Indian music, which makes for an interesting and unique package."
Wolfe is also the chairman of the Eastern Religions Peace and Conflict Studies Committee.
Nagel said it is nice to have someone around who respects the Western tradition, but also likes the Indian tradition as well. Most importantly, Nagel said, "He keeps producing really good students."
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